She pulled away first, and I knew it was with the sweetest affection that she said, “Now get the hell home and pack.”

***

The soonest available flight I found to Las Vegas was a red-eye that didn’t leave until midnight. The wait didn’t bother me much. It gave me time to do what I needed and let my emotions settle a bit. I booked the ticket and packed a bag then called Norma with the details of my plans.

“Good. Do you want to tell Reynold or should I call him?”

Since I wanted to pretend that I had no reason to need a bodyguard, I asked her to call him. “What about you, Sis? I don’t want you alone here.”

“I’m going to go straight to the boy’s after work.” She’d taken to calling him “the boy” on our phone calls, in case anyone ever overheard her. “So I won’t see you. Have a good trip. Enjoy yourself and call me when you get there, okay?”

“Got it. Love you. Be safe.”

We hung up and I called Matt. He didn’t answer, and I had to leave him a voicemail telling him I’d be out for at least the next week. I felt a little like an asshole, running away and all. But all I had to do was think of my father with his cocky grin and his upraised hand, and I didn’t care anymore if I was running away. It was survival. This was what I needed to do in order to not break down.

As much as I had on my mind, I still was able to get a few hours of a nap in. When I woke up, it was time to go.

By the time I landed in Vegas, I’d managed to put the reason I was running away from New York completely out of my mind. Now that the trip was all about meeting up with JC, I started to get excited. Really excited.

And anxious.

He wouldn’t mind if I surprised him like this, would he? It was certainly the most spontaneous thing I’d ever done. It made me feel a little crazy. Crazier was that, at some point on the flight, I’d actually begun contemplating his proposal. Why shouldn’t we get married? What could be the worst thing that happened?

I still wasn’t convinced, but I’d open the door for it to be an option. Like Norma said, I’d get there and then I’d see what happened. It was enough of a possibility, though, that my stomach remained in a constant flutter long after the descent into McCarren.

I was so abuzz with nervousness and anticipation, in fact, that I didn’t realize the major flaw in my plan until I walked through the doors of the Trump Hotel and stood in the lobby—I didn’t know what room he was in. And I couldn’t ask the front desk since I still didn’t know his actual fucking name.

Fighting the distinct urge to crumple to the floor and have an epic cry, I forced myself to think of solutions before giving up entirely. There were only two elevators. I could sit by them and wait until he came down. Which could take days. I let out a heavy breath of frustrated air.

Then I remembered the name he’d booked his flight under.

It was worth a try.

With as much confidence as I could muster, I approached the desk. “Hi, would you happen to have an Alex Mader staying in the hotel?” I wasn’t sure the hotel would legally be able to disclose room numbers for registered guests. If that was even the name he’d booked under.

I got hopeful when the desk clerk responded by typing some things into his computer. After a minute of studying his screen, he asked, “Are you Gwen?”

My heart pounded so loudly, I was sure he could hear it. “Yes, I am.”

“If you can just show me your ID, Mrs. Mader, I can get you a key to your room.”

Mrs. Mader. JC had said he booked the room already before he left New York. He’d been hopeful. I tried not to let that mess with my head too much as I pulled out my card and handed it to the desk clerk. “It, uh, still shows my maiden name. Does that work?” I fought the shiver that threatened to run down my back. It was too easy to enjoy this. Too easy to believe that I was actually on my way to becoming Mrs. Mader.

Or Mrs. Whatever-JC’s-Real-Last-Name-Was.

“This should be fine.” The clerk scanned the ID then gave me a keycard. “Room four-seventeen.”

That was it. I had the key. I had the room number. I was doing this.

The only other time I’d been in Vegas was for a birthday weekend with Norma when she’d turned thirty. We’d stayed at the Venetian, a huge sprawling hotel that could practically call itself a city. The Trump Hotel was nothing like that. It was small and classy. There wasn’t even any gambling, which was probably exactly why it was small and classy. While most of Sin City had turned me off on my other visit, I liked this.

What I didn’t like was how fast I made it to the fourth floor. I’d barely had time to gather myself, and here I was about to see JC. A string of I should have’s made their presence in my mind and stalled me for a few minutes after the elevator doors shut behind me. I should have waited to get here until a decent hour of the day. I should have stopped in the lobby restroom to make sure my hair looked okay. I should have worn sexy lingerie underneath these sweats. I should definitely not have worn sweats at all.

What the hell had I been thinking?

But sweats or not, messy hair or not, I was eager to see JC. It felt like a week had passed since we’d parted instead of eighteen hours, and I all of a sudden couldn’t stand for it to be a minute longer.

With renewed excitement, I followed the signs to room four-seventeen.

I hesitated again at the door. Sure, I had a key, but I didn’t want to just walk in unexpected. It would give me a heart attack if someone did that to me. I decided to knock.

It was only seconds before I heard movement and the lock being turned. He hadn’t been sleeping then. Had he been missing me? Did he think it would be me waiting on the other side of the door?

When it opened, though, it wasn’t JC standing there. I was met by an older woman—well, older than me, anyway. Forties, if I had to guess. She had strawberry blonde hair and too much makeup and wore nothing but a T-shirt and panties.

I started to panic and then realized I must not have heard right when the clerk gave me the room number. “I’m so sorry for disturbing you,” I said. “I have the wrong room.”

The woman smiled like it was no big deal. “Who are you looking for?”

“JC.” Maybe I should have said Alex Mader. I was so confused.

“Oh no, sweetie. You got the right place. He’s here.”

“He is?” I was even more confused now. And panicked. It was rude and out of place seeing how it was her room and all, but she was wearing no pants and was supposedly in a hotel room with the man who’d just asked me to marry him not twenty-four hours before—I had to know. “Can I ask, who are you?”