Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)(3)

CHAPTER TWO


Annalise hadn’t been in Las Vegas since she was a foreign exchange student during her junior year of high school, living with a host family and perfecting her English on American soil.

Odd, in some ways, that her job hadn’t taken her back to this town even once in all the years—but perhaps that wasn’t so strange, considering business was plentiful in Europe. For now, for a few days at least, business was here, and so was the man she’d fallen madly in love with as that teenage foreign exchange student.

He was more handsome than ever.

Imagine that.

The prettiest boy in America was now the hottest man she’d laid eyes on in a long, long time. But lusty admiration wasn’t all she felt as she drank in the sight of Michael Sloan. A myriad of emotions she wasn’t prepared for swam through her, and it was as if she’d become a host for a chemical concoction of regret, loneliness, and wistfulness, topped with excitement.

She zeroed in on that one, shoving all the others aside.

She stood? set down the cup, and dusted a barely-there kiss on his right cheek. His five-o’clock shadow stubble—even though it was only one o’clock on a Sunday—scratched her in a whiskery, sandpaper way. She pressed a kiss to his left cheek. The slightest whoosh of air escaped his lips.

Lips she’d known well. Lips she had spent years wanting to touch again.

“Cheek kisses. You haven’t forgotten how the French do it.” She sounded breathless, even to her own ears.

“How could I forget?” He said it lightly, as if he were talking only about the kisses, but there was so much more she hadn’t forgotten. Was it that way for him, too?

“You look…” She let her voice trail off as a lump rose in her throat, and that storm of emotions stirred up again, churning inside her. It wasn’t his looks that had knocked the wind out of her. Though seriously, there was nothing whatsoever to complain about in that regard, as she surveyed him in his black pants and crisp gray shirt, taking in his trim waist, strong shoulders, and tall frame. Nor was it his dark black hair, his cool blue eyes, or the cut of his jaw, dusted with that faint stubble.

The tumult was courtesy of the past, hurtling itself headfirst into her present. Yes, it was her choice to be here. Still, she hadn’t expected to be walloped by the mere sight of him. She swallowed harshly, trying to dislodge that hitch, wanting to feel some semblance of cool and calm. Her shoulders rose and fell, and she tried desperately to breathe in such a way that didn’t require her to relearn how to take in oxygen. She dug her four-inch black stilettos into the plush carpet, seeking purchase as she attempted to reconnect with her ability to form words.

“You look good,” she said, the understatement of the year. Wait. Make that a lifetime.

“And you look…lovely.”

Lovely.

That was so him.

He’d never been one for hot, smoking, gorgeous, babe, or any of those sayings of the moment. There was something in him that spiraled deeper, and leaned on words that had more heft. Like lovely.

What to say next? She should have scripted this rendezvous. Wrote out talking points. But she didn’t know which direction in the conversational path to turn, so she went for the obvious.

“We finally made it to the Bellagio,” she said, gesturing to the crowds clicking by outside the bar. God, this was hard. How do you just have a drink with someone you once thought you’d marry? Someone who was your everything? She’d been his rock; he’d been her hope.

“Yeah. We finally did,” he echoed.

It had only taken eighteen years, an ocean, countless letters, two broken hearts, and a lengthy online search for him, which had taken time and research, since he’d changed his name and was absent from social media. The Bellagio was the symbol of all their promises. Young, foolish, and wildly in love, they’d been together when this hotel was under construction nearly two decades ago. They’d said they would check it out when it opened, even though they’d both known at the time it was an empty promise.

The hotel was slated to be finished months after she left town. By the time the doors finally opened, Michael’s life had shattered, and she’d been thousands of miles away.

But the promise had been made anyway. It was a promise to reunite. One of many promises they’d made.

Some kept.

Some impossible to keep.

“Join me. S’il vous plait.” She patted the back of the sofa as she sat down again.

“Merci.” He took a seat next to her, and at last she felt like she could breathe. Her warring emotions settled, and now she was simply out with this man. Someone she’d been thinking about more and more lately.

“So,” she said.

“So…” He rubbed his palms against his thighs.

“How are you?” she asked, stepping into the shallow end. “Are you well?”

“Good, good,” he answered quickly. “And you?”

“Great. Everything is great,” she said, as chipper as she could be, even though she’d hardly use great to describe the tundra that her heart had become during the last two years. “I’m glad you made it,” she said to keep going, lest any silence turn this reunion more awkward.

“And I’m glad you asked me to meet you,” he said, as if he were waiting for her to tell him why she’d wanted to meet. She didn’t, though, because when he looked at her like that, the breath fled her lungs. He was so handsome, and his eyes were soulful, something she’d rarely use to describe blue eyes. His seemed to reveal a depth, forged by years of heartache and tragedy.