The answer should have been no. I needed to return to my best friend and the bridesmaids. Go back to being the dutiful daughter and maid of honor who got everyone else home safely. The one who didn’t leave nightclubs with nameless men or wear green silk dresses without underwear.
“Yes,” I said.
His smile was so wide, I thought my heart would burst, and for once, I wasn’t worried about it. As the stranger led me through the crowd, I caught a glimpse of Megan and the others on the dance floor. Her eyes popped open before she and the rest of the girls all gave me cheers and enthusiastic thumbs up.
Outside, the desert night air was still warm, but a breeze cooled my skin. A black Range Rover was idling at the curb, and to my surprise, the stranger opened the door for me.
“Your chariot, my lady.”
And that was the last thing I remembered before I woke up with a ring on my finger.
3
ELVIS, DIONYSUS, AND ME
LANEY
PRESENT
“Oh God. Oh,God.”
It was all I’d been able to say for the last five minutes since waking up naked in a strange Las Vegas hotel room with a gold ring and a vague memory of the best kiss of my life.
Everything hurt. My throat was parched. My feet were sore. My inner thighs ached—wait,whydid my inner thighs ache? I felt like I’d done Pilates for three hours straight. And my head felt like someone was taking a sledgehammer to it in time with my heartbeat.
I closed my eyes and opened them again, hoping against hope that the suite with its gilt trim and impossibly soft sheets would disappear, and I’d find myself back in that crappy hotel room nursing my hangover with the presidential trio and Megan.
Yeah, that hadn’t worked the other four times I’d tried it either.
“Delaney Fisher,” I mumbled. “Get out of bed and figure out your shit.”
I could just imagine Mama standing at the end of the bed, tapping the toe of her favorite Oxfords while she looked at her watch.Out of bed, lazy bones. It’s a brand new day.
When I looked again, the ring was still there. So, I forced myself to sit up, clutching the sheet to my chest, and made myself take a closer look at my surroundings.
The suite (I assumed that’s what it was, since most hotel rooms didn’t have double doors) was even larger than I’d realized in my sleepy haze. Bigger than my tiny apartment. Gilded millwork wrapped around the entire ten-foot ceiling, which was crowned by a massive chandelier gleaming over the bed that I was currently swimming in. Another door opened into a bathroom that looked like it could house my car.
Still no sign of my dress, though I did locate Megan’s other sandal wedged behind a standing lamp. A few—well, now that I was counting, there were at leastfive—ripped condom wrappers littered the nightstand on the other side of the bed. Magnums, according to the gold writing.
That was when a few memories returned in jagged fragments.
The crowded nightclub. Megan’s emerald dress. Too many shots of tequila.
The bass that made me dance like a snake charmer while an unknown stranger watched from the crowd. The way my heart had jumped in my chest, like it had been dancing with me. The nameless, gorgeous man touching me under the bar.
And that kiss. Holy moly, the kiss to end all kisses.
More details spilled through my vision. The deep voice purring into my ear, a mess of curls under my fingers, hands that spanned my entire waist. The crooked half-smile that couldpolitely be called rakish, followed by the honest-to-God grin when he called me his Ariadne for the second time.
And his name was…
The sheets dropped from my hands. Had I slept with someone, and I didn’t even know his name?
I glared at the ring.
Had Imarriedhim?
No. No, I wouldn’t do something as idiotic as that.