marry me!”
His eyes drilled down into hers.
“Only if I win.”
She swung away. From her purse she extracted a roll of coins. Tearing the wrapper with the casino logo from the coins, she fed them into the first slot machine she came to and hit the play button.
The patterns spun crazily.
When they came to rest, nothing lined up.
Not even a pair of cherries.
The same thing happened on the next play.
Laurel’s heart felt hollow. It was ridiculous to feel so flat, like a loser, simply because she couldn’t even hit the cherries.
Get a life….
She hadn’t felt this flatness earlier. She and Rakin had connected; they’d enjoyed each other’s company. The day had been filled with joy. Her intuition told her they’d make a great temporary team—The Kincaid Group would benefit and so would Gifts of Gold.
It wouldn’t be crazy to marry him—she liked him.
And the man didn’t even gamble.
She stared at the rows lined with pictures and numbers. What was she doing? Rakin was right: she didn’t need some arbitrary sign. This was a solid business decision. It made perfect, logical sense to accept his proposal.
She didn’t need to prove that she could win.
Laurel knew she was going to say yes.
She hit the play button for the last time, and turned to give him the answer he was waiting for.
The cacophony of bells and electronic chimes rising in a hysterical crescendo caused her to whip around to stare at the slot machine.
In disbelief she read the flashing letters instructing her to call an attendant.
“The lights are flashing,” she said, as numbness invaded her. “I’ve won.”
Rakin was laughing.
“I’ve won,” she said again.
But Rakin wasn’t looking at the crazy, psychedelic fireworks above the slot machine. He was coming toward her his arms outstretched. “Looks like you’ve broken the Winthrop curse. You’ve hit the jackpot.”
Her eyes lifted to the amount in white lights at the top: $22,222. It wasn’t a fortune, but it more than covered her earlier losses. And it was definitely a jackpot. “Two must be my lucky number.”
Then she was being swept off her feet into Rakin’s arms. He spun her around as colors flashed crazily around her. By the time he set her down, the numbness was starting to recede as feeling returned … and with it, euphoria.
She grinned up at him. “I feel …” How best to describe it? “… lucky.”
“We’ll be lucky together.” Rakin’s gaze blazed into hers. “We will be married tomorrow.”
Five
Today was her wedding day.
Laurel freed herself from the sheet that had twisted around her limbs while she slept. In one lithe movement, she swung her legs out of the bed and sat up. Hooking a finger under the narrow strap of her cream silk nightie that had slithered off her shoulder, she righted it.
On the bedside table the rose that Rakin had organized to be delivered with the check for her winnings rested in a glass of water.
Laurel’s gaze fell onto the crumpled letter with the card tucked beneath that she’d placed on the nightstand beside the rose last night. The two documents that were dominating her life: her father’s letter—and her Get a Life List.
She reached for the List first.
No. 1 Jilt Eli.
Laurel shut her eyes. No need to feel guilty, Eli was much happier married to Kara.
No. 2 Wear red lipstick. Check.
No. 3 Flirt with a stranger. Check. She’d done that with vengeance … and look where it had gotten her. Now she was marrying him. Even though she hadn’t even kissed him yet….
Laurel was smiling when she read the next item.
No. 4 Eat ice cream in bed. An absolute taboo in the Kincaid household. And last night when Rakin had ordered ice cream for dessert, she’d immediately thought of her list … and the visions that had flashed through her head had been dangerously X-rated. All too easy to imagine herself doing plenty of things she shouldn’t even be considering with the dark stranger to whom she was growing curiously addicted.
Well, she certainly wouldn’t be eating ice cream in bed with Rakin any time soon….
No. 5 Gamble all night.
Laurel read the entry again. Last night she’d proved—forever—that she had no need to gamble all night. It gave her a curious sense of peace. She was a winner in her own right.
No. 6 Travel to far-flung places.
Check. She would be going with Rakin to Diyafa. There would be more journeys beyond that. The passport she carried with her was about to be put to plenty of use.
Her face broke into a smile as she glanced down the remaining items.
She was well on track … even though the tasks grew tougher toward the end.
Laurel placed the list back on the nightstand. By contrast, the much-folded paper that her father’s letter was written on had the texture of tissue paper between her fingertips. Laurel unfolded it, her eyes immediately drawn to the salutation and the first line.
My dearest Laurel,
If you are reading this, I am no longer with you.
Even though she knew the contents by heart, the words still had the power to clog her throat with emotion.
Her father had been gone for nearly five months, yet it was still hard to accept that she would never see him again. She read the letter through to the end, then set it down with a profound wish that they’d never discovered that her father possessed feet of clay. Discovering her father’s secret life with Angela while he was still married to her mother had turned her belief in their happy marriage on its head. Had everything she believed about her parent’s love simply been a lie?
Rakin might not be offering her love … but at least he was offering her honesty.
The benefits would be very real.
What he was offering would tick off the boxes of the shopping list of wants she’d scrawled before jilting Eli.
By marrying Rakin, she’d be actively fulfilling more of her dreams. At the same time, she’d also be able to source leads for new business to refer to her brother, Matt. That way she’d also be working actively on No. 9 on the List: Help save TKG. Rakin would be getting something he wanted—needed—out of the deal, too.
She had nothing to lose.
At the marriage license bureau it took only minutes of standing in the queue before Laurel found herself signing the application in the space beside the bold slash of Rakin’s signature. She stared at the word printed in bold type below her signature: BRIDE.
Bride? For one wild second panic surged through her. A month ago she’d been engaged to her best friend. Someone she knew. Someone she was fond of. Someone she understood. She’d certainly never had any intention of marrying a man she’d only just met—and a sheikh at that.
Then her nerves steadied.
She liked Rakin. She trusted him. He needed a bride; the Kincaid Group needed more business. And he was going to help her become the woman she’d always wanted—secretly—to be.
Her