Chapter One
If Alyssa Miller closed her eyes, she could almost imagine herself fulfilling her dream of dining alfresco at an upscale café in Paris. Cobblestone streets, soft music mixing with soft conversations, and the magnificence of the Eiffel Tower lit up like a giant Christmas tree against the night sky.
A handsome stranger, who looked suspiciously like her best friend Dillon Alexander, would approach her as she sat alone. She’d lower her book and raise her eyes. His mouth would promise her wickedly sexy adventures with only a lopsided quirk of his lips. Holding out his hand, he’d say, “Bonsoir, mademoibuzzzzzzzzzzzzz…”
The egg timer jolted Alyssa from one of her frequent daydreams of France and plunked her squarely back in Longmont, Colorado. More specifically, the kitchen of her tidy town house where she was busy making an incredible dinner of coq au vin for her and Dillon, a.k.a. the guy she fantasized about more often than an OCD germaphobe washes their hands in a day.
She’d met Dillon when she was six years old and he was eight. He was the only kid in class who’d talked to her after she was pulled out of first grade halfway through the year and placed with the third graders. They’d been a pair ever since, but it wasn’t until after she’d returned from college a couple years ago and rented out the other half of his town house that she started longing to be more than just best friends.
Lord knew she’d dropped enough hints to leave him permanently concussed, but if he’d ever noticed, he never let on. Instead, she’d had to watch him rotate through an arsenal of women to rival the Playboy mansion. His half of the town house would do better with a revolving door. Then she wouldn’t have to hear the obnoxious bang of the current door every time one of his “dates” left in the middle of the night. Thankfully, he considered his bedroom a private sanctuary and never invited them any farther than the living room. Their bedrooms shared a wall and the last thing she wanted was to hear his nocturnal activities on top of knowing about them.
Her glasses sat on her nose slightly askew from her abrupt return to reality. She readjusted them with a nudge of her finger, then retrieved the Dutch oven from her American oven. As soon as she lifted the lid, the aromatic steam made her mouth water. The chicken pieces glistened a golden brown, complemented by the ring of bright carrots and translucent onions. Success.
With a smile of satisfaction, Alyssa took a sip of her Beaujolais Cru, letting the fruity notes of the wine swirl around her tongue before swallowing.
She loved cooking. The process relaxed her and gave her brain a much-needed break after a long day of pouring over statistics and market research. And if she cooked for herself, there wasn’t any reason not to make enough for Dillon, since he lived in the town house next to hers and didn’t have her joy for cooking. She’d seen what he ate when left to his own devices, and it wasn’t pretty. Sometimes they ate together, and other times she simply walked next door and left his dinner on the counter for when he got home.
Normally, she didn’t cook anything quite so fancy, but tonight was the eve of her long-awaited weekend trip and she was in the mood to celebrate. Besides, they said the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. She figured if kickass food had that much influence over the heart, then she should have no problems targeting his sense of adventure.
Tomorrow she would finally arrive at the Masquerade Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas for the eighteenth annual Romance Lovers Convention. Three whole days of planned spontaneity and throwing caution to the wind in a moderately controlled environment. And with any luck, she’d convince Dillon to come along and then they could extend the trip through next week. The longer she had with him there, the better her chances of getting out of the damn friend zone and returning to Colorado as his girlfriend.
Or maybe even…wife? She gnawed on her lower lip and started slicing mushrooms as that crazy thought took root in the back of her brain.
Was it all that crazy? When she truly thought about it, they were practically married already, sex being the only thing missing, much to her dismay. And it was Vegas, Land of the Spontaneous Weddings, so it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility…was it? Alyssa pressed a hand to her belly, which suddenly felt like an industrial leaf blower was stirring things into a frenzied cyclone and making one hell of a mess in there.
Stop overthinking, Alyssa. All you have to do is stick to the plan.
The plan was simple: ply him with an amazing dinner and his favorite dessert, then play upon his sympathy, convincing him she was too nervous to go to Vegas unless he went with her. And if that didn’t work, she wasn’t above manipulating him with a healthy dose of passive-aggressive guilt. No sweat.