Roll the Dice: Part Two. A Second Chance Romance Novella. (Between the Rescued Series Book 2) Read online

  Roll the Dice

  A Novella—Part Two

  Lyndsay Marie

  Copyright © 2021 Lyndsay Marie

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious (they're fake). Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. In other words, I made all this shit up.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: Sarah Kill Creative Studios

  Edited by: Sandra Dee @ OneLoveEditing (www.oneloveediting.com)

  Printed in the United States of America

  For all of my readers, thank you.

  Also by Lyndsay Marie

  With Every Beat, book one of the Rescued Duet

  What Happens in Vegas, a novella, part one

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  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE CHLOE

  CHAPTER ONE DANIEL

  CHAPTER TWO CHLOE

  CHAPTER THREE CHLOE

  CHAPTER FOUR DANIEL

  CHAPTER FIVE DANIEL

  CHAPTER SIX DANIEL

  CHAPTER SEVEN CHLOE

  CHAPTER EIGHT DANIEL

  CHAPTER NINE CHLOE

  CHAPTER TEN DANIEL

  EPILOGUE CHLOE ONE YEAR LATER

  PROLOGUE

  CHLOE

  What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…right?

  Right?

  Wrong.

  Oh so very wrong. Especially when I was only supposed to be there for a few days for a girls’ trip. That was it. Just me and my two besties having a few drinks, checking out the hotties, enjoying a couple of days away from home. Not doing shit that would potentially haunt me for the rest of my life…like marrying a total stranger. Because that was what happened when I’d allowed myself to get way too distracted by mystery man’s ridiculously handsome looks and swoon-worthy personality, not to mention we were both so drunk off our asses that neither one of us thought to swap contact information when all was said and done.

  I’m talking nothing.

  No last name, no idea where he’d lived beyond the state of Illinois, not even a single digit from a phone number. All I was left with was as much of his first name as he was willing to give me—because I didn’t want to assume that Dan was even his first or real name—the image of the way his ass looked in custom-fitted dress pants, and his reassurance that we’d take care of it all on Monday. Oh, and his high-dollar sport coat.

  Face. Meet. Palm.

  Because that was the kind of shit that followed me home and did not stay in Vegas.

  It’d been well over a year since our trip. Sometimes I’d thought about going back to that little pink church with the blood-red carpet and tacky artificial plastic flowers of every color, just to look through the guest registry and confirm for myself that it had in fact happened and it wasn't all just a dream…or for some, a horror show.

  “You’re awfully quiet over there. You okay?” Katie asked, breaking me out of my trance down memory lane.

  I took a sip of my drink. “I’m good. Great. Just fine.”

  She eyed me suspiciously. “Really? Because you don’t sound fine.”

  “Well, I am. I think I’m just ready to get off this god-forsaken plane and see Rowan. I really miss her. That’s all. We haven’t seen her in person since she moved away.” Okay, so I wasn’t fine, because I truly did miss my BFF. But everything else felt off-kilter, and I couldn’t put my finger on why all of a sudden out of nowhere my shotgun marriage had decided to come to the forefront of my brain now. I’d like to think it was all this wedding stuff stirring up memories I didn’t want to relive.

  “Something is up with you. Not only have you not been your overly talkative, goofy self, but you’ve been working on that same drink for the entire flight.” She pointed to my cup, then folded her arms across her chest as she relaxed back into her seat. “It’s usually you who’s the one encouraging the bad behavior.” After a few seconds of silence, she shot upright and smacked my arm causing me to almost drop my damn cup. “Ohmigod. You’re pregnant? Aren't you?”

  I felt my face twist into a confounded look. “What the fuck, Kat?” I practically yelled. The lady across the aisle glared over at us. I lowered my volume to a frustrated whisper. “No! Jesus. I am not pregnant. Jesus. That would require sex…with a man or some magical, sperm-producing battery-operated boyfriend. Not just me, myself, and I.” Lord knew there hadn’t been a lot of that going on as of late since I’d called things off with Tanner a while back. “Why would you even—never mind. I told you, I’m fine.”

  “If you say so. But I’ll find out. I always do.” She leaned back again, closing her eyes, seemingly content with my answer for now. “I’ll have to agree with you on one thing, though—I miss Rowan too. I still can’t believe she’s getting married.”

  “Hell, I can’t believe she and Wes have waited this long to do it. I had my money on them eloping less than six months after they met.”

  “Not me. Rowan’s too level-headed for that. Not to mention everything she went through with David. Even a good dick wouldn't cloud her judgment into doing some dumb shit like get married on a whim.”

  I rolled my eyes and looked back out the window as the clouds quickly floated by. “Eh. I think when you know, you know. You know? You can’t put a timeline on love. If she’d have married him after six hours or six years of knowing him, I’d have supported her either way.”

  “I would too. I'm just saying, I think she did right by waiting at least this long. And six hours? That seems a touch extreme.”

  Ha! Little did she know that I’d done just that—because even after all this time I’d yet to confess to any of my close and best friends about my own shotgun wedding. Literally. I’d married a man after only knowing him for less than twelve hours. More than six, but way less than what most would have considered socially acceptable. "It was an exaggeration, Kat. Chill."

  The stewardess approached with a trash bag, and I tossed my mostly full cup of warm, watered-down screwdriver into it. What a waste. I didn’t recall a time I'd ever thrown out that much of a mixed drink.

  Plus, I’d had enough on my mind to even worry about dumping out a free drink with cheap booze. All catching a buzz did to me anymore was have me thinking about him—Dan—and our brief time together, which seemed like a lifetime ago. I couldn’t help but wonder if I crossed his mind as much as he did mine, if ever.

  Thankfully, Kat didn’t give me any more shit for the rest of the flight. The plane finally landed, and we filed off the plane, making our way to the baggage claim. Kat grabbed my arm as we walked. "What the—? I just got a text from Rowan. Looks like she's sending someone else to pick us up."

  "You serious? Why? I was really looking forward to seeing her first.” I stuck out my bottom lip and pouted. “Who's picking us up, then?"

  "I don't know why or who. All her text says is: Sorry, can't make it. Sending back up. Y’all will know when you see. Love you, see y’all soon."

  "We'll know? Well, what kinda shit is that?"

  "No clue. Guess we'll find out soon enough."

  We grabbed our luggage off the carousel and headed outside to the curbside pickup zone. I sat down on top of one of my two
over-sized suitcases and sent Rowan a text of my own.

  Kat scanned the sea of cars and SUVs parked along the curb. “This is ridiculous. How are we supposed to know when we see. See what?"

  "Yeah, I got nothing. I just sent her a text asking her what the hell she was up to, and her response was a bunch of laughing-crying smiley faces. Glad she thinks this shit is funny." I glanced around but didn't see anything obvious or out of the ordinary either. So I put my attention back on my phone.

  A few minutes later, Kat busted out laughing and smacked my arm. "Oh. My. God. Chlo. You are not going to believe this."

  I looked up from my phone, my gaze following the direction she was pointing, and almost tipped over.

  Standing a short distance down from us, seemingly lost in a group of tourists waiting in the bus loading zone, was a man with his back to us, apprehensively holding up a neon green poster board with bold, black letters that read “Waiting for My Two Favorite Hookers.”

  “No she didn’t.” Oh, Rowan, payback is gonna be a bitch. The wheels turned as I thought of how I was going to reword my entire bridesmaid toast.

  “Looks like she did.” Kat rounded up her luggage and started to make her way over to the man with the sign. “Hey!” she called out to him.

  It was all fun and games until he turned around.

  Because that wasn’t just any man.

  It was him.

  Dan.

  From Vegas.

  The man whose face was the last thing I’d seen before I closed my eyes at night, the first thing I pictured when I woke up each morning and practically every waking moment in between. Also, whose scent had been permanently etched into the deepest part of my memory. Never mind the fact I could still smell his scent on the sport coat hanging in my closet. The same man who the last time I saw him, we’d just gotten married ourselves.

  Now here he was, standing less than fifty feet from me.

  Kat waved at him as he turned, grabbing his attention. She glanced back at me over her shoulder as she approached him. "Come on, Chloe. This is obviously our ride."

  I held my breath as I stood up.

  Shit.

  Dan’s face turned a bright shade of red. I didn't know if it was from embarrassment from holding up that ridiculous sign, or from mortification as recognition hit him like a ton of bricks as soon as we locked eyes. My guess was both. Because I felt every single emotion that was clearly etched all over his face.

  Seeing him again after all this time, every feeling I'd felt for him but adamantly denied since we’d met, came back with a raging vengeance. Except now they were mixed with a whole lot of awkwardness and what-the-fucks because how in the hell did we get here?

  CHAPTER ONE

  DANIEL

  Awkward: an adjective used to describe a lack of having grace or causing embarrassment or something along those lines, according to the dictionary.

  Unfortunate as it was, I could relate to that word on every level at various points in my life, and on more than one occasion. Looking back, two very specific moments stood out more than others.

  The first incident was that time in junior high when I’d gotten caught red-handed by my girlfriend’s dad, making out and getting handsy with his little princess on his front porch after a homecoming dance. The second being that screwed-up time during residency when I was assisting in a major surgery and thought I had to fart but shit my pants instead. That was all it took for me to become the laughingstock of the OR for a long time. But I did quit talking trash about staff who had to wear those ugly, blue paper scrubs for being careless after that.

  And that latter incident had a strong probability of occurring a second time. Except I wasn’t in a surgery. I was standing in a crush of people at the airport.

  Fuck.

  Who would have guessed just how awkward, mixed with a heaping scoop of unpleasant and uncomfortable, it would be to end up face-to-face with the woman I’d challenged to marry me on a whim without even having known her last name. Then I’d unwillingly ghosted her.

  Now here I stood, holding up the brightest neon fucking green sign known to man, insinuating she was a hooker—on both sides of the cardboard because Rowan insisted on a two-sided poster.

  Because that’s exactly what’d happened when I’d been volunteered to pick up Wes’s fiancé’s two best friends from the airport. I had no idea who the hell I was even supposed to be looking for, since Rowan refused to show me any pictures. She just gave me this big-ass sign to hold up for all of Chicago O’Hare to bear witness to, and a time to be in the pick-up zone, along with the reassurance they’d find me right away. I’d never been more confused in my life.

  Boy, they found me all right.

  The English language didn’t have enough expletive sentence enhancers for neither the shitshow of a situation Rowan had unknowingly put me in, nor for the foreign feelings that’d resurfaced from out of nowhere. Ones that I was sure I’d long locked up tight the moment I left Vegas.

  As I stood front and center, surrounded by strangers from all over the globe, my ego shrinking by the minute, a very tall, poised woman with perfectly placed, bleach-blonde hair walked straight up to me, like she knew right away I was who she was looking for.

  She pointed to the sign, now dangling loosely by my side as every fiber of my being deflated. “This looks like a Rowan move.”

  I forced a smile as best I could, as my grip tightened on the poster. “Indeed it is.”

  “Katie.” She offered her hand to me. “It’s nice to meet you…sorry, I don’t know your name. Rowan didn’t tell us who was picking us up. She just said we’d know.”

  Katie. I’d heard her name mentioned a few times here and there, but I’d never seen her in pictures. I never cared enough to ask. She was absolutely stunning, though—like a Victoria’s Secret supermodel. As angelic as she was, she paled in comparison to the beautiful creature just behind her in the distance. The one that, all this time later, even after zero contact, apparently still did things for me…inside and out.

  I glanced at Chloe, again, who’d finally slowly started making her way over to us, her stare drilling into me.

  “Dan—.” I cleared my throat and shook Katie’s hand. “I’m Daniel.”

  Katie was all smiles and giddiness, half bouncing out of her shoes with excitement. It was kind of cute, kind of annoying. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Daniel, and put a face to a name.”

  “Same to you.”

  “We’ve heard a lot about y’all up here.”

  Great. Couldn’t wait to find out just how much more Chloe had learned about me. “I bet. Here, let me get those for you.” I took her suitcases and wheeled them around the back of my car. I tossed the poster into the trunk first, then set her luggage on top of it.

  Chloe had finally made her way over and stood beside my car, watching my every move and waiting for who knew what. All I knew was she made me nervous as hell. I inched closer to her, carefully grabbed the smallest suitcase from her grip and stacked it in the trunk next to Katie’s. “Trunk’s full,” I said, slamming the lid closed. “I’ll have to stick that other one in the backseat with you. I’d offer you front seat, but, um, looks like your friend already claimed shotgun.”

  She cut her eyes to Katie, then back to me. “She always does.”

  I turned my hand palm side up, raising it just enough for her to see my olive branch, of sorts. It was the best I could do in a crunch. “I’m Daniel, by the way.” If nothing else, I at least wanted to be cordial with her. She didn’t take my hand or offer her own in return.

  “So I heard.”

  Well, we were off to a fantastic start. Rejected handshake, pointed answers. She was pissed, or at least it’d seemed that way. The next two weeks were going to be interesting.

  Couldn’t. Fucking. Wait.

  It dawned on me that, as Chloe gave me the evil eye, she had only ever known me as Dan. When I’d introduced myself to her for the first time, it was only ever with the intent of
getting laid. Full names, middle names, last names didn’t matter. Even as we’d said “I do,” we’d chosen to only go by the names we’d already known each other as—Dan and Chloe. Without having talked to her since then, I could only assume that was just the beginning of what exposing information was yet to come.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. Every muscle in my body ached with tension.

  “Listen, I—.”

  “It’s fine.” She cut me off mid-sentence. “We can talk later. If we keep standing here in this weird stand-off too much longer, Sherlock Holmes up there is gonna get even more suspicious of me, and probably you too.”

  Just as she’d said the words, Katie rolled her window down and leaned out. “What is taking y’all so long? Can we please get going? I wanna see Rowe!” Then she slinked back inside the car and the window went up.

  “Boy, she doesn’t miss much,” I said out loud, more to myself as a mental note for future reference.

  I took Chloe’s other suitcase, shoving it into the backseat, then gestured for her to climb inside.

  “Told you,” she said with a sarcastic smirk.

  I threw my hands up in surrender. Easy, girl. “I never said a word.”

  As she moved past me, I caught a whiff of her scent—the same one I remembered very vividly from before. It hadn’t changed. In fact, nothing about her seemed to have changed. She still had the same hazel-green eyes, wavy, dark auburn hair that somehow glimmered under fluorescent lighting, and big, bouncy boobs.

  Right before she ducked in, she paused, looking me dead at me. “Name’s still Chloe, just in case you were wondering, Daniel.”

  Ouch.

  Then she winked and closed the door.