Next to Me

Chapter 1

Nicky

If there is any place to clear your head of the cobwebs, it's definitely Las Vegas. I took a daring chance and went by myself this year. All that shit with my mother is getting to me. I lost my apartment six months ago and had to move back home. My mother is treating me as if it was my fault I lost the apartment and not the fact that half the complex burned down. Thankfully none of my stuff was lost but the complex was beyond saving. So here I am six months later still living with my mother who threatens to throw me out on to the street every three days. 

Fun.

I try to block all that out right now as the music in the ballroom blares. It's Halloween and I'm at a costume ball in Las Vegas. I debated on taking the trip at all but free is free. I won this trip in a radio contest. Two days two nights in glittery Las Vegas for the Plaza Hotel's annual Halloween party. There must be two hundred people in the ballroom at the moment but it is still early in the evening. Most of the women are dressed up as some kind of 'sexy' version of something. Sexy nurse, sexy nun, sexy Hermoine, you name it. I decided on a little bit of a throwback for my costume. I am dressed as Audrey Hepburn's character Nicole Bonnet in How To Steal A Million. Black lace dress, fishnet stockings, and heels; complete with a black lace mask. I am parked at the bar with a cosmo in my hand, just sipping it. I have to be frugal with my money. Perhaps I could find a handsome man to buy me a drink. I make a face at the first person that pops into my mind when I think handsome. 

Him. 

I am trying to reform my taste in men so I can find someone decent. Unfortunately, I always end up with the ones that are brilliant at everything but committing. I'm tired of dating but I yearn for love. I blame my best friend Arden for this. Ever since she got her fairy tale love story I've become envious. There is a glow to her that I'm jealous of. She is well-loved and it shows. Her husband Deacon worships her and she is crazy in love with him. You can feel it when they are in the room. There is also something else I feel when I'm in the room with Deacon, and it's usually his brother sitting next to me. 

Logan. 

I have done everything within my power not to fall into bed with this man and to be honest, I'm running out of reasons not to. From the moment we were introduced at Arden and Deacon's engagement party, there was a spark between us. I deny it outwardly but it's there. The problem is it's no longer a spark.

It's a wildfire. 

We started out as friends. We were paired up in the wedding party. Logan is funny and charming and we got along like a house on fire. Logan has this amazing ability to make any woman he is with feel like they are the only person in the room. He can charm a room; his speech at Deacon's wedding did as much. But when he turns that charm into a single focus seduction, it's like a tractor beam. Many women have fallen under his spell. The problem is the 'many' part. Logan, by his own admission, loves women. I took silent note of this and begrudgingly turned down his proposition the night of Arden's wedding. It took all the strength I had not to follow him back to his room and make a meal of him. I don't want to be a notch in a bedpost, but I'd love to tie him to one. 

He's bloody gorgeous. Full stop. 

Dark curly hair, blue eyes, the most carved jawline I have ever seen on a man not made of actual marble. Six foot two with a twelve-pack and an ass you would mortgage a house for. It's his smile that always melts me. That and the fact that he calls me Nicole, not Nicky like everyone else. 

Did I also mention he has a devastating Scottish accent? 

It's been three years since that engagement party and his effect on me is stronger than ever. It certainly doesn't help that we naturally pair up at any family event Arden and Deacon have. We are the godparents to their oldest daughter Rachel and since Arden just had twin girls, I'm sure we are going to get thrown together for another double christening.