Page 9 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors (Billionaire Sanctuary: The Heir #1)
billionaire sanctuary
LEXI BYRNE
Three days.
For three days, I busked on the extra-wide sidewalk in front of the hoity-toitiest restaurants and shops, plus that one obsidian building with no sign except for tiny gold letters etched in all-caps on the glass above the door.
Billionaire Sanctuary
That place, Billionaire Sanctuary, was the most exclusive of them all.
Shiny onyx glass panes wrapped the whole building like it was a celebrity wearing sunglasses.
Splashing from behind tall smoked panels on the rooftop suggested a pool up there.
Rectangles emitting wan lights on the building’s sides looked like occupied hotel rooms on the five upper stories.
No one who was just strolling down the sidewalk got in. The locked door didn’t even unbolt with a thump for them.
At night, caravans of black cars or SUVs stopped in front of Billionaire Sanctuary.
Men wearing sunglasses and boxy suits emerged from flanking vehicles.
They scanned the area and then opened the center car’s rear door, where a person or a few people stepped out, didn’t look around, and headed directly toward the black-smoked glass door, which would open as they neared to admit them and, sometimes, one or two of the security people.
The rest of the bodyguards swarmed back into the vehicles and drove away into Las Vegas.
Sometimes, an insanely expensive sports car with the profile of a slim wedge drove up, and the driver left it idling on the street as they went inside. A valet trotted out and drove the car away.
Twenty or more times a night, that happened on Wednesday and Thursday.
Friday night, more like fifty groups entered Billionaire Sanctuary.
Rarely, people emerged from the front door into waiting cars.
They must have left either after midnight when I ended my Bride shift or else stayed overnight, probably in the hotel rooms I suspected occupied the upper floors. Shadowy forms wafted behind the heavily grayed-out windows.
Friday night was good to me, and the tourists gave me enough money to stay in a cheap motel out near Henderson. I showered three times that evening and again the next morning before I had to check out.
Saturday afternoon, before I writhed in the back seat of my older Toyota to don my wedding dress and mime makeup, I parked right in front of Billionaire Sanctuary and strode confidently toward the dark glass door, playing the part of Rich Bitch #1 instead of The Bride.
If I hadn’t skidded to stop, the immobile black glass would’ve broken my nose.
Beyond the translucent black door stood a man wearing a suit, his white shirt barely visible under his suit jacket as a gray inverted triangle in the smoky dark.
He leaned forward, his pale face resolving behind the dark barrier as if he was leaning out of a fog of shadows, and he shook his head at me.
Oh, I guess I didn’t measure up. Okay, then.
I got into my car and drove off, and I was back to busking on my corner a few hours later.
But I watched the people who were worthy of entering the Billionaire Sanctuary building.
Some of them were actors or musicians I recognized.
One of the hottest men to enter the club that sweltering night emerged from a sports car.
He was an actor who’d played the male lead on The Ridgertons, a historical series on a streaming app.
His boyfriend got out of the other side of the car, and they strolled straight through the wide-open front door hand in hand.
Their easy entrance was cute but frustrating. Why couldn’t I get in? What did that magnificent, perfectly dressed, famous, obviously wealthy man wearing slutty little gold-rimmed glasses have that I didn’t?
Okay. I got it.
The one that nearly made me drop my heat-wilted purple hydrangea bouquet was the perfectly orchestrated cavalcade of black SUVs that disgorged black-suited bodyguards who actually roped off the sidewalk for the instant that the blond pop star sauntered into the building, then they furled the ropes up and departed in less than sixty seconds, leaving the street empty and the passersby, stunned.
The paparazzi helicopter hadn’t even had a chance to hover close enough for a shot.
A middle-aged woman grabbed her heart. “Oh my God. I saw her.”
Yes, honey. We all saw her. Now drop some cash in the gol’darned hat.
That Saturday night at nine o’clock, when the hot and dry darkness was like an iron pressed against my face, an even bigger procession of black SUVs than the pop star’s caravan slid to a stop in front of Billionaire Sanctuary.
A battalion of bodyguards stormed from the cars.
While the guards fanned out, restraining people from the path that led into Billionaire Sanctuary’s doorway with an ersatz human chain, three people emerged from the center SUV and paced quickly inside.
The first two were the redheaded British prince and his simply beautiful actress wife, whom I would have recognized anywhere because I’d devoured his book and her podcast, back when I still believed in marriage and love.
It seemed like decades ago.
Even so, my breath jumped in my chest more than for the pop star.
Wow. They were right there, the genes that had ruled an empire and his actress wife. She was a good actress, too. I loved her casual snark.
Something about royalty shocked little Nebraska-born, corn-fed me.
Then one more man emerged from the front seat of the SUV, someone I’d never seen before, and he moved behind them but with them, not like a servant or security but part of the party. The prince’s wife turned back and held her hand out to him.
A bodyguard holding back the crowd checked behind himself, saw the guy, and continued to hold the line.
The man was taller even than the English prince, dark-haired, sharp-jawed, a white guy with a tan that spoke of leisure time in the sun.
His navy-blue tailored suit and august company spoke of money.
He looked up at me, where I was standing in my wedding dress on top of my suitcase with my head and shoulders sticking out above the crowd, my veil blowing sideways in the hot wind funneled between the sharp-edged buildings.
His eyes were the teal blue of Arctic ice, a cool breeze on my bare shoulders in the blazing desert heat.
The prince and his wife entered Billionaire Sanctuary, and the ice-eyed man followed them inside.
The black-glass door closed, breaking the cool breeze. I swayed in the return of the heat.
The security entourage swarmed into the cars and departed.
“Wow,” a woman beside me said as the crowd surged into motion around us. “Did you see who that was?”
But I was The Bride, a living statue, and statues don’t answer.
My gaze softened, staring above the bobbing heads of the crowd, down the row of luxury shops toward the glittering canyon of the Strip in the night.
The woman dropped a single into my hat.
Yay. A dollar.
The Luxor’s laser knifed into the darkness above, and the Sphere turned into an enormous eyeball that watched the crowd over the rooftops.
His ice-blue eyes had touched mine like a snap of electricity between us.
I knew I was imagining the connection. I’d read too much pretty fiction, back when I believed in love and happy endings, back when anything mattered.
It wasn’t a magic fae mating bond. He wasn’t a wolf shifter who wanted to bite me.
It wasn’t even a Craigslist Missed Connection.
It was just eye contact, and I was so sad and lonely that it meant too much to me.
A few hours later, a tall man staggered out of Billionaire Sanctuary , stumbling through the crowd that parted for him.
His thick black hair was mussed. Drunkenness dulled his teal-ice eyes.
I almost didn’t recognize him as the same guy.
He flopped to a stop beside where I posed, busking, and peered up at me as he raked his hand through his dark hair, squinting from where he sprawled on the cement at my feet.
His voice was hoarse with drink. “Marry me.”