Hot Finish (Fast Track #3)(36)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Her first instinct was to bristle and tell him she didn’t have a choice, but she decided to just take it the way Ryder meant it, as concern, not a criticism. “It should ease up after this weekend. Nikki is going to Champions Week with Jonas so we need to have all decisions made by Tuesday. Maybe next Saturday I’ll even get to sleep in.”

“No appointments next Saturday?”

“No.”

Ryder’s arm was on the back of the metal chair she was sitting on. He leaned closer, his aftershave scent drifting up her nostrils. “Hey, come to Vegas with me next weekend then.”

“What?” Suzanne sat straighter, her palms instantly going damp with sweat. “For the awards ceremony? Are you crazy?”

“Why not?” He gave her a charming smile. “We’ll have a great time. Lots of wine, food, shopping . . . sex. Sex again. And more sex. What could be better?”

“That sounds an awful lot like what married people do. What we did when we were married.” She had to admit, it held a certain appeal, but it would more than muddy the waters, it would run them black.

“And we always had fun.”

That he could sit there and look so endearingly confident that they wouldn’t rip each other’s throats out with mini-bar tools was damn cute. Enough that she actually entertained the idea for a split second before squashing it.

“Do you know what kind of attention we’d get if we showed up together? Tongues would be wagging for weeks.”

Ryder wiggled his own tongue, making her laugh. “Let them wag. I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks.”

“You should, you dumb ass. You have an image to uphold.” He wasn’t going to sway her, he just wasn’t. This was a big, bad, suck-ass idea.

Of course, she’d made a number of those lately, and she was actually kind of enjoying them.

“How does this damage my image? It’s not like I’m walking in with a gaggle of hookers, you’re my ex-wife.”

“A gaggle of hookers? How many is that exactly? And if you walk in with your ex-wife, someone might start poking and figure out that the ex part is slightly exaggerated.” Suzanne glanced over at Nikki and Jonas, but they weren’t listening. They were whispering to each other, noses touching. What was their obsession with nose rubbing? It made Suzanne want to get really drunk so she’d pass out and not have to see that anymore.

Ryder just waved his hand. “No they won’t.”

“Hey, Suzy Sunshine, you’re wrong. The media loves this kind of thing. Look, I appreciate the offer, and I’m tempted, really tempted to spend a weekend naked in Las Vegas with you, but it ain’t going to happen, Jefferson.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I think you should go,” Imogen told Suzanne, sucking down her margarita like it was water.

Suzanne eyeballed her friend. “Maybe you ought to slow down there, Shakespeare, because that tequila is clearly going to your head, given that you’re talking crazy.”

“I agree with her,” Tammy said from across the table, relaxing back in her seat, her lips stained from the melon margarita she was sipping.

“You all have lost your minds,” Suzanne said in disgust, pushing her own drink away from her. “Yuck, this tastes like shit. And why would it even remotely be a good idea for me to go to Vegas with Ryder for Champions Week?”

“Because clearly the two of you have unfinished business.”

“I don’t think a weekend at some swanky hotel is going to finish it!” Were they nuts? Suzanne tugged at the neck of her gray sweater. She suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe. “It will just be all make-believe if I go. Like a rewind or something. It’s not a good idea.”

Because she was pretty sure she’d wind up with her heart kicked all over again, and she wasn’t signing on for that shit voluntarily.

“Suz,” Tammy said in a tone that was sympathetic, but firm. “You have never gotten over Ryder. Don’t deny it, because the only people here are your best friends and the booze, and we all know the truth.”

“It’s not that I never got over him, it’s just that I never really got closure.” With that bit of nonsense, Suzanne lifted her own glass and sipped.

“I think that’s somewhat of the same thing,” Imogen told her, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “I wasn’t around for your marriage to Ryder, but I think it’s fairly evident that there are unresolved issues. This could be an opportunity for the two of you to really open up to each other and discuss the failure of your marriage.”

Suzanne snorted. “Now that sounds like fun. You want me to go all the way to Vegas to talk to Ryder about why our marriage stank so bad it made a gut wagon smell good?”

“Your marriage was not that bad,” Tammy told her, tucking her auburn hair behind her ear. “You loved each other.”

“It wasn’t that good either,” Suzanne said. “And sure we loved each other, or at least, I loved him, but if we knew why we failed, I’m guessing we don’t need to talk about it. It just is what it is.”

Suzanne didn’t want to talk to anyone about why her marriage had failed. Not Ryder, not her friends, not her own self. There was nothing fun about remembering how Ryder had married her solely because she’d been pregnant in a quickie Vegas wedding to prevent any industry gossip. At the time, his sponsor had been a very well-known condom brand, and it would have been a huge PR nightmare if they had found out Ryder had knocked up his girlfriend of about ten minutes. And there was nothing worse in stock car racing than losing your sponsorship.

Ryder had said the right things to Suzanne and never even mentioned the irony of who his sponsor was, but despite being a poor country girl, she wasn’t dumb. She figured it out on her own, and she’d known that if she weren’t pregnant, there would have been no proposal. Their relationship probably would have burned out in six months instead of lingering for four years.

So what was there to talk about?

“If there’s nothing to talk about, then there’s no reason you can’t spend the weekend with Ryder just enjoying yourself. You have nothing to fear from forty-eight hours.”

Damn that Imogen and her logic. She had just turned Suzanne’s words right on around.

“Yes, I do. I have his stupidity to fear.” When cornered, come out clawing. It was a skill she’d perfected over a lifetime of poverty.

Except her friends weren’t falling for it. Imogen’s eyebrow went up, and Tammy just shook her head. “The only thing you think is stupid about that man is his inability to use a bottle opener. You can be real with us, you know.”