2. Sunny

This wasn'tthe first time I'd met Triple Ice.

Really, "met" might be too strong of a word for what happened at last year's annual Christmas photo shoot.

The photo shoot had actually taken place a few days after Christmas, right before the crew took down the golden faux fir trees and colored lights to make room for our annual New Year"s extravaganza. Basically, the same show and the same choreography, but with "Viva Las Vegas" swapped out for the "Jingle Bell Rock" opening number and a back video wall reprogrammed with flashy fireworks instead of snowy winter wonderland scenes. That New Year"s Extravaganza would, of course, then be overlaid with red drapery and lamps shortly after January 1st, turning it into a "Happy Year of the [Insert Current Chinese Zodiac Sign Here] Celebration" just in time for the influx of Asian tourists descending upon the city to usher in the Lunar New Year.

The official reason for the photo shoot was to bank pictures for the following year's Spend Your Holidays at the Benton Vegas Grand push.But Nora, being Nora, had made it a tradition to host a fabulous party afterward.

As soon as Benton"s marketing team got all their shots, a fleet of cater waiters came swooping in with trays full of champagne and food, and a DJ appeared out of nowhere to fill the stage with music and dancing.

"I don"t know how you do it, but you always manage to make this the best part of my entire year!" Rick gushed as I approached them to tell Nora my good news.

"Any excuse to throw a little soirée for all my darlings!" Nora answered, her Irish brogue thicker than usual, thanks to the champagne. "Honestly, I"d rather hang out with you lot than anyone else in corporate. You should get a gander at our holiday bash. It"s too dreary. All dryshite tailored suits and posh frocks saying, "No, Nora, I don"t want to accompany you to the loo for a wee bump of cocaine. Sticks in the mud, the lot of them!"

When Nora saw me, though, the aggrieved look disappeared from her face. "Ah, speaking of good company! Here"s Sunny. Cheers. We"ll catch you later, won"t we, Rick?"

It must have been a rhetorical question because Nora didn"t wait for his reply before striding over to me with her long, thin arms spread wide. "Sunny, dearie! Where in the world have you been?"

Dressed in a black, white, and gold, intricately beaded fringe minidress I would have bet money was vintage Mackie, cherry-red stilettos, and waves of red extensions, Nora towered over my five eight in a way that clearly marked her as a former Showstopper—which is what we called the tallest topless Benton Girls, whose height put them in the center of the line. She had to bend down to pull me into a familiar, warm hug.

"I"m quite serious," she hissed in my ear. "Where have you been hiding? I had to endure that gombeen blowing smoke up my ass for centuries before you finally arrived to rescue me."

I laughed. "The party only started ten minutes ago."

"Centuries," she insisted, pulling out of the hug to look me over. "Aren"t you a pretty sight? And look at your tits! Holding up like a dream, despite you being ancient as fuck in showgirl years! Did you pay a visit to my Indian fellow over on Cimarron Road, then?"

"I love that you think I could afford a breast lift on a Benton Girl salary," I answered with a laugh. "Nope, it"s just genetics."

"Aw, do you understand why I was always so jealous of your nan, then? Glo hadrhythm and a gorgeous pair of knockers. Wasn"t fair, I tell ya!"

I couldn"t help but laugh at Nora"s antics. "Speaking of my grandmother, I have some good news," I told her.

Nora"s face lit up. "You broke it off with that orangutan you call a boyfriend, then!"

I winced. "Yes, Tony and I did break up, but it was very amicable, and please don"t call him?—"

I was cut off by Nora"s sudden rendition of "Happy Days Are Here Again." Belted so loudly, the DJ decided just to mute his set and let the matriarch of Benton Worldwide do her thing.

"That"s not my good news, though," I tried to tell her.

But Nora was singing too loudly to hear me. And Nora, being Nora, of course, she somehow managed to belt out her delighted song and wrangle Pru and several other Benton Girls into an old-fashioned kick routine. It didn"t matter that we weren"t Rockettes or supposed to be celebrating the demise of my "relationship" with Tony.

"But..." I tried to say again.

"C"mon, don"t be a stick in the mud!" Despite me only being five eight in my flats, Nora pulled me into the line between her and Pru. Soon everyone, including me, was laughing and singing along with the world"s most famous Benton Girl.

At least we were all laughing and having a good time until the rest of the line went quiet without any warning. Leaving just Nora and me.

"C"mon, sing it with me!" Nora called out again. "Happy days are?—"

But then, she, too, cut off. And the "here again" died in my throat when I looked up and discovered why the room had suddenly gone silent. And cold.

Nora"s grandson, the current CEO of Benton Worldwide, stood directly in front of us. An imposing Ice King in a tailored suit, watching his grandma and me make a fool of ourselves with a hard gaze of disdain.

"Cole!" his grandmother called out with a gasp of surprise. She dropped her arm from my shoulders. "What are you doing here?"

"The meeting." The two words cracked across the space between him and his grandmother.

"Oh, that." Nora pushed a perfectly dyed lock of her long red hair behind her ear with an annoyed huff.

"Yes, that meeting." If her grandson was at all concerned about her obvious reluctance to leave, it didn"t show. His cold gaze didn"t so much as flicker as he added, "Which you are required to attend."

"Could I have just five more minutes, darling?" Nora asked, her voice uncharacteristically flustered. "Sunny was just about to tell me something?—"

"You"re aware the meeting is in less than twenty minutes?" Cole asked before she could finish her request. "The car is waiting for us outside."

"Fine!" Nora gave in with a loud sigh.

I didn"t realize I"d been openly staring at her Ice King son until his grandmother stepped in front of me, blocking him from my view.

"So much like his grandfather, this one," she told me with a roll of her eyes, which were a much darker green than her grandson"s. "And it"s useless to argue with him when he gets like this. Text me, and we"ll arrange to have lunch, and you can tell me this good news of yours then, yes?"

"Yes, I"ll text you, for sure." I didn"t know back then that I wouldn"t be emotionally able to follow through on that promise. I was just happy to have somewhere warm and familiar to direct my gaze."Bye, Nora."

Warm farewells from the other dancers rose in the air as Nora turned to leave with her grandson.

"Bye, Nora!"

"Thanks for the party!"

"Happy New Year!"

"Farewell, Nora! Thanks for everything!" Rick ran to the front of the stage and waved in full left-to-right arcs with his whole arm, as if Nora were a yacht pulling away from the shore.

To be fair to him, Nora returned our goodbyes just as dramatically. Blowing kisses with full extensions of her long arms as she descended the stage stairs behind her grandson.

They departed like celestial bodies—a glowing star and a cool moon—holding all our attention before they disappeared through the theater doors.

Another hush fell over the room in the wake of their absence.

Then Pru broke it with a "Goddamn, that man is fine."

Murmurs of agreement immediately filled the air.

"I mean, I totally understand why people call him Triple Ice," Leah observed. "But did anyone else get hot just looking at him?"

"Girl!" Rick agreed, fanning his reddened face. "It was not just the champagne!"

"And he"s a billionaire, too?" Dara slapped a hand to the wide swath of carefully tanned skin under her jeweled bikini and convulsed her shoulders like she might swoon. "Is he dating anyone?"

For some reason, everyone looked at me for the answer to her question.

"What? I don"t know!"

Dara glared at me, like she'd caught me in the act of trying to gaslight her. "Aren"t you always bragging about how your mom and Nora were best friends or whatever?"

"Her grandmother, Glo Johnson," Pru corrected. "The first Black Benton Girl. Put some respect on her name!"

"Sorry, I miscalculated because Sunny"s so much older than me," Dara shot back with a sweet tone.

I couldn"t help but feel a little impressed. Dara might not have earned her solo yet, but she deserved the crown for the Queen of Backhanded Insults.

"You really don"t have any intel on Cole Benton?" she asked me before Pru could say something patently untrue, like I wasn"t old. As Nora had so colorfully pointed out, thirty-two was considered old as Methuselah in showgirl years.

Which was why I"d been so excited to tell Nora my good news about quitting the show to pursue my new dream.

"I really don"t," I assured Dara and the rest of the showgirls, who were listening to our conversation with avid expressions. "He was still in business school when I first joined the line, and there was never any reason for our paths the cross. Our grandmas were best friends, not us."

I crossed my arms over my jeweled bikini. "That was the first time I"ve ever laid eyes on him up close, and there"s no way I"ll ever see him again," I assured them with total confidence, knowing that I"d be quitting the show soon.

Except, I"d been wrong.

About my quitting the show soon.

About texting Nora to set up a lunch date.

And about my chances of seeing Cole "Triple Ice" Benton a second time.

Less than two months after I told everyone I wouldn"t be interacting with him ever again, I was called to the top floor of Benton Worldwide to meet, not with Nora, but with her Ice King grandson.

"Sit," he commanded after staring me down like a hawk.

I pushed past my confusion to take a very awkward seat in the sole guest chair in front of his desk.

In stark contrast to the gold-flecked warm marble of the rest of headquarters, the two non-window walls of Cole"s office were painted a glossy ebony that put me in mind of black ice. His desk matched the walls, sleek and black. But the sole guest chair in front of it was ivory white. One of those feats of modern design, it was basically three angled sheets of thin metal that somehow supported my body weight without so much as a creak of protest.

Several questions darted through my mind as I raised my eyes to meet his.

Why did taking a seat in his office feel like placing myself on one of the white squares of a chessboard? And why couldn"t I shake the suspicion that the Ice King, who came to stand behind his desk, had purposefully designed it that way?

Most of all, why was I here?

My brain switched from trying to come up with an appropriate apology for Nora to trying to figure out why her grandson, of all people, wanted to meet with me.

Then my stomach dropped with the possible answer. "Is Nora okay? Is that why you called me here out of dance rehearsal?"

He frowned, and his ice-chip eyes flickered. Slightly. "You care about my grandmother."

His tone was strange. I couldn"t tell whether he was making an observation or asking a question.

But I supposed my answer was the same either way. "Of course I do. She was my grandmother"s best friend."

I wouldn"t have thought it possible, but his expression became even colder. It was like watching an iceberg put on yet another layer of ice as he pushed a black file folder toward me with two fingers.

"Then explain this."

There was no mistaking his tone this time. Definitely a command. One I felt compelled to follow.

My first thought as I opened the folder was, Wow, where does somebodyeven get black file folders? Some kind of specialty store, maybe?

But then I saw the bank statements underneath the black leaf, and my second thought stopped the first one cold. Oh, no....

My earlier chant started back up in my head. This time with a pronoun change. He knows! He knows! He knows!

"I"m waiting." Cole"s voice sliced through the desert storm blowing between my ears. "If you care so much about Nora, why did you drain all of the funds out of the charity account she set up in your grandmother"s name?"

Good question. Clear evidence of the wrongdoing I"d hoped to cover up screamed at me from the page.

"Does Nora know?" I didn"t dare to look up at him. Guilt had clogged my throat so badly, I could hardly choke out that one sentence. Much less meet his eyes.

An icy beat. Then: "Not yet."

Relief washed over me, temporarily easing the elephant of shame sitting on my chest. "Thank you! I promise to pay the money back into the fund. Every single cent. But thank you so much for not telling her about this."

There came another long beat. So long, I forced my eyes up.

I found Nora"s grandson staring down at me with another unreadable expression. "Your relief is unwarranted," he informed me. "I called you here to fire you."

Of course he did. My heart wrenched at the thought of ending my career as a Benton girl, not because I was finally ready to follow my dreams but because of circumstances beyond my control.

But out loud, I had to say, "I understand. That"s completely fair. And again, thank you for not telling Nora. I promise you, I will get another job to replace this one and find a way to pay the fund back."

Cole Benton clearly was not hitting the injectables like Rick and his grandmother.His entire forehead creased with lines as he frowned down at me. "You are aware I could have you arrested? Or worse."

Or worse?

I glanced around, noticing for the first time the main thing missing from his black-ice, minimalist office. Any sign whatsoever of a camera.

This was when I began to suspect Triple Ice might be old-school Vegas—the kind of boss who had both an official security team and an unofficial one, usually linked to some crime outfit. Could those rumors about the Benton Worldwide CEO being best friends with the head of the Los Lobos Cartel be true?

Cole Benton presented a stiff, all-business image to the world at large. But in private, who knew what he did to the people who crossed him?

I gulped and answered, "Totally aware. But if you"re planning to punish me in ways much worse than losing a job I truly treasured, could you wait until I"m finished paying the fund back? I just need a few more months to make this up to your grandmother and mine."

Cole Benton stared at me. In a way that felt violent, though he"d yet to move. "Why don"t you start your payback by telling me exactly why you stole the money in the first place?"

My stomach twisted at the invitation to tell my side of the story.

If I told him the truth, maybe there was a chance he wouldn"t sic his Los Lobos shadow security on me. I might even be able to keep my job on the Benton Girls Line.

But another glance at his hard, cruel face told me confessing wasn"t an option. If I threw the real thief underneath the bus, how would I be able to live with myself?

I swallowed my fear—not to mention my sense of self-preservation—to answer. "I"m sorry, but that"s a personal matter. The main point is that I"m going to pay every cent back into that fund. You have my word."

"Your word," he repeated, his voice full of icy derision. "You believe that"s worth anything to me?"

"I guess not." I shook my head, another gigantic wave of shame washing over me. "I don"t blame you for doubting me, especially after you found that charity fund empty. I can imagine what"s going through your head right now. You have no reason to trust me, but I promise you, I will do whatever it takes to pay the money back. Whatever it takes."

"Whatever it takes." He once again repeated my words. But there was no derision this time. And his gaze...well, I wouldn"t say it softened. Cole Benton"s entire emotional range appeared to exist within the mildly cold disdain to the impenetrable ice part of the spectrum.

However, his expression became slightly more thoughtful as he said, "Tell you what. I"ll put the money back into that fund myself so Nora doesn"t find out what you did—what you took from her."

"You"d do that? Refill the charity fund?"

Relief started to fill my chest again—only to come to an abrupt stop, like a valve switching off. The debt was my responsibility to pay back.

Also, this might not be a relief kind of situation. I eyed my former CEO suspiciously. Just a few minutes of conversation with him had told me that he wasn"t the type to make generous offers—at least, not without strings attached.

"In exchange for what?" I asked.

Instead of answering my question out loud, he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small leather ring box, which he opened to reveal a gorgeous solitaire ring with a small dainty emerald.

It reminded me of the huge emerald Nora still wore on her wedding ring finger, despite the fact her husband had been dead for nearly ten years.

And something made me ask, "That"s not a wedding ring, is it?" Even though I knew it couldn"t be.

But then Cole Benton answered, "Yes, it"s my grandmother"s wedding ring," erasing all my doubts.

"Why would you...?"

"Agree to marry me," he answered before I could finish. "Agree to marry me, no questions asked, and I"ll make all of your problems go away."