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Brenna merely sighed, exhausted even though it wasn’t yet 9A.M. “I can’t afford your hairdresser. And what’s wrong with my clothes?”

“Nothing. They’re great for sending out that I’m-going-through-a-bad-divorce-leave-mealone message.

Not so much, though, for the do-me message.”

Brenna sucked in her breath. “I don’t want to be done . And even if I did, Damon would not be the guy.” He was totally hot, but just as totally out of her league. Out of her universe .  To the point of being intimidating. She’d be embarrassed to even express interest in him since surely he’d find it laughable. Or maybe pathetic.

Then she shook her head, thoroughly exasperated. “But to get back to the actual point — I’m not concerned about sex. I don’t need a man, remember? What I’m concerned about is…this is sort of like I’m stealing his job. And lying to him about it—to get him to help me steal his job. It’s despicable.”

Kelly shrugged, finally shifting her focus to the problem at hand. “Maybe, maybe not. It’s all in your perspective. On one hand, he brought this on himself. It’s not that he’s really doing anything other people aren’t, but he’s failed to use even a modicum of discretion and now it’s coming back to bite him in the ass. On the other, you are going to be participating in a big lie that benefits you, which does make you guilty as charged.” Then she leaned slightly forward, narrowing her gaze on Brenna. “That said, we’re talking about a dream job here, and Jenkins wants you for the part. It’s an enormous opportunity, and you’d be a fool to pass it up. So that’s why you need to get your head on straight about this. You have to commit to the lie, commit to the sin.”

Brenna drew in her breath, chest tightening. “I hate lying.” Now that she thought about it, it had been a lot easier to listen to Kelly’s plans for an imaginary seduction than to remember she was going to have to lie to a guy who’d done nothing wrong to her.

“How about this?” Kelly suggested. “How about we don’t think of it as lying? Instead, we’ll  think of it as…ambition. Going after the brass ring. Getting something you really want.  Because as mild-mannered as you are, my dear Brenna, I can see it in your eyes already.  You want this job—bad.”

God help her, she did. She loved music. She’d come to love it even more since landing at  Blue Night. To help determine what people listened to, and to have the power to give musicians a real shot at stardom, at making their dreams come true—it would be amazing.  And already she could taste the thrill—and the fulfillment—it would bring her. “I just wish I didn’t feel so guilty about how I’m going to get it.”

City?” Again, Kelly shrugged. “Look at it this way. Where better to do something wrong than Sin

THE FIRST NIGHT

“Sin is geographical.”

—Bertrand Russell

One

Brenna arrived in Las Vegas with a new wardrobe, a new hair color, and a new attitude.  Not about sex with Damon Andros, but about the job. She’d talked herself into believing  Kelly was right—that this was just the way business was done in the entertainment industry. It wasn’t an ethics issue—it was simply how the game was played. Damon  Andros would surely view it that way if the situation were reversed.

Damon had flown from Los Angeles to Vegas on the same day that Brenna made the five-hour drive across the Mojave Desert. Good old Jenkins—happy to make her lie, and just as happy not to offer her a plane ticket, explaining that they were still an indie label, after all, and money didn’t grow on trees. “Once you’re in the A&R seat, though,” he’d promised her, “the red carpet will be rolled out for you.”

God knew this wasn’t where she expected to find herself at the age of thirty—starting a whole new career, and crossing a desert to do it. But maybe a big, new, high-profile job would somehow give her back the sense of security her divorce had stolen.

She’d tried to concentrate on that as she’d prayed her car wouldn’t overheat in the hot May temperatures, and as she’d driven, she’d actually spotted more than one mirage—tricks played by the sun, convincing her she saw a large, smooth body of water, only to discover as she grew nearer that it was simply more flat, brown land.

So it was a relief, even if a bit overwhelming, to finally hit the Vegas Strip. She’d never been to Sin City before, but a drive up the ten-lane street revealed it to be all she had imagined. Even during the daytime hours, millions of lights flickered and danced to either side of the famous boulevard. She passed enormous fountains, roller coasters that sped by high above her car, and even whole buildings that changed colors at will. She spied the  Brooklyn Bridge, an Egyptian pyramid, the Eiffel Tower, the Roman Coliseum, and an erupting volcano—and thought it was as if the whole world had collided here, reshaping itself into pure spectacle.

Pulling in at the Venetian, where side-by-side rooms had been reserved for her and  Damon, she followed a winding lane to the front doors. She was astounded by the scope of the place even before driving up under the awning that covered at least a dozen lanes of one-way traffic: a busy but efficient menagerie of cars and luggage carts and suitcases manned by guys dressed in the stripes and neck sashes of Italian gondoliers.

One of them rushed to open her car door. “Welcome to the Venetian. Checking in?”

“Yes.”

She was checking in to the Venetian. And checking in to Las Vegas—the place where people came to sin.

And already, as she strolled through the doors into the ornately huge lobby complete with frescoes on the arched ceiling high above, a change somehow began to come over her. It started slowly, yet it was easy to recognize, and…shockingly easy to embrace.

It wasn’t about the new clothes. Or the new hair. And she wasn’t even certain it was about

the job she’d come here to steal.

Because it seemed to grow from within her, echoing outward from her very core.

She could scarcely explain it to herself, but…she simply felt different here.

Filled with a strange, new energy. Ready to make changes in her life.

Maybe it was about the new clothes and hair, for all she knew. Maybe it was about the job.  The truth was, she’d told herself that this had to happen, that she had to become the sort of person who could play this game. Yet something about the very aura of this place was—that quickly—helping the process along, making it suddenly feel smooth as silk, and at the same time exciting as…sin.

As she stepped up to the lavish registration desk and gave her name to the clerk, a heady sense of freedom coursed through her veins. A sense of newness . And if ever there had been a time in her life when it would be beneficial to be someone new, it was now.

Because this was Vegas, baby. Enormous, overwhelming, a stunningly bright oasis built in the desert purely for the pursuit of pleasure—and like it or not, she was about to immerse herself in it.

Two

The room was plush, not to mention enormous, quickly making her decide maybe she was going to like this being an A&R rep thing—even without the airplane perks just yet.

She was busy gaping at the huge, tiled bathroom when she noticed—from the corner of her eye—a blinking light on the room’s phone, informing her she already had a message.  Perching on the edge of the bed and pressing the message retrieval button, she found herself blown away by the mere sound of Damon’s deep voice. “Brenna. You’ve had a long drive, so take the afternoon to relax. Then meet me tonight at Mon Ami Gabi in front of the Paris at seven. I look forward to working with you.”

He never identified himself. Because he didn’t have to.

Arrogant, she thought, rolling her eyes.

But also sexy. And sexy could make up for arrogant in a lot of ways. She supposed she’d never actually heard him string together so many words before, and his voice alone, even without his looks to accompany it, had just made her nether regions go warm.

Not that she could afford to think about him being sexy. Or about him making her warm in the panties. Nope, to Brenna, Damon Andros was now simply a means to an end, a stepping stone to an exciting new career. And Kelly had made it clear: he’d brought this on himself. Soon this week of subterfuge would be history, and she’d have a shiny new job to show for it.

Of course, by the time she was getting ready for dinner a few hours later, she’d grown nervous. Like her old self, her real self—nervous little Brenna who answered phones and processed contracts and generally stayed in the background, nervous little Brenna who was afraid to be around an ultra-hip guy like Damon for more than a minute or two.

But a look in the mirror reminded her that she’d decided not to be nervous little Brenna anymore. Hair that had been mousy brown a few days ago was now a warm, sexy shade of auburn, done in a stylish cut that fell straight but angled around her face and shoulders.  And the body she generally kept covered in fairly conservative clothes now appeared much curvier than usual in well-fitted jeans, pointy-toed ankle boots, and a fitted white blouse that revealed the beaded cami underneath, along with a shadow of cleavage. Kelly had officially declared this Brenna’s confident-cosmopolitan-chick-on-the-move look, and she couldn’t deny that it actually made her feel that way. A pair of new sunglasses completed the image.

She knew the Paris Hotel was far enough away to warrant driving or taking a cab, but she decided to walk. As fabulously luxurious as the Venetian was, she felt hungry to see more of Vegas and figured doing it by foot was the best way to take in the details.

What she discovered as she set out was a strange city of walkways and escalators and

bridges that seemed to lead in every direction without necessarily making it clear where  they would take you. So she followed her instincts, and the crowds, and felt miniscule in  comparison to it all. She’d never been to the Grand Canyon, but she’d heard people talk  about feeling small there, like an incidental speck. She thought she’d just discovered the  urban Grand Canyon, a place at once grand and opulent yet also gaudy, emitting an

underlying sense of seediness that somehow wafted around her in the air.

Pausing on the sidewalk, she found herself staring across wide, bustling Las Vegas  Boulevard at the grandeur of Caesars Palace with its manicured lawns and pristine white  Roman-style structures—when the view was suddenly obscured by a moving billboard being pulled up the Strip by a truck, displaying a busty woman in barely-there lingerie and the words WANNA PARTY WITH ME? Along with a phone number. Something in  Brenna’s chest tightened, and indeed, already she understood that she’d landed in a place of true contradiction—more specifically, a place where manicured lawns and hookers coexisted peacefully.

Continuing on, she passed families complete with baby strollers followed by groups of young women in slinky dresses clearly headed out clubbing. Limousines sleekly traveled the same streets as crowded city buses. Mexican men stood on corners foisting cards bearing pictures of nude call girls and their phone numbers at every person who passed by, regardless of age or gender. When Brenna unknowingly accepted one and on it found  Bambi, age 21 , she flinched and let it drop, only then realizing the walkway was littered with them. Sin literally covered the ground here.

Approaching the Paris Hotel, Brenna spotted the café that fronted the building, looking much like she imagined the cafés that lined the Champs-Elysées in the real Paris, where she hoped to go someday. The Vegas version of the Eiffel Tower shadowed the street side eatery, and she couldn’t help being delighted by Damon’s choice of restaurant. She knew it wasn’t really Paris, but she was willing to enjoy the imitation and happy to be reimmersed in the more opulent aspects of Sin City.

That’s when she spotted him, already seated and perusing the menu. He wore two small hoops in both earlobes, and even sitting down, his muscular frame made his simple vintage Ramones T-shirt and ripped, faded jeans look like the height of fashion. The mere sight of him caused her breasts to swell within the confines of her bra, her jeans feeling snugger at the crux of her thighs and making her tingle.

He didn’t see her, of course—because she looked so different from the last time he’d encountered her—but that gave her a chance to pause and study him privately, from a distance, for longer than she ever had before.

When he raised his eyes to a waitress, pointing to a selection from the wine list, his brown gaze sparkled so vibrantly that Brenna’s heartbeat kicked up. The way the young waitress smiled down at him, Brenna knew she’d caught that heart-stopping twinkle, as well. He smiled back at the girl, another thing Brenna had never witnessed, at least not at length, and—oh my—it was so stunning she nearly melted into the sidewalk.

And she had to spend a week with him? Concentrating on work ? Trying to hide her lust ?

Trying to fight it?

She let out a sigh—just as Damon’s gaze fell on her .

He must have felt me looking at him.

Except he clearly didn’t recognize her, still. Which was at once embarrassing…and

thrilling.

move on a woman using only his eyes. And very effectively, too. Because his expression was blatantly sensual, sexual, the look of a man silently making a

Oh God, Kelly was right—Damon Andros actually thought she was hot!

Trying her damnedest to be “new Brenna,” she took her best shot at offering him an easy smile, then made her way inside the hotel to reach the gated patio enclosing the café. On her way, she lectured herself—but not with her usual don’t need a man mantras. Now she had switched over to: You can do this. You can be cool and confident and sexy. You can be new Brenna.