Doctored Vows - Chapter 12

I stop pretending my hands are a shawl to wordlessly ask the hotel receptionist where I’m meant to conceal my purse in my outfit—if you can call it an outfit.

“My purse is in my room with my room card. If it were with me, I’d give you my ID.”

“I’m sorry, Ms.—”

“It’s Doctor. Doctor Nikita Hoffman.”

I hate the person I am being, but I also hate the gawks I’ve been getting for the past ten minutes when I refused Zoya, Aleena, and Shevi’s begs for me to join them as a contestant at the bikini competition, so I had to leave the “competitors only” section of the hotel’s outdoor facilities.

Our ride in the elevator exposed that they are monitored, so now I am wondering if I’m being eyeballed because I’m wearing dental floss in the foyer of a five-star hotel or because rumors are already circulating about how I got a penthouse suite comped for next to nothing.

“If someone could grant me access to my room, I will gladly… show… them… my…” My words are spaced more and more when a man with a devastatingly handsome face enters my peripheral vision.

Maksim is approaching the guarded door Zoya, Aleena, and Shevi were ushered through seconds after I wished them good luck. He isn’t alone. A beautiful blonde is at his right. They look cozy, like they could possibly know each other intimately.

It has me worried that Zoya is right.

Perhaps he is married, and I just gave up the opportunity to find out.

“Is it too late to enter the bikini competition?” When the clerk’s lips tilt, I say, “I haven’t done nowhere near as much charity work this year.”

“I can check for you, Dr. Hoffman.”

“Please call me Nikita.” When her bewildered expression grows, I lower my chin and balance it above my chest.

“And I guess a doctorate in medicine is charitable enough. It isn’t like I’m doing it for the money.” I laugh like my bank account isn’t down to its last dollar. “Not yet, anyway. Hopefully never.”

Loathing the imbecile I am portraying, I hook my thumb to the bar. “I’ll wait over there for my friends. Hopefully one of their bikinis has a hidden pocket sewn into it somewhere.”

If researchers need more proof that sleep deprivation is the equivalent of being under the influence, they just got it.

I make it halfway to the bar before a dozen immoral stares have me twirling like a ballerina.

“The pool entrance?” I ask the clerk while pointing to the door Maksim walked through only moments ago.

“That is the entrance for the competitors,” the clerk advises, her tone apologetic. “If you wish to attend as a spectator, you’ll need to enter via the guest entrance.” Her following words are barely whispers.

“And pay an entrance fee.” Her throat bobs before she says, “I can place it on your room tab.”

“Of a room I don’t have access to?”

She acts as if I never spoke. “It’s two thousand rubles and tax deductible. I will forward a receipt for your donation to your email.” She works so fast that the whoosh of an email being sent sounds from her computer a second before she signals for a man waiting in the roped-off section to move forward.

After breathing out my annoyance—and perhaps a smidge of nerves—I cross the foyer that appears far larger than it did when I checked in.

“It is okay. You’re fine and dressed.” My last word is solely for my swirling-down-the-drain confidence. I’ve never felt more naked, and I’ve had sex. It was just under the covers with the lights out like my self-pleasing expedition last night.

I didn’t even feel this exposed when Maksim yanked my pants to my knees in a well-lit bathroom.

The heaviness on my shoulders slackens when I’m buzzed into a tropical paradise worthy of its hefty price tag. The landscaped grounds are brimming with people of all genders and ages, and the lazy river has several hotel guests floating by on inflatable pool toys.

The further I merge into the bustling space, the more I smile. I thought the event would be as tactless as its stigma implies, but the vibe is more happening than sleazy.

People are laughing and talking, a DJ is playing the latest hits in the far corner of the beautifully landscaped gardens, and a handful of women with heads of silver strands are tacking competition numbers onto their sequined bikini tops.

The leader of the pack has a rocking body for a person her age, and her confidence makes the signs of age on her face nonexistent.

“Good luck,” I encourage her as I veer past.

Her eyes twinkle with kindness when she replies, “I would offer you the same, but I don’t think you’ll need it, sweetheart. You are beautiful.”

Her praise isn’t the first I’ve heard today, but it is the first time I’ve believed it since it wasn’t delivered with a sexual proposition. “Thank you, but I’m not entering. I am here supporting my friends.”

I smile when she pretends to wipe sweat from her brow, and then I force my hands to my sides.

“Much better,” she assures me, clearly missing the nerves fluttering in my stomach.

When the contestants are called to the stage area, I make a beeline for a bar to its left. It looks like it belongs on a beach in Bali.

Leis hang from the thatched roof, and coconuts are spread across the battered wood surface. It looks so worn you would swear it has been here for years, not the two months this hotel has been operating.

“What can I get you?” asks a bartender with a cute smile and shaggy, surfer-boy hair.

“Ah…” As he places a coaster down in front of me, I scan the shelves behind him like I don’t know I will only order tap water. I learned the hard way how expensive bottled water is when I graduated with honors. “I think I’ll stick with water. I don’t want to become dehydrated.” My confidence takes another hit when I’m forced to ask, “It’s free, right?”

I breathe a little easier when he jerks up his chin.

After filling a cocktail glass with water and adding two olives so I don’t look like a loser, he places it in front of me and then angles his head. “You’re the girl from the buffet, right? The one who arrived late with her friend?”

My balk is louder than my reply. “Yes. That’s me.”

He steps back before fanning his arms wide. “Then why the hell are you drinking tap water? The bar is your oyster, baby. You can have anything your heart desires.”

“Huh?”

He smiles like my daftness is cute. “You’re staying in the penthouse. That means everything in the hotel is free.”

The thudding of my penny-pinching heart echoes in my reply. “Everything?” When he nods, I ask, “What about the steakhouse restaurant on the second floor?”

“Everything.” He says one word as if it is several. “You can have anything your heart desires, and it’ll be at the Ivanovs’ expense.”

Like a genie being summoned from a lamp, Maksim exits a poolside cabana closest to the stage. An unlit cigarette hangs from his mouth, and his business attire has been switched for board shorts and a black T-shirt. He’s casual, sexy, and dangerous—the very epitome of what I imagined while bringing myself to climax.

My pulse spikes when his head suddenly cranks to the side. His lips quirk around his cigarette when he unearths the owner of the heated stare. I would like to say that is his only response to my presence. Regretfully, it isn’t. His brows also knit, which scours his forehead with a scowling groove.

After dragging his eyes down my body, he lights his cigarette and takes in a long draw, hopeful it will hide the tic his jaw got when his eyes landed on my almost naked derriere.

I usually loathe anything that causes unnecessary stress on your body, but I can’t help but be mesmerized by the chain of smoke that leaves his mouth as he drinks in the bottom half of my bikini for the second time.

Since I’ve yet to take a seat, my ass is hanging out for the world to see, and the balling of Maksim’s hands announces he finds that as unacceptable as I do.

He looks seconds from fetching me the towel I’ve been seeking since I left the suite, but before he can, the blonde he was with earlier parts the thick, curtained walls of the cabana he just left before she steps through them.

Her hair is fluffed out, her cheeks are rosy, and her bikini is as minuscule as mine. She is gorgeous—and she knows it.

After plonking onto a barstool in defeat, I set to work on drowning my sorrows. “Bourbon on the rocks, please.”

When my sneaky glance at the poolside cabana fails to have my eyes landing on Maksim and his friend, I add, “And my friend will have…?”

When I twist to face the unnamed man waiting to be served, he smirks like he knows jealousy is fueling my motives before saying, “Make them a double, and hold the ice.”