One Last Bite by Heidi Betts

One Last Bite
    by Heidi Betts
     
    JACKPOT!
    WEDDING OF THE CENTURY
    Billionaire businessman Sebastian Raines wed Las Vegas Desert Sands reporter Charlotte Monroe Saturday night in a ceremony that took place in Raines’s own well-known Inferno Hotel and Casino. At the stroke of midnight, the bride walked down the candlelit aisle in a pristine white, strapless, full-length, one-of-a-kind gown reported to have cost nearly $25,000.
    The wedding party consisted only of Raines’ younger brother, Aidan, as best man; Monroe’s identical twin sister, Chloe, as matron of honor; and their young son, Jake, as ring bearer. (It may be noted that Aidan and Chloe Raines were married the previous year in a quickie wedding ceremony at one of Las Vegas’ all-night chapels. Jake is Mrs. Raines’s son from a previous relationship.) Guests included the bride’s mother and a few close friends of the couple, with an attendance of no more than fifty.
    After the short ceremony, a reception was held at the hotel, catered by the Inferno’s five-star restaurant, Avarice. Following the reception, the bride and groom were whisked away in a limousine to a nearby airstrip, where they boarded Raines’s private jet, flying off for their honeymoon in parts unknown.
    As the newly wedded couple left the reception, followed by a flock of well-wishers, all of the slot machines in the casino hit the jackpot, leaving gamblers who happened to be on the floor at that moment much richer than when they’d arrived. To this reporter’s knowledge, the occurrence was a first for Las Vegas, and an event not likely to be repeated anytime soon.
     
    Sebastian shook out the paper in his hand before holding it over the edge of the bed and letting it flutter to the floor.
    “ We sound so glamorous,” Chuck said from where she had her head tucked against his shoulder. The rest of her long, lean body draped down his side, beautifully naked and still thrumming with warmth from their latest bout of lovemaking.
    “ A midnight wedding ceremony? Jetting off to a secret, exotic locale? We are glamorous, darling.”
    “ You are,” she said with a chuckle. “I’m just the lucky lady who gets to go along for the ride.”
    He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “I’m the lucky one.”
    Even though he couldn’t see her face, he felt her smile, and it washed over him, filling his heart in a way he couldn’t ever remember it being filled before.
    “ I’m just glad they didn’t make too much of the ceremony being held at night.”
    “ I don’t think they wanted to offend their newest star reporter,” he told her.
    Since moving in with him, she’d gone from being a low-paid tabloid hack (her term, not his) writing about potato chips with celebrity attributes and aliens-among-us to being a rather highly-paid investigative reporter for one of Las Vegas’ premiere and very well-respected newspapers. True, he’d set her on the path, but only by offering to introduce her to some of his business acquaintances (which included both the owner and editor of the Desert Sands ) and reminding her that if she could figure out he was a vampire when no one else in the past couple of centuries had figured it out, she could probably blow the lid off other stories and scandals with little to no effort.
    To say she’d picked up the ball and run with it was a major understatement. She’d accepted his offer of introductions to the newspaper’s Powers That Be, but landed the job one-hundred-percent on her own. And in the six short months she’d been writing for them, she’d exposed corruption within Las Vegas’ local government and the extra-marital affair of a rival casino owner. The man’s wife had been clueless at the time, but was now filing for divorce and, thanks to the lack of a pre-nup, was expected to end up taking him for everything – including his beloved casino.
    “ I don’t think they wanted to risk pissing off the richest man in Vegas. You could own every