Dear Readers,
ALL SHOOK UP is my first contemporary romance novel. Set in Las Vegas, it is the playful, rollicking, and sexy story of a strong-willed American, Lucy Bennett and a proud aristocratic Englishman, Colin Montgomery.
Please read the first chapter of Lucy and Colin’s story. I’ll keep you updated to where you can find this book in its entirety.
Cheers!
Elizbeth Holcombe
WINNER! All Shook Up won first place in Long Contemporary Romance! Spring Into Romance 2006, Romance Writers of America, San Diego
Advance Praise for ALL SHOOK UP!
“Pride and Prejudice set in Las Vegas...All Shook Up sparkles.”
Kathleen Gilles Seidel, award-winning author of A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity ( St. Martin’s Press, 2006)
ALL SHOOK UP by Elizabeth Holcombe
Chapter One: "Viva Las Vegas"
"Have a hunka hunka good time in Vegas!" The sidewalk Elvis gyrated his hips at the limo as if he was going to shag it.
Colin Montgomery rolled his eyes and opened his briefcase. Only someone completely mental could want a "hunka hunka" of anything in this city. He was only here because one of his father's publicity stunts had landed him in an Iceland hospital.
The light at Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard changed to green. The limo rolled smoothly away from the faux King of Rock n' Roll.
Ignoring the glitz and come hither blinking lights outside of the tinted window, Colin took a fax out of his briefcase and rested it on the lap of his Saville Row suit. He stared at the cover sheet recalling the time his father threatened to find him a new mum by producing and starring in "Who Wants to Marry a Billionaire?" If Colin let his widowed father find a trophy-wife on the BBC, perhaps he wouldn't have had to step in as temporary President of The Montgomery, his father's mega resort in Las Vegas.
"I see Elvis!" said Geoff Bingham, a lanky, ginger-haired bloke, who Colin had once met in Oxford University, and now sat in the limo with him.
"Again?" Colin glanced out of the window. Another Elvis stood on the sidewalk posing with a trio of women who wore huge plastic wedges of cheese on their heads.
"I like Elvis!" Geoff said brightly. "Don't you?"
"Not recently." Colin tried to concentrate on his fax but he couldn't put it out of his mind why Geoff Bingham was here. Until Colin had boarded the Montgomery Air 747 in Heathrow many jetlagged hours ago, he had no idea that The Montgomery resort required an art curator.
A North American Van Lines lorry motored in front of the limo carrying a vast fine arts collection. Colin's parents had acquired a lot of art. But since his mother's death ten years ago, her portion of the collection had been locked away in storage. It was the only thing his father had ever done that Colin had unconditionally supported. He planned to find out if his father had changed his mind and sent the art his late wife had collected to Las Vegas. He had to be discrete. His mother's charity depended on it.
"Is that The Bellagio? Look at those fountains! Bloody brilliant!" Geoff announced.
Colin blinked through the wooziness brought on by crossing seven time zones and reached for a bottle of Evian from the mini-bar. The Arctic air-conditioning blasting inside the limo curdled his tongue to parchment. It was in the triple digits outside. And minus ten in here. He drained the bottle and reached for another. Then he attempted to get up to speed on the vital statistics of The Montgomery. He didn't want to be caught with his trousers down like he had when he learned about the art gallery.
He folded back the cover sheet.
"Blimey! That lion is huge!" Geoff exclaimed, as they rolled past the MGM Grand.
"Huge...," Colin mumbled, suppressing the urge to toss Geoff out into stardust and neon and let him walk.
"There's a couple of Parrotheads, whatever they are, carrying a...a Jamaican Jim's Yard Long Margarita. Looks refreshing. Maybe I'll try one. You, Colin?"
"Certainly not." As long as Colin kept his thoughts on business he might survive the next nine weeks in this vulgar city. The property was due to open in nine weeks. He was head of his mother's memorial charitable trust. Managing the Vegas property until it opened couldn't be much different, only somewhat larger.
He consulted the fax.
Forty-story hotel tower with 2,675 rooms. Twenty-one food and beverage establishments. Two entertainment showrooms. Two nightclubs. 72,000 square feet of retail space...
The property was a bloody monster. Colin's tie suddenly felt a little more constricting. He reached for the Evian and took a healthy swig.
His father's fortune was based on cleverly filling in marketing gaps and putting his name to them. Vegas already had Paris, New York, Venice, and Egypt. Now he was giving Las Vegas a slice of England.
He turned to the next page.
"What is a Wayniac?" Geoff asked. "I see a whole group of them in front of The Excalibur."
"I wouldn't know, but I hope there's a cure." Colin continued reading.
Projected Annual Gaming Revenue, $8 Billion; Projected Annual Visitor Volume, 35 Million.
Gaming revenue. Of course. His father cared little about investing and using the interest for philanthropy. That was Colin's job.
He crinkled the fax in his fists, and then quickly relaxed his grip, folded the paper, and slipped it into his briefcase. He had to keep his demeanor even, professional, dignified, and impenetrable. His mother's charity depended on it.
The limo slid into the left turn lane. The Montgomery loomed into view on the other side of Las Vegas Boulevard, across from The Luxor's sleek black pyramid.
"Bloody hell," Colin breathed.
"It's breathtaking," Geoff said.
Breathtakingly awful.
"The blue neon is a nice touch. What do they say? Bling bling," Geoff said. "Very Vegas. Fits in with the other resorts on The Strip quite nicely."
While his friend was waxing poetically in the American vernacular, Colin held himself together, tightening his jaw, dwelling in silence, and trying not to perspire beneath his suit.
"It reminds me in a way of...," Geoff began.
"Pemberbrook," Colin said. The family estate in Derbyshire. His home. A soft place to fall. Sanctuary. This monstrosity was the dead opposite.
"The Montgomery" was emblazoned across the forty story high pediment in brass and electric blue neon. Violet and electric blue neon outlined the massive columns of the enormous structure. High atop the tower sat a golden crown that would be way too big even for King Kong. The crown had triangular windows surrounded by tire-sized faux-jewels that sparkled lavishly in the setting desert sun. Colin wanted to tell the driver to turn around and take him back to the airport.
The caravan pulled smoothly through the construction entrance. It by-passed the main entrance drive flanked by rows of enormous topiaries and an expanse of lawn glistening in the spray of a torrential sprinkler system. Foregoing the more elegant and obvious entrance to the building, the driver pulled the limo into a walled-off area marked in red painted letters on the white cinderblock wall: "Reserved Parking," while the lorry continued on further around the back of the building.
Colin sighed deeper than he ever had. This was home for nine weeks.
In minutes he and Geoff were walking down a private corridor wallpapered in crimson and gold flocking that terminated at a pair of shiny brass lift doors with one button: "up". To the private penthouse no doubt. But Colin wasn't ready to give into jetlag just yet. He needed to find a Mr. Aaron Pearlman, his father's Executive Assistant for the Vegas property, and let him know he was here. He grasped the brass handle of a door opposite the lift and yanked it open. He'd try the lobby first. Someone had to be about.
"You wouldn't happen to have a map, would you?" Geoff asked. "I need to find the gallery loading dock."
Colin pointed silently up to a brass sign with looping elegant script pointing to the "Lobby and Casino".
"I'll start with the lobby then," Geoff said.
They rounded a corner and stopped dead in their tracks.
"Crikey," Geoff gasped.
Colin immediately summoned harsher expletives using various combinations of the "F" word, but kept them to himself.
He gazed up and up at a golden replica of Big Ben rising phallus-like from a glittering, twinkling, flashing London skyline. The clock face, at least ten stories above the casino level, was encrusted with crystals and outlined in golden neon high above the London backdrop of the casino. The overwrought lighting and sparkle evoked the bloody Blitz, but instead of Nazis, the city was being sacked by the Glittering Gods of Tacky.
Colin walked into the space in the same languorous awestruck pace when he had visited the great European cathedrals, face upturned to the ceiling. Instead of murals of Heaven and angels this ceiling was full of twinkle lights with a silhouette of Mary Poppins with her umbrella and Harry Potter on his broomstick. The space was hundreds and hundreds of square feet wide and tall. Colin lowered his gaze and suddenly felt highly outnumbered by the rows and rows of fruit machines.
"Americans call these 'slots'," Geoff said, admiring a row of Elvis-themed machines with little glowing plastic figures of "The King" in his jumpsuit. Next to those machines stood a bank of Beatles machines, and next to those, James Bond machines.
Colin walked past a shiny red double-decker bus in the middle of a circular bar. He glanced up at the top of the bus. Were those stripper poles?
Gaming tables fanned out from the bar into aisles between the rows of fruit machines. Colin and Geoff strolled past rows of tables, roulette, black jack, craps, and what all.
"I'm going to strike out in another direction," Geoff said. "If I find anyone I'll give you a shout." Then, hands in the pockets of his Miami Vice-style white sports coat, he strolled off.
Colin glanced around for the front desk. All he saw to indicate that one existed in this frightfully mercenary melee of one-armed-bandits was a sign pointing to a staircase. In elegant back-lit brass script is read: "Lobby".
Feeling a lot like Livingstone looking for Stanley, he walked down a wide, red-carpeted stair case with brass railings that swept in a gentle curve down to a scaled-down Tower Bridge which spanned an indoor waterway. A scaled-down Thames? Colorfully-painted narrow houseboats, like those along English waterways, sat tranquilly in the azure-colored water looking like some marine gypsy caravan. More gaming tables and crimson-cushioned banquettes ringed the inside of the little vessels. Private and oddly quaint gaming halls inside a Disneyfication of his homeland. And somewhere on this property there was an art gallery, which, Colin vowed, would not spill secrets that had no business being in Las Vegas.
He crossed the faux Tower Bridge with its Victorian spires outlined in twinkle lights. Where was the front desk? He had done nothing more constructive than fight the prickling sensation that he fallen down some neon-encrusted rabbit hole into a warped reality. And there wasn't a bottle that said "Drink Me" to make the journey through his father's brand of England more tolerable.
The sound of a crowd near the base of the glittering Big Ben drew his attention to another forest of fruit machines. Colin headed down the rows, his pace even, arms stiffly at his sides, preparing to greet his father's staff as their temporary boss.
Colin was ready to meet and greet. He never left anything to chance in public. His suit was immaculately-tailored to all six-foot-two of his body. He had shaved in the airplane lavatory. He had tamed down the waves and curls of his hair with a little product. First impressions were crucial in business. In England or Las Vegas--
His shoes skidded on the carpeting. He nearly fell off balance when he saw her.
A woman, her back to him, stood at the base of the big clock. She was a good twenty steps away, but the immediate sight of her had caused him to stop dead in his Burberry's.
At first his gaze was riveted to her feet clad in atomic green trainers, but it quickly ascended up her incredibly long legs clad in low-waist blue jeans. What was at first an appreciative glance of a nice pair of legs, edged into a predatory stare at the small of her back. A smooth sliver of tanned skin was visible between the denim and her military green tank top. Colin's eyes widened when he spied a small starburst tattoo the size of his fingertip over the swell of her right hip. Warmth radiated across his face when he took in her straight shoulder-length dark blonde hair which brushed silkily over tanned shoulders. He had never been seduced so completely by a woman's back before. Bloody unprofessional.
Before he got caught staring, he turned away and stood face to face with Elvis.
Was this entire city infested with them, like rats?
"You must be the boss man's boy," Elvis said.
The fake King of Rock and Roll stood resplendent and proud in his studded white jumpsuit and matching cape. The grease in his soot black pompadour glistened in the down-lighting. He offered his hand festooned with enough gold and rhinestone rings to rival the lights outside?
"Nice to meet you," Colin said taking his hand. Why was an Elvis impersonator in an England-themed resort?
"I'm Pearlman," Elvis said grinning out of one corner of his mouth. "Aaron Pearlman."
The man might as well have had a joy-buzzer instead of gold rings. Colin released the hand-shake with a jolt.
"Your daddy said you might be surprised to have an ETA as your executive assistant," he said still shooting Colin that lopsided "Elvis" grin. "Don't worry, son, the King's motto and mine, is 'TCB'." He pointed to a gold lightning bolt dangling off of a chunky gold chain nestled on a swarthy mat of black chest hair. The lightning bolt was encircled with the letters TCB. "That's Taking Care o' Business," Pearlman said.
Colin folded his arms, steadied his gaze, pursed his lips and gave a slight nod as if he understood rather than being completely confused. "Do you impersonate Elvis all of the time?"
There was a commotion at the base of the fake Big Ben. The crowd had turned around and was staring at Colin and his executive assistant.
"I don't impersonate the King," Pearlman replied a little defensively. "ETA means Elvis Tribute Artist. I have higher standards. I perform in one of the nightclubs here, in the after hours show."
Colin used his poker face to stifle the smirk rising to his lips. Higher standards and Las Vegas. What a bloody oxymoron.
The crowd was moving toward him.
"Would you like to see the private penthouse?" Pearlman asked. "Have some dinner? Relax? Get over jetlag?" "Yes, to all three." Colin glanced at the approaching tide of humanity.
"Is that him?" one man wearing a security uniform asked Pearlman.
"Yes," he replied, raising his be-ringed hands in the universal gesture for stay-back. "Mr. Montgomery just arrived from England and needs to get his bearings. Call me tomorrow after we work out a schedule."
Despite his unusual appearance, Pearlman seemed to know exactly what Colin needed at that moment.
The crowd halted. Colin faced them, feeling the heat of their stares.
Clasping his hands behind his back, he nodded confidently at them. "Thank you for your loyalty to my father." That sounded sincere. He meant it. "I will speak to each of you by appoint--"
Geoff suddenly appeared at the base of Big Ben next to a tall, slender, Nordic-looking man in a conservative suit.
"Luce! Don't do it! It's not safe!" Nordic man bolted for the woman with the tattoo.
Then she flew cleanly out of his reach and out of sight. Colin's mouth dropped open.
The crowd suddenly turned and surged back toward the base of the big clock. Colin and Pearlman followed them.
"Dammit, Luce!" the Nordic man shouted. "I told you not to try that out!"
The woman was not flying actually. She was wearing some sort of blue harness beneath her bum. It was nearly the same color as her jeans. That's why Colin hadn't noticed it before. She stopped with a jerk in front of the clock's face and wrapped her hands around one of the blue neon-edged hands.
"It's sooooo cool up here!" She pushed the hand up from quarter to eight, using both of her arms, grunting, until the hand was pointing directly down at them.
Colin jumped when a selection from the collected works of The Rolling Stones ripped through the cathedral of British tacky. "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" cut the air with the subtle melodic embrace of a rocket launch.
Geoff started too, looked wildly around, and then broke into a grin. His reedy body jerked and gyrated to the music.
Colin glanced up at the woman called "Luce" who was bobbing her head, long hair flowing, arms pumping up and down, legs dancing on air, hips swinging, her shirt riding up that tanned torso revealing the curvy underside of a pale green bra. Did any other hot-blooded male looking up at her feel as flushed as he did that very moment?
What added to the sheer seductiveness of her dance on air was her spirit that seemed to fill the entire space. She looked so free and weightless. Like a sexy angel in denim with a green bra. Something to be desired. Colin must be mad to think like this when he was here to be professional, dignified, and to keep his mother's memory from being tainted.
"Should she be up there?" he asked Pearlman.
Then the song ended, but her dancing didn't.
"Big Ben plays a different English rock song every half hour," Aaron offered. "Wakes up the gamblers."
Perfect for the hung over ones stumbling about looking for the breakfast buffet no doubt, Colin thought.
"Lucy!" Pearlman shouted. "Come back down! The boss man's here!"
"This is AWESOME!" she laughed, pressing the button on a small box dangling from a cable separate from the one that held her aloft. She slowly lowered toward the ground, down below the face of Big Ben. The cable jerked hard.
"Oh, shit!" she blurted out fumbling for the control box. It fell from her hands and swayed back and forth banging into Big Ben's face a couple of times, loosening a few handfuls of sequins, before catching on one of the clock hands about two yards beyond her reach.
Lucy hung about forty feet above their heads. Too far for her to disengage from her harness and jump.
Colin continued to look up at her and at the box below dangling from the clock hand. "Is there someone you can contact to get her down?" he asked Pearlman.
He had barely gotten his question out when the man produced a walkie talkie from beneath his studded cape. "Security?...Has the theatre staff left for the evening?...They have?...Alright…" He cut his eyes quickly at Colin and then said in a lower tone. "Prince Charles is in the building…Yes, he is…right here. He'll need his key card…all access…Thank you. Thank you very much." He put the walkie talkie back under his cape.
"Prince Charles?" Colin asked.
Pearlman shrugged. "Your code name."
"Great," he sighed. Pointing upward, he asked, "Is help on the way or not?"
"This is a theatre prop, for the Harry Potter and Mary Poppins show," he offered, "and the theatre people have left the building for the night...I'll be right back." He pulled out the walkie talkie again as he walked away from Colin. "Is anyone from maintenance still in the building?"
"Is anyone going to get me down from here?" Lucy shouted. "I'm getting a little nauseous!"
Nordic man looked up. "I told you not to do that!" He looked at Colin and held out his hand. "I'm so sorry I haven’t introduced myself. Got a little distracted, you know. I'm Jay Bennett of Bennett Luxe Interior Designs."
"He showed me the gallery," Geoff chimed in. "The space is brilliant. Jay designed it as well as the rest of the property interiors."
Colin gave his hand a perfunctory handshake. "Colin Montgomery." A man as conservatively dressed as this man didn't look like he would create such outlandish designs.
"Jay and I spoke on the phone before," Geoff said, with a weird sparkle in his eyes. "I sent him photographs of the collection to inspire him."
"It is a wonderful collection," Jay Bennett said glancing up at the woman.
Colin wondered which-if any particular painting had inspired this, but it was neither the time nor the place.
"Ex-coooose me!" Lucy shouted, "Is anyone going to help me?--Ulp!"
"What was that?" Jay asked.
"Me trying not to get sick!"
Pearlman was taking forever. Unless he wanted to be rained on by Lucy's lunch, Colin had to take action himself.
He centered the control box in his sights, at the big red arrow-shaped buttons on it. One pointed up, the other pointed down. The box couldn't be more than ten yards overhead. An easy distance if he was on his favorite Derbyshire cricket pitch. Only this distance was vertical, and he didn't have a ball at his immediate disposal. He needed a worthy substitute. He regarded the "slots". The glowing Elvi all in a row looked to be the right weight.
Colin wrapped his hand around one and gave it a hard yank. A few sparks landed on the cuff of his shirt when he freed Elvis from the machine which suddenly came alive with an ear-piercing beeping. No matter, he needed more of the plastic versions of America's "king". Colin wrested three more Elvi off of the machines quadrupling the ear bleeding sound. A man who looked like an extra from "The Sopranos" parted from the crowd and lumbered up to him shouting and gesturing angrily. Colin heard nothing. The man grabbed his sleeve, but Colin cleanly pulled from the man's grasp.
He dropped all but one of his spoils to the garish carpeting. He looked up at the woman who stared down at him, her face quite pale, and a hand over her mouth.
Taking careful aim, wishing with all his heart that he was on the cricket pitch instead of here, Colin hurled Elvis toward the down arrow on the control box.
Lucy flinched and covered her face with both hands as the plastic King struck the red down arrow. She fell a few yards and stopped with a jerk.
The crowd cheered and hooted.
Colin quickly grabbed up another Elvis. With the same precision as the first, he threw it against the down arrow. Clutching her belly, Lucy dropped a couple of yards until she dangled about fifteen feet from the floor.
The crowd cheered louder.
Colin grabbed another Elvis and hit his mark a third time.
She was now ten feet above the floor.
The crowd was louder, drowning out the fruit machine alarms.
Perspiring despite the air conditioning, Colin threw the last Elvis and Lucy dropped to only five feet above the floor. He reached up and unhooked her harness. She practically fell into his arms. Her body was slightly limp, as he held her before setting her gently down on the floor.
"Steady enough to stand?" he asked, his hands cupped firmly around her waist, bunching her shirt up slightly, touching her bare skin, feeling the warmth radiate into his fingertips. His breathing was slightly labored, but it had nothing to do with tossing plastic Elvi into the air.
She looked up at him. Face slowly regaining color. Emerald eyes changing from dull to a disarming brightness. She was attractive in a fresh, unfettered American way. She wore no make up, didn't need to. Light freckles dotted her cheeks which changed from pallor to the hue of a wild rose. The rest of her face was dusted in the natural lightly bronze hue that English women tried to get on Mediterranean holidays but ended up looking scorched rather than healthy.
The corners of her full lips turned up in a smile that brightened her eyes.
"Thank you," she said. "I can stand on my own."
Those brilliant eyes. What did she say?
"You can let go of me now."
As if he had been poked awake from a jetlagged-induced dream that he wanted to linger inside of, Colin jerked back, blinking hard. "Sorry...yes, of-of course."
Eyeing him head to toe, she said, "Nice suit. Who died?"
Jay Bennett stepped up to her while stabbing his index finger at his wrist watch. "Do you know what time it is?"
She looked up at Big Ben. "Eight-ten."
"I am ten minutes late for--" He glanced at Colin and then at Geoff who was currently staring at Jay's bum. "I am late. Can you take care of things while I'm gone?" He looked back at Colin, offering an apologetic shrug. "It's great that you're here since your father can't be. I wish I could give you a tour of the place, but I am late for a very important appointment. But I'm leaving you in the very capable hands of my design partner who knows every inch of the property as well as I do."
Jay strolled off with Geoff's gaze bolted to his backside. Bingham was too desperate. Jay was clearly a heterosexual.
Colin glanced around. The crowd was still there. If they were waiting for his next trick, they would only see one, which would be him turning back into acting President of The Montgomery. "Who is the design partner?"
He hoped whoever that person was, he dressed more like Jay Bennett rather than Aaron Pearlman.
"That would be me," the woman he had rescued said thrusting her hand forward. "Lucy Bennett."
Colin shook her hand wondering for the life of him why he asked the next question. "Jay Bennett is your husband?"
"My brother."
The languid arch of her pale eyebrow and twinkle in her eyes gave Colin a slight start. He had meant nothing by his question. He was here to maintain his father's investment, keep his mother's secret, and not to entertain slightly lecherous thoughts about Lucy Bennett's sparkling eyes, long legs, and little star tattoo on her hip.
Jay Bennett was her brother. Bloody unfortunate. Suddenly, the overwhelming tide of jetlag weariness caught up to him like blurry, nauseous flotsam. He needed to regroup before he took another step in his new but temporary role which seemed to grow more complicated by the minute.
"Do you want a tour?" Lucy asked.
"Perhaps, in the morning," he said. "I'll have Mr. Pearlman ring you."
He turned abruptly around and left Lucy standing at the foot of a glittery Big Ben as he went in search of his executive assistant in a studded white jumpsuit.
Colin had once heard that if it weren't for Hoover Dam, one of the man-made wonders of the modern world, Las Vegas wouldn't exist. He hated that bloody dam.