by Lori Ryan
“Are they?” Jack asked.
Now it was Gabe’s turn to be quiet.
“No. Not anymore,” he finally said. “I thought for a while there I might start a new chain or something, but….”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. He knew Jack understood.
“But you’re finished,” Jack said, reading Gabe’s mind.
“Yeah. I am.”
“All right. I’ve got a few groups that would be interested in buying you out. I don’t think there’s any single investor ready to take over your majority share, but I’ve got some ideas. Let me make some calls and I’ll get back to you in a few days.”
“Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it,” Gabe said, refusing to question whether he was doing the right thing. He still had no idea what he’d do once the deal was done. He didn’t actually need to work, but the idea of retiring and sitting on his ass at the age of thirty-nine didn’t appeal either.
“And I have an idea for a new project for you,” Jack said, his tone cryptic.
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
Jack Sutton was known for having the Midas touch, and he was also always trying something new and interesting—which was exactly what Gabe needed. Passing up anything Jack offered would be a mistake.
“I’ll tell you about it the next time I see you. You coming home for Maddie’s birthday party?” Jack asked.
“Of course,” he said and a grin found its way to his face before he realized it. No matter what was going on in his life, the mention of Jack and Kelly’s two-year-old daughter always brought a smile to his face. “I’ll be in town sometime tomorrow morning. I’ll see you guys Saturday.”
“Great. I think she’s expecting you to buy her a pony,” Jack joked.
Gabe knew perfectly well Kelly would kill him if he spoiled Maddie that much. Besides, you didn’t buy two-year-olds ponies, did you?
Gabe laughed and stepped out onto the terrace that overlooked New York City. The night air was warm, having only dropped a few degrees when the sun slipped out of sight beneath the horizon that evening. He leaned against the edge of the railing about to press Jack for more details about his mysterious project, when noise from below drew his attention.
“Hey, Jack, I gotta go—I’ll see you Saturday,” he said and disconnected.
Gabe looked down on the front entrance of the hotel. The paparazzi were hawking the door. It was expected tonight with PJ arriving, but he hadn’t thought they’d see quite the number jockeying for position on the sidewalk outside the hotel.
What the hell? Three more of the vulture-like paps had just walked up.
Gabe grabbed his iPhone and punched PJ’s name into a search engine then scanned the top headlines…. He bit back a curse when the news flashed on the small screen and didn’t have to watch much of the video to know why the scumbags waited at the hotel entrance to get at her tonight.
Kurt Tolleson was a dirtbag who cheated on PJ like the idiot that he was. Gabe couldn’t imagine why a man would be willing to walk away from PJ Cantrell. An asshat like Kurt Tolleson had never deserved her in the first place.
When Gabe asked PJ about it shortly after the breakup appeared in the news, she’d been good and ticked off. But this? Having the public see her humiliation…. She had to be reeling from this.
Movement on the street below pulled Gabe’s attention back to the front entrance and he watched as PJ’s car pulled up to the curb. The driver stayed in the car while one bodyguard stepped from the front of the car and opened the back door. Where the hell was her other bodyguard?
Gabe hoped to see him appear from the back, but no. Only PJ stepped out.
He couldn’t make out her face, but he knew it was her. Her coppery red mane of hair and petite body would register with him anywhere. Register and make him hard as a rock in an instant, though he’d learned how to control that reaction around her. They were friends and nothing more.
Gabe growled and went back inside, picking up the hotel phone that sat on a side table near the balcony doors. Whenever he stayed in one of his suites, his line was directly routed to the general manager of that location or to the manager-on-duty when the GM was out. He didn’t know who picked up and at the moment, he didn’t care.
“Get more security out front. PJ just arrived and she only has one bodyguard with her. Get our guys out there now,” he ordered before hanging up and going back outside.
He wanted to run down to her himself and stand between her and the world, but he wouldn’t make it down there in time.
As he watched, someone with a camera reached right past the useless man in a suit trying to block access to PJ. The camera man yanked PJ around as he held his camera up in her face, snapping off shots the whole time. It took her bodyguard too damn long to get the guy off her.
Gabe watched as his staff poured out the front doors and surrounded PJ, whisking her into the lobby and away from the crowd.
In only minutes PJ would step into the elevator. He hoped she remembered his invitation and headed to his tower instead of going up to her suite.
Two years ago, he’d told her if she was looking for privacy or a friend to talk to, she could come up to his penthouse when he was at the hotel at the same time she was—which was often. Over time, they talked more and more frequently because they were both night owls.
He hoped on a night like this, when she had to be feeling angry and hurt by the betrayal of her privacy, she’d come to him.
Shoving his keycard in his back pocket, he drew a shirt over his head before stepping out to the private elevator entrance. He knew within minutes she was on her way up. Only he, his secretary, and PJ had the key fob that would allow them to enter the penthouse elevator.
Gabe paced until the elevator chimed her arrival, and smiled slightly when PJ’s gaze fell on him immediately.
“Pru,” he breathed out, using her first name rather than the initials the world used to address her. She always laughed at him for that, but he liked her full name. Prudence Jane. No one other than her family used it any longer. When she’d been ‘discovered’ she had been using the nickname PJ and that was part of her branding to the world.
She blinked those long, sexy eyelashes his way and he saw she was fighting back tears.
“You saw?” she asked. He didn’t know if she was asking about the video or what had happened with the photographers down below, but he nodded.
“You holding up?” he asked, but he wanted to kick himself. He knew she’d say yes, even when it was clear she wasn’t okay.
“I’m okay,” she said but her teeth caught her bottom lip and he knew she was anything but okay.
He wanted to reach out and hold her, comfort her. But they’d never had that kind of relationship, though at times he felt so close to her it stunned him.
They had spent hours talking on the rooftops of his hotels, and it hadn’t been that long ago that Gabe had started to feel a lot more than friendship toward her. But Pru, so much younger than him, had never indicated she wanted more from him.
For whatever reason, Gabe Sawyer—a man who routinely dated models and actresses and other people in the spotlight—froze up a little when he got around Pru Cantrell. He was sure he came across as some stiff CEO, and he didn’t blame her for thinking that.
He was ten years older than her and was usually wearing a suit or a tux when he saw her. He glanced down at his jeans and bare feet and cringed. Well…until today.
“I just wasn’t really up to going to bed,” she said with a little laugh, and Gabe’s mind immediately filled with images of her in his bed. He pushed them aside as he always did when he was with her.
“Come inside?” Gabe asked, gesturing over his shoulder to the stairs that led to his suite. He’d never invited her in before. Would she think he was trying to take advantage? Or would she understand he just wanted to be there for her after the night she’d had?
Gabe felt his heart kick as she nodded yes and followed him up the stairs.
&n
bsp; PJ gulped and stared at Gabe’s bare feet as he led her into his suite that was an exact duplicate of hers, but located on the opposite tower of the hotel. She was in Gabe Sawyer’s hotel room. And, good lord, why couldn't she take her eyes off his feet? How were feet sexy?
They’re not.
Except those particular bare feet topped by those soft, faded jeans were distinctly sexy. They were somehow hot as hell. But she’d always appreciated his good looks.
Everything about Gabe was hot as hell, from his deep-brown eyes to his almost-black hair that sometimes got a tiny bit messy late at night—when PJ itched to comb it back into place with her fingers.
Sometimes the attraction made it difficult for her to talk coherently and PJ just clammed up around him. She felt like a teenage idiot around Gabe, not a grown woman with a career that demanded she regularly make small talk with all kinds of people. Around Gabe, she just couldn’t think of any intelligent thing to say.
Gabe didn’t seem to have any issues around her. He tossed his keycard on the table by the entrance and nodded toward the couch in the living room.
“You hungry, Pru? I was planning to make an omelet. I do mine with egg whites, but I can add whole eggs to yours. Have a seat and I’ll whip up something for us.”
He didn't seem to care that it was two in the morning, and he sure didn’t seem to be obsessing over her presence in his suite the way she was.
“Um, thanks.” She lowered herself to the couch, but then quickly got up and followed him into the kitchen, going on tip-toes to look over his shoulder as he leaned into the fridge. “You cook?”
Gabe stood, pulling a carton of eggs and an armload of veggies out of the fridge. When he spun around to answer her question, it put them almost toe to toe. PJ’s breath caught.
His gaze met hers with an intensity that made her mouth drop open in an involuntary plea for him to kiss her. OMG. PJ blinked and stepped back, realizing she’d put herself much too close to him. Much closer than he probably intended.
He’d always treated her like a friend, a kid sister even. Nothing more. With most men, that’s what she wanted—friendship.
With Gabe? Well, she’d known for a few years that she wanted a lot more than friendship from Gabe.
What am I thinking? Someone has my journal, and all of my secrets could be shared with the world at any moment…and I’m lusting after a man who’s utterly unreachable.
Gabe cleared his throat and dumped the ingredients on the counter.
“Yeah. I got tired of having room service about….” He raised his eyes to the ceiling as if calculating something in his head. “Oh, eight years ago.”
The grin he threw her way made her panties melt. PJ slipped onto one of the bar stools that lined the counter separating the kitchen from the spacious living room. Still, he continued to affect her, and she pressed her legs together to douse some of the heat she felt.
“Mmm. I tried cooking for a while for that same reason,” she said. “It g-got...complicated,” she stuttered. What an idiot.
Gabe raised his eyebrows at her as he whisked the eggs together and then tossed the vegetables to sauté in a pan on the burner.
PJ felt her cheeks burn as she tried to figure out how to explain herself without sounding like an arrogant, spoiled celebrity. Gabe helped her out.
“Oh, right, shopping. I guess going to the grocery store can be a bit tough.”
She nodded and shrugged. “My mom and I used to cook together when I was a kid. I loved it. When she was with me on tour, in the early days, she would shop and we could still cook together. But now she doesn’t go on tour with me very often. I tried having Ellis get stuff for me, but it’s weird having someone else do your shopping. You know? And grocery shopping online isn't really the same.”
Gabe nodded and turned his attention back to the stove. The smell of the melted butter and onions made her stomach growl, and she realized he really knew his way around a kitchen. Her suspicions were confirmed when Gabe placed a plate in front of her a few minutes later and she took her first bite.
She may have groaned in appreciation a little more loudly than she intended, but the omelet melted on her tongue and the sound just slipped out before she could censor herself.
Gabe stilled, his laser eyes on hers, but then quickly moved back to plating his own omelet.
“Good?” he asked, grinning again. “When did your parents leave the tour?”
“They came on tour after I left rehab and stayed until I was nineteen. By then, I had a good manager and support staff around me so they were able to go back to their lives. They come out for a week or two with me each year now, but they haven’t been with me steadily for a long time.”
PJ looked at Gabe’s intense gaze and wondered if it was inappropriate to fantasize about pulling him across the counter and stripping his shirt off to reveal his chiseled chest…. Would it be wrong to ask to have him for dessert?
So wrong, PJ. So very wrong.
She blushed and focused on her plate before she made a fool of herself. The last thing she needed to think about was sex. She had a lot bigger problems on her plate than a delicious omelet, and the simple fact that her sex life with Kurt would be plastered all over the Internet by now.
Though, for the moment, that seemed a world away; she needed to figure out who had her journal before they sold more of it. Her thoughts must have shown on her face.
“Hey,” Gabe said, his voice soft, “you thinking about that jerk again?”
PJ cleared her throat and shrugged her shoulders.
She couldn’t tell him the other part of the story, the part where her whole world could be torn down around her. The part where her family would be destroyed—they’d be more affected than she would by what might come out in the press ‘reveal.’
PJ pulled her phone from her pocket when the vibrating she’d been ignoring got to be too much. Her mom.
Are you okay?
Not even remotely, PJ thought, but she didn’t tell her mother that.
Yeah. Hanging out with a friend. Talk to you in the morning.
The next text was from Debra, her manager: Got a response out to the media. Do you want to do interviews?
No, PJ answered. She had almost a week off before her next show, and she’d decided to take it off and bury her head in the sand for a bit. I’d rather ignore Kurt and the media for now.
You got it, came Debra’s response a minute later. Debra was a lot less intense than Lydia but just as good at her job. She knew how to manage PJ’s career without managing PJ as if she was a product instead of a person.
It was why Lydia was only her tour manager. She wouldn’t be able to handle Lydia managing her world on the global basis Debra did.
A few seconds passed, and PJ knew Gabe was watching her as he ate his omelet. She tucked her phone back in her pocket and finished the last bite of her meal.
“So what else do you cook? Breakfast food only, or are you more versatile than that?” she asked and was relieved when Gabe seemed happy to go with the light conversation.
“I’m not all that bad with comfort foods—pot roast, meatloaf. I make a mean chicken pot pie,” he said with that grin that made her legs quake.
PJ wondered if maybe she was in some sort of denial. Rather than dealing with the fact someone out there had her very personal and private journal, and she could only assume would be revealing its contents to the highest bidder as soon as they could get a buyer, she was here lusting after a man who probably still thought of her as the nineteen-year-old she was when they met.
She’d been nineteen and he’d been twenty-nine. And of course, he’d seen her as a kid. He was always kind to her, respectful, making sure his hotels provided the highest level of care for her whenever she stayed in any of them.
That was one of the reasons she always inserted a clause in her contract that provided she be put up in a Grand Tower if there was one within twenty miles of her concert site. He’d always treated her the same, a
nd she assumed he still saw her as that nineteen-year-old girl.
And then, a few years ago, they started talking more, spending time together at his hotels, outside of events and fundraisers. She’d discovered she liked talking to him, and he seemed to understand her, to understand her need to have someone to simply listen without making a big deal out of who she was.
She started to see him as more than just a friend, but he’d never given any indication he saw her in any kind of romantic way. Knowing her luck, he saw her as a little sister; someone to be taken care of—not someone to sweep off her feet with a soul-wrenchingly hot kiss that would melt them both to the core like she sometimes imagined.
Not where your imagination should be headed, PJ.
“Hmm. You go from egg white and veggie omelets to heavy, rich comfort foods. What’s up with that?” She scrunched her nose at him and he laughed.
“I try to eat pretty healthy most of the time, but who doesn’t need some good comfort food once in a while? Most of the time I make stir fries or baked chicken and vegetables, but some days are mac and cheese days, right?”
PJ nodded, not able to lose the smile on her face. She really did know all about those mac and cheese days.
This felt good, just hanging out with someone who seemed to have no expectations. No agenda.
He was certainly used to being around people like her in his line of work. And, he had no reason to want something from her. He had his own money, his own fame—and he already knew she loved his hotels.
There wasn’t anything she could give him besides what he seemed to be asking for: her friendship. Even though, at times, she wanted more from him than that, there was something liberating about knowing he wasn’t trying to get something more or to use her for his own gain. She could be herself with him in a way she couldn’t with anyone else.
“Ice cream’s my weakness,” she said. “My team keeps the freezer stocked with these salted-caramel ice cream bars. They’re covered in chocolate with chunks of pretzels in them. They’re amazing.” PJ was a little mortified to realize she moaned again while talking about her ice cream bars.