She only made it a few blocks from the pub before the stiletto pumps began to rub blisters on her heels. She gave up on her plans of an indignant walk to the tube station and raised a hand to the first black cab she saw. She climbed into the rear and gave the driver her destination.
She could salvage this. She’d spend the rest of her evening with her laptop, finding out everything she could about the man. From here on, she would act with the utmost professionalism. She hadn’t gotten this close to VP through years of seven-day weeks and grueling round-the-clock hours to blow it now. Her boss may have given her this assignment as some backhanded punishment—after all, it had been years since he’d wasted her on a barely five-figure deal—but there had to be some sort of cachet to landing a celebrity client like James MacDonald. Surely she could turn it into bigger accounts. But first she had to repair the damage she’d done with her big mouth.
The cab pulled up beside the imposing Victorian brick edifice of the Kensington Court Hotel. Andrea paid the driver and climbed out with a wince, once again regretting her choice in footwear. She limped into the richly decorated lobby and rode the lift to her fourth-floor room.
The lush carpeting muffled her footsteps to a whisper when she let herself in. She certainly couldn’t complain about her accommodations. She had stayed in the hotel dozens of times over the years, and each room was impeccably decorated in its own style. Her current space featured an enormous tester bed, framed by blue silk brocade draperies that spilled from a gilded corona above the headboard. She gingerly eased off her shoes, sank onto the luxurious mattress, and heaved a sigh.
She was tired, and not the kind of tired a good night’s sleep in a fluffy bed could solve.
She lay there for a long moment, then threw a glance at the clock and calculated back five hours. Her sister should just be getting supper ready in Ohio. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed.
Becky answered on the fifth ring. “Andy! Why are you calling me? Aren’t you supposed to be on a plane right now?” Something sizzled in the background, punctuated by a child’s scream.
“Did I call at a bad time?”
“No more than usual. I’m frying up some chicken for dinner—Hannah! Leave the cat alone!”
Andrea smiled. Becky was almost eight years older than Andrea, and she had three children: a nine-year-old son and three-year-old twins, a boy and a girl. “I can call back later—”
“David! Don’t hit your sister! I’m sorry, what were you saying? Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to Tahiti?”
“Change of plans. Michael booked me a consultation with some celebrity client while I’m here. I’m flying to Scotland tomorrow.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“I’d rather be in Tahiti, for sure.”
“No, I meant—”
“I know what you meant. I’m okay. What’s one more, right?”
“Oh, I don’t know, the difference between a luxury vacation and a padded room, maybe?”
Andrea chuckled despite herself. Even from Ohio, Becky couldn’t resist the urge to mother her. “It’s my job. What am I going to do, say no?”
“That’s exactly what you say. ‘Michael, I’ve planned this vacation for over a year. Find someone else to do it.’”
“I know.” The smile faded from Andrea’s face. Had it not been for the disastrous outcome of her last appointment in London, she would have said exactly that. She’d gotten away with plenty of attitude in the past based on her unmatched sales record, but in this business, she was only as good as her last deal. “I’ll be fine. Really. I’m meeting the client in Inverness tomorrow, and then we’re driving to Skye. I should be back in New York on Wednesday.”
“Maybe you should take a few days off while you’re in Scotland. Your vacation is blown anyway.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I’m staying at the client’s hotel.”
“Who’s the client?”
Andrea paused. “James MacDonald.”
The squeal that emanated from the speaker belonged to a teenage girl, not a thirty-eight-year-old mother of three. Andrea held the phone several inches from her ear until she was sure her eardrums were safe.
“And here I thought your job was completely boring!”
“Strictly business, Becks. I’ve got less than two days to put together a proposal, and he doesn’t seem like the easiest client to deal with. It’s going to be a long trip.”
“I bet you don’t even know who he is,” Becky said reprovingly.
“Oh, I know who he is.” A self-absorbed celebrity with the sexiest smile I’ve ever seen. She yanked her mind back from that precipice before she could slip over. “I need to do some research for my meeting now. I’ll call you from Skye.”
“All right, have fun,” Becky said in a singsong voice. Andrea could practically hear her grin from four thousand miles away. “I expect an autograph, by the way.”
Not likely. “Love you, Becks. Give the kids a kiss for me.”
Andrea clicked off the line and pressed her fingertips to her eyes, trying to calm the urgent thrumming of her heart. The last thing she needed was to think of her client in anything but a professional fashion. Men like MacDonald were predators—any sign of weakness and she’d never be able to shake him. She knew all too well what could happen if she succumbed to an ill-advised attraction. She’d been there once, and she wasn’t going back there again.
“Strictly business.” The steadiness of her voice in the quiet room reassured her. She took a deep breath and levered herself up off the bed. Enough procrastinating. She still had work to do.
Andrea slipped out of her suit jacket and skirt, hung them carefully in the closet, and ensconced herself in a luxurious hotel robe. Then she chose an obscure Dussek piano concerto from her phone as mood music and dragged her laptop onto her legs.
James MacDonald chef, she typed into the search box, and waited. Page after page of results appeared: restaurant reviews, interviews, television listings. Andrea clicked through to his official website first and quickly read through his bio. Born in Portree, Isle of Skye, schooled in Scotland. Completed a degree in business at the University of Edinburgh, followed by culinary training at Leiths School of Food and Wine in London. A long list of assistant and sous-chef positions at some of London’s most prestigious eateries culminated in his first restaurant, a gastropub in Notting Hill. That first location was quickly followed by smaller, more focused restaurants in Knightsbridge and Covent Garden, then Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.
Last year he had been invited to prepare his take on traditional English food for the prime minister. A few months ago he had been named a member of the Order of the British Empire for his philanthropic work with at-risk youth.
She blinked at the screen. Wonderful. She’d just insulted a member of a British chivalric order. That was a distinction not many women could claim.
Andrea moved on to the newspaper articles, all of which called him the standard-bearer for nouveau-British cuisine, then scanned a Wiki page listing each of his six restaurants. All of them had received starred reviews in the Michelin Red Guide. The Hart and the Hound, the flagship pub she’d just visited, received one of only a dozen two-star ratings in Britain.
She should have bypassed the wine and ordered dinner instead.
MacDonald couldn’t have accomplished all that by age thirty-five without a sharp mind and plenty of talent. Somehow that just stirred up her irritation. She’d half expected to find evidence he had simply ridden his looks and charm to success, but every detail pointed to hard work and sacrifice. For heaven’s sake, the man had even established a vocational cooking program for secondary-school dropouts.
“The perfect man,” she muttered. “Just ask him.”
She scrolled through the search results until gossip sites began to appear. Photos of MacDonald with a string of beautiful women—models, actresses, dancers—at exclusive parties and club openings. So he was that sort.
Never with the same woman twice.
Great. Her hand still hurt after the encounter with the last wannabe Don Juan. Now she had to spend the next three days trying to get James MacDonald’s signature on a contract while keeping things strictly professional. The fact he’d already turned her into a blithering idiot once didn’t bode well for her quick thinking.
But she’d manage. She had to. She hadn’t come this close to achieving her goals just to let a man get in her way.
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Under Scottish Stars Page 30