by Lynda Chance
But she was somewhat disconcerted to see his eyes soften briefly as he studied her. “Are you okay?”
Too shocked to speak, she nodded her head.
He turned, slammed the door shut and came around the desk, and Maria knew at once that he was seeing the gambling website on the GM’s desktop. The shit was about to hit the fan. While Treadway’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air, as seemingly, the proverbial penny dropped, Garrett placed both hands on the desk, leaning on them so hard the color disappeared from his fingers, as he observed the other man intently. “You ever heard of the Rule Corporation?” he asked in a pissed, sinister tone.
“Ahh… yes sir.”
“Good. That’ll make this easy. Get the fuck out.”
“You can’t fire me without a hearing—”
Garrett slowly stood up, his eyes never leaving the other man, watching him as if he were nothing more than a bug to be squashed. “You can choose to continue sitting there, but I promise you, you fucked up by attempting to use force on her and at the moment, my hands are itching to wrap around your fucking throat. So, I repeat. Get. The. Fuck. Out. Now.”
The man paled and began removing his personal belongings from his desk. Maria had never seen him move so fast, but she couldn’t say she blamed him. A pissed off Garrett Rule wasn’t someone you messed around with. Take note, Maria.
Within three minutes, the ex-general manager was exiting the room, cussing beneath his breath the entire time.
Left alone, Garrett turned to her. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Maria’s head was spinning. Besides the fact that Garrett Rule was a force to be reckoned with, she had only one other thought bouncing around in her head. She had to secure the hotel from the viper who’d just left their midst. “Yeah,” she replied, off-handedly rubbing her wrist as she sat down in the chair the GM had only recently vacated. Putting her hands on the keyboard, she began typing.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a booming voice.
Maria frowned, trying to stay on task. “Not now. I need to concentrate.”
“What are you doing?” he asked again, more pointedly.
“Saving your ass,” she answered, without looking up from the screen.
“Saving my ass? What the hell?”
With that, she glanced up and spared him about three seconds. “He has all the passwords, Mr. Rule. And you just humiliated him. Do you think he’s the type of man who won’t retaliate?”
He frowned down at her as if in question. “You’re changing the passwords?”
“Yes.” She looked back to the screen.
“Bank accounts?” he enquired shortly.
“Yes, but that’s not the most important thing. Not at this moment, anyway.”
“What could be more important than that?” he asked.
“In the hotel industry? OTA.”
“OTA?”
Did the man know nothing about the hotel industry? “Online travel advisor.”
“You’re expecting me to trust you?”
Her fingers stalled and she glanced back up. “Do you want to do it? Something has to be done now. He can screw the hotel in the next five minutes if we don’t do something to stop him.”
He hesitated, and then answered, “No, go ahead. And when you’re finished, come meet me in the restaurant.”
She returned her attention back to the screen. “Okay.”
Chapter Two
Garrett glanced at the time to make sure it was past noon before he ordered a bourbon and Coke. There were certain standards he always upheld, and never drinking liquor before noon was one of them. Not that he was much of a drinker anyway, but for some reason, the scene in the manager’s office had affected him adversely. Not the fact that he’d sent the fuckwad packing, that wasn’t it. It was the emotion that had run through his gut when the man had put his hand on Maria, with the sole purpose of inflicting pain and intimidation.
Straight up, Garrett had felt compelled to commit murder.
Firing the guy instead had felt only somewhat satisfying, because he’d known he was going to do that at some point anyway.
He’d damn sure assumed he’d have a day or two to get a new manager on board, but the guy was poison and had to go. So now what the shit was he supposed to do? What he knew about actually running a hotel was next to nil. Buying and reselling for a quick profit? Hell, he could do that all day with his eyes closed.
Why the hell had he wanted to keep this one anyway? The building was okay, if a bit nondescript. It was in a decent location and with the right updates and management, there was no question that it could produce a decent return. But he’d had stronger opportunities with other pieces of real estate that he’d gone ahead and flipped. So what was it about this particular hotel that had made him want to add it the corporation portfolio?
With the question lingering in his brain, he took a drink of his highball and watched as Maria walked into the restaurant, looking around her with sharp eyes. He noticed that she wasn’t just looking for him, she looked at everything around her. She saw everything around her. Her gaze went to the bar, from employee to employee as she seemed to tick them off in her head, smiling at one while keeping a neutral expression when her eyes lit on another. It became apparent to him in that moment, the girl saw everything. She was on top of everything; she knew the hotel industry, and this hotel in particular like no one else.
As she sat down across from him, the waiter brought two menus and a glass of iced tea for Maria without waiting for her to order. The young man set it in front of her and she said, “Thanks, Mario,” with a smile before pushing her menu to the side.
“I’ll give you a few moments to decide,” he said before turning away.
Garret flipped open the menu but didn’t glance down. He continued to study the woman opposite him, looking for any signs of distress on her features. Thankfully, he saw none. “You look like you survived the situation all right,” he commented.
She tossed him a look. “You just fired a piece of scum who couldn’t have deserved it more. Actually, I’m pretty damn pleased.”
He continued to watch her as she seemed to take a careful sip of her drink before placing it to the side. The silence grew until finally she spoke, “Look, why don’t you just do what you need to do and then I’ll get out of your hair.”
He felt a moment of consternation. “Are you advising me to go ahead and fire you as well?”
“It would seem expedient.”
“What makes you think I’m going to let you go?”
“Aren’t you?”
He ignored her question and gave her one of his own. “How long have you been single-handedly running this place?”
She frowned and broke eye contact, seemingly looking at the bar area before turning her gaze back to him. “I don’t single-handedly run it. You’ve got a lot of hard-working employees here.”
“Don’t dodge the question. I want an answer.”
She pursed her lips. “A long time.”
He raised an eyebrow in response. “Give me a number.”
“Three years.”
Garrett felt a frown begin. “How old are you?”
She let out a puff of air and rolled her eyes as if he were insane. “You can’t ask me that question.”
“I can look in your file and get the information that way.”
She let out a half-smile and shook her head. “You really can’t, not anymore.”
He felt his temper snap at her word play. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You sure don’t know much about this place at all, do you?”
“Be careful, Maria,” he warned.
She seemed to take a breath before continuing, “Right. Look, I don’t work for you—”
“What do you mean by that? Who the hell do you work for?”
“Technically? I work for the management company out of New Jersey, at least now I do, since Mrs. Duncan put them in charge the very second
her husband died. And that’s where my file is.”
“Technicalities don’t interest me. How old are you?”
She held his eyes as she slowly shook her head. “You’re breaking the law by asking me that question.”
“You really have a problem with telling me?”
“How old are you?” she asked instead of answering him.
“Twenty-nine,” he fired back instantaneously. “How old are you?” he asked again.
There was five seconds of silence while she stared back at him, and he read fire in her eyes. “I’m twenty-five.”
“You look younger.”
“Thank you,” she snapped.
He narrowed his eyes. “It wasn’t a compliment. Extreme youth isn’t an attribute for a position like this—”
“What position are we talking about?”
“You haven’t figured it out yet? I’m interviewing you for the position of GM. Right now. That’s what we’re doing.”
“Interviewing me? I thought you were about to get rid of me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Seriously? Your blonde girlfriend—”
“Okay. Let’s get that settled between us right now. I already told you last night—and I really don’t like to repeat myself—she’s not my girlfriend. Not that it would be any of your business if she were.” He studied her thoughtfully. “Was that the reason you went Rambo on her ass? Are you jealous?” Shit, he liked the thought of that.
“Jealous?”
He shrugged a shoulder, attempting not to give too much away. “You have to admit it’s a valid question. Your actions don’t make sense. You’ve been putting up with an asshole who, by the looks of it, was doing nothing but gambling on his office computer all day while you performed his job.”
“He’s only been here since Mr. Duncan’s wife flew into a panic at the first thought of real work—”
Garrett continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him, “And then Courtney comes down for a few weeks after the sale goes through … and she’s nothing but quiet and sweet. So why would a female employee of the Rule Corporation put you in such a snit if you weren’t jealous? You have to know she told me how you tried to sabotage the refurbishment process.”
Her tone became heated as she looked at him with contempt … and something else she seemed to be hiding. “I wasn’t jealous,” she bit out under her breath, looking around as if gauging whether or not anyone could hear the conversation before looking back to him. “And neither did I do a damn thing that hurt the hotel. I would never do anything detrimental to the hotel. All I did was inconvenience her a little.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t jealous,” she maintained, refusing to answer the question.
“If you want the damn job, I want an answer, an answer that makes sense.”
Her features became pointed as she stared at him without backing down. Her mouth flattened, her arms crossed over her chest as she spit out, “I don’t care for nepotism. And it seemed to me that she was going to get the job I deserved because of her relationship with you.”
As soon as the statement left her lips, all Garrett was able to see was the flash of fire in her eyes. But when he managed to regroup, he felt the direct hit of her accusation. Nepotism? He was being accused of nepotism? Truthfully, he’d never given it much thought.
Although his relationship with Courtney wasn’t the type Maria had in mind, there was a relationship. And for a moment, he almost felt guilty, but not quite. And why should he? He and his brothers fully owned the corporation. They could hire whoever the hell they wanted. So yeah, they’d hired both Erin and Courtney after the girls had graduated from college. Why the hell shouldn’t they? The girls were both extremely smart, they were family members who would be loyal to the corporation, and what the fuck? He and his brothers could do whatever the hell they wanted … they owned one hundred percent of the corporate stock. The corporation wasn’t publicly traded. It was private. And they could make private decisions as they saw fit.
But looking at it from this girl’s point of view, he could see how the situation might have pissed her off. Garrett marshaled his thoughts and answered her question to the best of his ability … but only for his satisfaction. “Courtney’s not my girlfriend and I’m not going to say that again—but she is a member of my family. You and I are not going to have a discussion about nepotism, so you best let that go.” Picking up his glass, he took another drink before setting it back down a little too abruptly. “So, here’s the deal about the GM position. From where I sit, it’s obvious you run the hotel and you deserve the job with a commensurate pay level. You can have the job on a probationary basis, until I see that you can handle it—”
She interrupted him. “I have a degree in hotel management and hospitality.”
“Good to know. Just for the record, I really don’t care to be interrupted. It’s a small pet-peeve of mine that you need to learn to appreciate, got it?”
Her lips twisted into a flat smile that contained no pleasure. “Noted, Mr. Rule,” she bit out in a saccharine-sweet tone.
He continued to stare at her, but she never flinched. He named a salary that was three times what she was making now and then her eyes widened somewhat.
“And I still get to keep my suite? Live here on-site?”
“You don’t ‘get to’, you have to. Being on call is part of the reason I’m prepared to make you that offer. But I’m going to be around for a while, just to make sure the transition goes smoothly, understand?” Sure, Rule, that’s the reason you’re going to hang around.
She nodded her head, her expression resolute.
****
“I need the hard file on the Sanderson acquisition.”
Maria glanced up from her computer screen and immediately schooled her expression as Garrett barked clipped, impatient words from where he stood in the doorway that separated his office from the outer station where she presently worked.
You can do this. You can stay cool, Maria. The internal pep talk reverberated through her brain but she still found it difficult to keep a level head.
She was beginning to loathe Garrett Rule more and more every single day. The more she’d been exposed to him, the more she’d come to detest his air of arrogance and the complete command he seemed to have over every situation. She hated his supreme intellect and the fact that he was always, always right.
She hated his temper, his good looks, his complete conceit. She hated the way he guarded his privacy as if his life was more important than anyone else’s. She hated the females who called the hotel at odd hours demanding to speak to him … and she hated even more his continued rejection of the women’s overtures as if he couldn’t care less … as if they were beneath him.
She hated the fact that somehow, somewhere along the line, she’d become nothing more than his glorified secretary. The work he was doing had little to do with the hotel, it was Rule Corporation business, and she didn’t have time to be his at his beck and call. She hated having to work so physically close to him … and she hated that the damn butterflies in her stomach had only gotten worse the longer she knew him.
But most of all, she hated his complete and utter disregard for courtesy … and the fact that he continued to ignore her as if she didn’t exist.
Fucker.
She smiled sweetly, as if her only ambition in life was to serve him. “Yes, of course. It’s on your desk,” she replied in the same soothing, placating tone she’d been using with him for the past few weeks … a tone that, for some reason, was almost impossible to maintain today.
The look he pierced her with would have made a lesser woman wilt and fade away, but Maria only held his eyes and stared back while she waited for the rejoinder she knew was coming.
He regarded her with set features and said in a low, tempered voice, “I didn’t see it.”
“It’s there,” she fired back smoothly.
His gaze became pointed and a subtle tension seemed to
fill his large frame. “It’s not there.”
His voice held that damn arrogance she detested. Asshole. She blinked up at him and attempted a look of patience she was far from feeling, trying her best not to make it sound as if she were instructing a six year old. “It’s in the legal-size manila folder underneath the red paperweight.” She hated the crystal paperweight that had simply turned up in his office one day. She hated the blood red lines running through it; it was overly ostentatious and far too fragile for everyday use.
His mouth flattened. “There’s nothing under the paperweight.”
She took a deep breath and pasted such a large smile on her face that her eyes were forced into narrow slits. Why would he lie about this? She knew damn good and well where she’d placed the folder. With an exercise in control, she kept her tone neutral. “I put it there this morning, not thirty minutes ago.”
It was obvious he didn’t care to be argued with; his body shifted and the muscles under his suit corded into lines of strain. His casual position disappeared completely as he stood to his full height. “You must be mistaken.”
She took a deep breath and without speaking, stood to her feet with a fluid motion and immediately smoothed the lines of her simple grey skirt. Refusing to make eye contact with him, she kept her gaze on the doorframe as she began walking toward the entrance to his office … the office that should have been hers by now. When the hell would he go back to St. Louis and leave her in peace?
When she reached his side and would have passed through, he halted her forward motion with a detaining hand on her arm.
The move paralyzed her immediately.
He never touched her.
Never. It was an unwritten rule between them.
But now, his fingers grasped the fleshy part of her bare upper arm and no matter how hard she fought against it, at the first touch of his callused fingers, she immediately stiffened with nerves and her pulse rate accelerated. As his scent hit her nostrils in a conflagration of sexual heat that she refused to acknowledge, a fine trembling took hold of her legs.