Hot Summer Nights

by Lisa Marie Perry

  “You keep mentioning Roarke.”

  “Because he’s my assistant. He’s worth mentioning.”

  “Is he also your bodyguard? More than that, even?”

  “He’s my assistant. Nothing more. Just as you’d be my client and nothing more. It’s the cleanest way to do business, across the board.”

  Geoffrey leaned forward and her foot stopped moving. She stopped moving entirely, inhaling his lust and exhaling her own. “Is that because you’re dead set on protecting the business or yourself, Gabrielle?”

  Both. She was so deeply invested in the Belleza that its best interests were gradually becoming her only interests. The Pearl was all she could claim, and though she tried to ignore the sadness in that, she couldn’t deny that it was absorbing her life and she needed more than a restaurant could provide.

  “There are too many risks to trading your account for my body. That’s what we’re really playing with now, aren’t we? You give the Belleza a G&G Records’s party and you get me in return. I don’t make exchanges like that. As much as I want this account, I won’t pay for it with sex.”

  “Good. Sex is sex. It’s not business for me, either. I came to this resort because Cole acted like the food here opened up his world. I met a smartass waitress wearing Chuck Taylor high-tops who knew more about wine than most of the women I’ve hooked up with, and now I know she wants me as much as I want her. If that’s not the clean business-personal distinction you want, then I’m sorry. It’s what happened.”

  Gabrielle swallowed. She’d take this whole motion thing slowly, because if her body got ahead of her brain she was likely to end up straddled across his lap with her tongue in his mouth to stop him from saying so much stuff that made perfect sense. She wasn’t about to feel ashamed of her choice to separate sex from business, yet she was on the fringes of wondering whether she put herself in a corner by denying herself to change her mind or make an exception for a man she was equally mindlessly and mindfully drawn to.

  “I think you should go for an outdoor sunset party.” Strictly business was the only approach she could take. Eventually he’d understand. And if not, he was free to turn his attraction to someone else. It wasn’t as though there weren’t legions of women aching for space in a record producer’s bed.

  Easing his intensity, Geoffrey listened to her suggestions and they stayed focused on what he wanted accomplished with this celebration and how the Belleza could enhance every moment.

  “So. This gala’s celebrating Phenom Jones. His music is R&B with heavy rock flavor. I love rock, by the way, and Phenom’s sound’s brilliantly unique. Anyway, I’d insist on the elbow room the outdoor options offer. It was listed in my notes from Robyn that he likes the outdoors, wide-open spaces. There’s more room for instruments and dancing and especially dining. I think our goal should be to create an ambience and a menu that’ll reflect him.”

  “You’ve never met Phenom,” Geoffrey said.

  “You have. You can convey what he wants.”

  “I’m not a messenger. This is a music industry event. Folks from other labels will be there. Get an insider’s view of the industry, then.”

  “How would I do that?”

  “Meet Phenom and some others who’ll be at the party. Interact with them, observe them, and you’ll get what you need to make this a success.”

  Success. That word was one of her weaknesses. She wanted to succeed in this business more than she’d ever admitted to anyone. If she had an obsession, it was her need to dodge failure…to prove to her estranged family that she didn’t need their support for survival. She felt incomplete without it, but she was doing well to make it in California on her own merits.

  “Tell me more about this meet and greet,” she said.

  “I’m holding a weekend recording session at my private studio upstate. You’d be my guest, but not bound to me. I won’t force you. I don’t get my thrills that way.”

  “What’s in this for you, Geoffrey?”

  “It’d be my chance to show you my life. As soon as we’re done here you’re going to put my name in Google and you’ll read the gossip and look at pictures and think you know me based on some articles and interviews. But you’d be wrong. You don’t like being wrong, so I’m going to give you the chance to be right about me.”

  “You can’t decide whether my perception of you is wrong or right.”

  “No, I can’t. You can. So which do you want to be?”

  “This is the strangest invitation I’ve ever received. And this is including the sock hop in sixth grade. The guy asked me out in Klingon.”

  “You speak Klingon?”

  “No. I was rushing to get to class before the bell and I just nodded to get him to quit talking to me and before I knew it, he was telling his friends that I said yes to going to the sock hop with him. It wasn’t a horrible time.” Relaxed, and warm under the heat of his gaze, Gabrielle took off her jacket and draped it over her lap. “Kind of fun, actually.”

  “My studio’s part of a retreat that’s on a hot springs. Think that’d be kind of fun for you, too?”

  Gabrielle’s eyes rounded. A hot springs? Wow!

  Strictly business, Gabby. Strictly business. “I’m more concerned with it being a productive visit. I’ll need to look at my calendar and discuss it with our event planner. And what about Roarke?”

  There was no way in hell that the Pearl could spare both Gabrielle and Roarke for an entire weekend when their staffing problems had no firm solution. She had every confidence in her assistant’s ability to manage her administrative duties in her absence, but she presented the question to gauge Geoffrey’s intent. If he prohibited Roarke from joining them on this trip, then she wouldn’t go. What she’d built for herself in California was her new life, and there was no room in it for possessive males. She was too in love with controlling herself to let someone else control her.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to take this trip without your assistant. So tell him he’s invited, too.”

  Even though his answer pleased her, she couldn’t smile. She couldn’t be comforted. With Roarke at her side, she definitely wouldn’t have any problems remaining professional at the music mogul’s hot springs retreat. Without anyone from the resort watching over her, she’d fall victim to more moments like this—fantasizing less about work and more about working open Geoffrey’s shirt buttons. “I should give you my direct contact information. And can I ask, since you’re inviting me upstate to your retreat, does this mean the Belleza’s a strong contender for your account?”

  “It does. I wasn’t sure yesterday, when I ordered my lunch and didn’t get it, but you changed my opinion and you got my respect. Yeah, and the meal was damn amazing.” He took the business card she held out to him. “Now that that’s settled, I have a question for you. Why the red bra?”

  Red bra? She glanced down at her chest. One of her newest acquisitions glared like a naughty carnal siren through her thin white top. She hadn’t changed into one of her Gabby-customized Pearl uniforms and had forgotten that the reason she’d worn the red bra today was because it was perfectly hidden beneath her jacket. “I wore this for confidence. Some people drink double shot espressos for that extra zing and I’ve opted to wear fun lingerie. Uh, I was thinking it’d be business on top and party underneath.”

  “Why can’t we be that way?”

  “What way?”

  “Business on top.” His gaze unhurriedly dipped from her eyes to her mouth to her breasts. “Underneath a party. An intimate one, just you and me. Do you want that?”

  “I want it,” she finally said. “I can’t want it, though. It’d be too complicated. The industry celebration’s at the end of this month. If you choose the Belleza, I’ll need to keep this a business relationship.”

  “After the celebration, then what? What if I said I’d wait for you to let this become something more?”

  “Then I’d ask why, Geoffrey. Why wait for Gabrielle Royce when there are so many other women
who’d be with you no matter what? Why wait for someone who puts business before anything else?”

  “Gabrielle Royce is honest and complex, and I get the feeling men haven’t been able to figure her out. I demand my chance to figure you out.”

  “Why, though?”

  “A challenge like you is worth the wait.”

  She liked that he understood she was a challenge. She didn’t simplify herself for any man, and he was the first who didn’t call her a hassle and didn’t turn away to spare himself the trouble of dealing with her. The men of her family’s world had expected her to be a woman well groomed to bend to their will and never push back.

  Geoffrey was beyond wealthy and famous, but he wasn’t from the Royces’ world. He had fortitude, strength that was almost overwhelming. He thought she was a worthy challenge.

  “There’s no guarantee between us, Geoffrey. I’m not promising you that after the party we’re going to be together.”

  “Are you swearing that we won’t be?”

  “No. I can’t predict what’d happen after the party.”

  “But you want to control what happens before then.”

  “Yeah. I’m not going to deny that. I like to be in direct control of my fate.”

  “I’m in direct control of mine. But think about this—now my fate is yours and yours is mine, so who’s ruling us?”

  “We both are.” Gabrielle stood up and walked around the table to stand beside his chair. She wasn’t a tease, wasn’t trying to send mixed messages, but she was being drawn to him in a way that warned that perhaps neither of them were as in-control as they craved to be. “If you choose this resort, you can’t have me. I won’t have sex with you before the party. I won’t cross that line.”

  “What if I said I’d be okay with that?” he said, standing up and bringing his body so close to hers. His soulful dark eyes made her want to admit things she had no good reason to feel when they contradicted what she’d been so certain about before yesterday. “What if I said I will wait for you? What if I told you that I want to make you mine?”

  Don’t believe him, her been-there-been-burned-by-that heart pleaded. How many men had used her to make alliances with her family or to build connections in her network of East Coast society somebodies? She’d never been anything more than a vehicle to men—something to joyride until something better came around the corner to appeal to their fickle tastes. No one had protected her from heartache, and she’d learned the cruel way to be her own defender. That wouldn’t change now.

  A career and incredible friends were all she had, and she wouldn’t selfishly put them at risk. “If you said that to me, I’d ask you to look at your life and look at mine and realize that there’d be no point. All we could mean to each other is a casual hookup. So our choices are this. Just sex or just business. No overlap. Sex is great and all, but casual sex is fleeting. There’s nothing behind it, so why sacrifice a business relationship?”

  “Looking at the way you were dressed yesterday in the restaurant, I wouldn’t have called you the practical type.”

  “You didn’t know me yesterday and you barely know me now.”

  “If we work together, that’s bound to change.”

  “I can handle that.” No, I can’t. I’m lying. I can’t handle battling myself and wanting you when I absolutely shouldn’t.

  “When can I see your presentation?”

  “My what?” Wasn’t her fire-engine red bra presentation enough?

  “The presentation. The 3D graphics?”

  “Ohhhh!” Of course! She pulled on her jacket and checked her phone. This meeting had run past the time she’d allotted for it, but she still had time for an emergency girl-talk session before her shift. “Yes, let’s meet up tomorrow evening, if that works for you. I won’t have a kitchen shift and since I live in one of the staff condos here, I’m onsite most of the time.”

  “Tomorrow evening,” he confirmed, so calmly that she wondered if she’d be mistaken to think he’d accepted her as out of his reach. A powerful man was not an invincible one. Geoffrey Girard might have the music world at his fingertips, but there were some things even he couldn’t touch.

  Gabrielle was one of them.

  And that fact hurt her probably more than it hurt him.

  *

  “Where can you meet me?” Gabrielle, a decent distance away from the balcony and Geoffrey and the temptation to engage in naughty naked delights with the guy, gripped her phone against her ear.

  She heard the catch of dread in Kimberly’s voice. “What happened? Is there a problem at the Pearl?”

  “No, no,” Gabrielle interrupted. “And I’m grateful for that. Not another emergency, really. But I may have compromised an event and turned off a potential client. Where are you? Is Robyn with you?”

  “Speak slowly, Gabby. When you panic, you start going a mile a second and then you act like you’re about to combust. So before we get to that point, calm yourself down and get to the spa. Robyn should be here in a few. We have manicure appointments. How are your toes?”

  Gabrielle’s hands were so often submerged in water and food ingredients that she required biweekly paraffin dip treatments, but she never bothered with more than keeping her nails clean and healthy. Only for special events for which she wouldn’t be prepping any food did she give in to manicures. But she overcompensated with pedicures. Her toenails were always stylishly decorated to perfection. “As much as I’d love a pedi today, I’m tight on time. But I’ll be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  Laughing, Kimberly hung up. Gabrielle could count on Kimberly’s confidence and her inherited Parker powerfulness to ease a volatile situation. She still didn’t know if she should tell Kimberly and Robyn that she and Geoffrey shared an attraction that could implode and take them all under. She didn’t want to unnecessarily worry her friends, but as a professional it was her duty to inform them that she’d been terse with him yesterday and he hadn’t yet agreed to host his industry event at the Belleza.

  She went directly to the spa’s VIP suite and knew she could talk without interruption. “Kim, where’s Robs?”

  Kimberly, perched on a plush swivel chair with her slim hands in the care of a nail tech, tossed her straight dark hair and said, “That was one shake of a lamb’s tail. You’re really wound up, aren’t you?” She tipped her head toward the station next to her. “Sit here. Robyn’s in the next room getting a margarita.”

  “I can’t join y’all for nail treatments, but I can have a margarita.” She raised her voice. “Hey, Robyn. Would you fix me whatever you’re drinking?”

  “Already took care of it.” A moment later Robyn appeared with two glasses in hand. In a stunning summery dress and her long hair twisted into a bun, she looked more like a runway model than a behind-the-scenes event-planning genius. Handing a glass to Gabrielle, she sat on a vacant chair and sipped her margarita. “Kim said you were in hyper panic mode. Are you sure there’s nothing going down at the Pearl?”

  “Things are steady today. We still need someone to replace Shoshanna, but otherwise we’re stable. This is about G&G Records.”

  “Geoffrey Girard, right?” Robyn asked, her hazel eyes sparkling with intrigue. “I haven’t met him face-to-face, but he has a voice that can melt ice. What’s he like?”

  Kimberly’s nail tech glanced up as though to echo the question.

  He’s like every temptation that’s bad for you, Gabrielle started to say. “He’s intense. Really controlled. Not exactly angry, but…guarded. He reminds me of a pack leader, if that makes sense.”

  “You remind me of a pack leader,” Robyn said, her brown skin glowing under a dusting of bronzer. “You’re also controlled, guarded and intense. I guess the two of you are so similar that you didn’t hit it off?”

  Interesting. Was that part of the reason for her resistance? Did she see too much of herself in Geoffrey? “I met him yesterday, to be technical. He was dining at the Pearl and burst into the kitchen like he’
d lost his damn mind. Wasn’t it my duty to protect the kitchen?”

  Groaning, Kimberly asked, “What did you do? Did you cuss him out, because I’m going to have to address that and get a jump on damage control.”

  “No, I didn’t.” She’d called him an asshole, but only in her mind. True, she’d all but straight-up admitted it on the balcony earlier, but technically it still didn’t count as cussing him out. “Under the circumstances I was diplomatic and reasonable, but I just met with him and… I don’t know if…um…”

  “Good God, she’s speechless,” Robyn said, mystified. “Gabby, you’re never speechless. Tell us what the deal is here.”

  “Suppose I’m not the person who should be working directly with him.”

  “That’s crazy talk,” Kimberly dismissed. “You’re our executive chef.”

  She stole a few gulps of her margarita, buying herself an opportunity to regroup. She hadn’t slept with Geoffrey—hadn’t even tasted his lips. No action meant no harm and there really was no crisis. “Forget it. I’m sensitive to everything.”

  “Not that you don’t have every right to be,” Robyn muttered, setting aside her margarita and digging into her crocodile Fendi tote. “It’s been a stressful couple of months, and to lose Shoshanna like that?”

  “Speaking of Shoshanna,” Gabrielle said, turning to Kimberly, “I visited her this morning and assured her that the sous-chef position would be waiting for her when she heals. I think she wants more security than my word. Is there something you and your parents can have drawn up for her?”

  “Absolutely. I’m going to the hospital tonight, as a matter of fact. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “People are calling her injury the result of a freak accident,” Robyn said.

  “I’m aware.” Gabrielle sighed. “It’s more hype to feed the ‘haunted resort’ rumors. Was it strange the way the wheel fell off the cart and how she was exactly at the wrong place at the wrong time? Hell, yes. But it’s got nothing to do with the Belleza being haunted. Next we’re going to have guests pulling out shovels and trying to dig up the grounds to find the supposed buried treasure.”