Hot Summer Nights

by Lisa Marie Perry

  “You’re a nonbeliever?” Kimberly’s technician asked, speaking for the first time since Gabrielle had come into the airy, ultramodern spa’s VIP suite.

  “I don’t believe we’re under attack by a pissed off spirit who’s trying to protect some treasure that probably doesn’t exist. The resort and spa has undergone numerous remodels, and has anything ever come up during any excavations in the history of this place? The answer’s no. So when you ask me if I’m buying into this hype, the answer’s no.”

  “And she’s the free-spirited one among us,” Robyn said. “To be honest, Gabby makes a lot of sense. This is a business and we need to be practical-minded for the sake of our guests and our company’s publicity.”

  “I don’t know what to think about all of this,” Kimberly said quietly. “The fire last month, the reports of bad food—it’s eerie.”

  “Malicious is what it is,” Gabrielle insisted. “If someone’s targeting us, it’s not a spirit.”

  “What proof do we have of that?” Kimberly asked.

  “None, but…” Shrugging, Gabrielle finished her margarita. “I can say that the Pearl can’t afford to lose someone else the way we lost Shoshanna. Thankfully she’ll recover from this, but it’s going to be a slow and painful and frustrating recovery. I don’t want to see another Belleza family member brought down like that.”

  “Who’d target the Ruby Retreat and the Pearl like this?” Robyn said to no one in particular. No one had the answer to that, but the question haunted them all the same.

  “I sometimes feel that I’m not doing enough for the restaurant.” Gabrielle set aside her glass. “I keep thinking the incident yesterday could’ve and should’ve been prevented.”

  “Gabby, you can’t do this to yourself.”

  Someone had to. It was her kitchen, her team, her responsibility. “I’ve been in this role for three years and just when I think I have it all under control, this all happens. None of this happened in Sean’s tenure here.”

  Kimberly turned sharply at her older brother’s name. They were estranged, with Sean responding to his sister’s promotion by leaving the Parker family’s company and starting up his own restaurant. Their younger brother, Ryan, was a musician and had no part of their tug-of-war. “Why’d you bring him up?”

  “I took over his kitchen.” Lazily she shrugged. “I should go to him, get some insight. Maybe we could have a meeting of minds…”

  “Shut up. That’s not funny.”

  Gabrielle rolled her eyes and twisted around to look at Robyn for backup, but the woman had frozen and looked at her as though she’d grown devil’s horns. “All right, did we all agree to not speak S-E-A-N’s name around here or are both of you overreacting to a remark that doesn’t mean anything?”

  “You don’t need Sean’s coaching to run the Pearl,” Robyn said carefully. “But…uh…have you been legitimately thinking about having a ‘meeting of the minds’ with him?”

  “No, I was just saying something. Sean’s been pretty careful about avoiding the Belleza since he and Kimberly fell out.”

  “It was his choice to hate on my promotion instead of supporting me,” Kimberly defended. “Never forget that. Better yet, could you let him have his space and trust yourself to handle what’s happening here? You don’t need Sean’s advice. All that would do is show him your weakness, which would only trigger him to assume that I’m a weak general manager. Leave him and Ryan alone, okay?”

  “Fine.” Gabrielle would’ve been more defensive had she not been appreciative. With her friends busy warning her away from the Parkers, they wouldn’t be sharp enough to detect her pull toward Geoffrey. “I have something else to run by y’all. Geoffrey Girard has a recording studio in Northern Cali somewhere. He’s invited me to some weekend get-together out there, where I’m supposed to meet Phenom Jones and a bunch of other industry folks, but the Pearl’s already understaffed. I don’t think I can be spared for an entire weekend, do you?”

  “Go,” Robyn said. “Get away from this for a couple of days.”

  “The studio’s apparently on a hot springs. Talk about lap of luxury.”

  “In that case, go!”

  “You’re going,” Kimberly decided, the snap in her eyes calmer now. “That’s the perfect solution for you right now. Go to Girard’s hot springs studio and when you come back maybe you won’t be talking crazy anymore.”

  Robyn sat down again, with her iPad in hand. “The man is fine.”

  “What man?”

  “Geoffrey Girard. God bless Google Images. Here’s a picture of him at last year’s Grammy Awards.” She turned the tablet toward them and both Kimberly and her nail tech moaned a little.

  What if I told you that I want to make you mine? Gabrielle stared at the tablet, recalling his words. Her heart felt as though it were spinning in her chest, and she wouldn’t object to running into the next room to stuff some ice down her shirt. She envied her friends for being able to tease about him knowing that they weren’t threatened by genuine attraction to him. If Gabrielle had given the man total control, she’d probably be naked with him now. She couldn’t be with him out of the principle of the situation and because sex and business shouldn’t mix—unless, naturally, sex was someone’s business of choice.

  “He’s all right,” she said, feigning indifference like the little liar she was.

  “All right? Beautiful hair. I want to touch it. I love a nice fade on a brother.” Robyn sighed, turning the tablet around so she could type. “On the phone he told me that Phenom Jones recently went platinum. The Belleza would be in a great position to have a share of that publicity.” Her full lips formed an O. “Gabby. He has an eight-figure house in Beverly Hills and only lets a few people visit his retreat. A photographer interviewed him there once. It’s located in a little unincorporated town called Storey Springs. Look at these photos. It’s magnificent. If you don’t go and report back the glories of that place, I’ll consider it a personal insult and total disrespect to our ten-plus year friendship.”

  Gabrielle relented with a crooked smile. “I’m trying to not be offended that you two are so anxious to get rid of me for a couple of days.”

  “We’re concerned for you,” Kimberly clarified. Easing her hands from the tech, she came over to kneel in front of Gabrielle. “Gabby, look at me. We are concerned about the pressure beating you down. You’ve always been fierce, but these past several weeks have been hell on you, and Robyn and I aren’t blind to it.”

  “What is this, some way to explain away why I wasn’t gung ho about you getting with Jaxon Dunham? Stress wasn’t to blame for that. It was how I honestly read the situation.” Softening, Gabrielle pointed out, “But we’re not friends because we agree on everything under the sun. You’re in love now and I’m helping you plan your walk down the aisle, but I haven’t changed my views of Belleza employees doling out sexual extras with guests. Every time I see Charlene Vincent flirt with some man in an expensive suit, I want to block her. By the way, she’s gotten worse since you and Jaxon went public and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

  Gabrielle certainly couldn’t indulge in an affair with Geoffrey when she was too fixed on the stance she’d taken against Kimberly and Jaxon. She refused to compromise her integrity, refused to be the hypocrite that stretched inside her every time she thought about Geoffrey.

  “The repercussions of my relationship with Jax are real,” Kimberly said, nodding as she returned to the tech, “but I can’t be sorry for falling in love with the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.”

  “I don’t want you to be sorry. I swear I want you to be happy. You, too, Robs. I guess I just wish that romance wasn’t so complicated. Even casual sex is complicated, and for no decent reason. I don’t know how you two have managed steady relationships. I don’t have what it takes to keep bouncing back when love knocks me on my ass.”

  “Crap. That’s a mound of crap,” Robyn decided. “You have a barrier around yourself, and as
fearless as you are, the one thing that scares you is commitment. It’s not about being hurt and rebounding. You’re afraid to fall for someone.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  “I think you should go to Geoffrey Girard’s studio and meet some folks. Get to know someone and see what happens.”

  “Robyn, for real, that’s not an option. I’d be there to work, not fraternize.”

  “You’re the one clinging to that distinction—that rule you won’t bend. It’s as if you want Kimberly and me to judge you and talk you out of this, but that’s not about to happen. We want to see you happy, too. Even the kitchen staff is wondering how long you’ve been on the shelf.”

  Gabrielle remembered all too well from the discussion yesterday at the Pearl that her team was far too invested in her getting some action. “It’s like everyone around me is pushing me, like a bird getting nudged out of the nest.”

  “Well,” Robyn said, putting her tablet in her tote bag, “according to that bra you’re wearing, I’d say you’re ready to fly. Your jacket’s open and that shirt’s as good as transparent, little birdie.”

  Chapter 4

  Gabrielle worked afternoon to closing, feeling like a liar every minute of her shift. At the spa she’d sat and watched her friends play-lust after Geoffrey and she’d shut down the legit feelings that were starting to brew. She’d convinced herself that she hadn’t crossed lines with him, when the fact was, she had. Letting him kiss her finger? Line crossed. Confessing to him that she wanted him? Line crossed a gazillion times over.

  Denying herself what he was primed to deliver seemed stupid now, as she confronted her empty condo later that night.

  Gabrielle sat on her granite counter with a fat goblet of red wine and her laptop computer and sorted through the research she had compiled about the G&G Records party. In Dropbox and cloud severs, notebooks and emails she had everything she and her assistant had prepared for the meeting that had never really happened. As she opened a new window and abused the search engine, she told herself that researching Geoffrey’s Storey Springs retreat was necessary for her to nab his account for the Belleza.

  Situated practically a world away from the reliably sunny and sultry likes of Belleza and Beverly Hills, Storey Springs was at the northern tip of California and, yes, it possessed a hot spring. The spring, though, was privately owned by the same person who’d had a several-acre oasis constructed. It was Geoffrey Girard’s property—all of it.

  Gabrielle did a Google Images search and printed several photos, mostly scenery shots and those in the article Robyn had shown her earlier. As she gazed at the pictures, the realization settled. Next weekend she would be off to the secluded oasis, owned by a man who wanted to sleep with her. Excitement mingled with nervousness, and the more she repeated in her head that this had to be strictly a business trip, the more she didn’t believe it.

  The way her thoughts immediately slung to the electric-blue bra and panties set in her lingerie chest was proof.

  In between manning the kitchen and running last-minute errands and giving instructions to her assistant, she had ducked home to change out of her pesto sauce–stained shirt and paused to admire the blue lingerie she’d bought in LA. It had beautiful lace and inspired all sorts of inappropriate wishes, but when she picked up the dainty material she’d started to imagine wearing it to Geoffrey’s retreat.

  Unofficially she’d decided she would go, and she’d planned to wear electric-blue lace. Because unofficially she’d lost her mind.

  Not yet done for the night, Gabrielle considered standing and stretching before she resumed her research, which had now drifted to scouring the results of a “Geoffrey Girard dating” inquiry. So far she knew he was a compulsive dater. By the time tabloids had him linked to one woman, he’d already moved on to another. And they were all tall with breasts that reminded her of Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Feeling strangely substandard, Gabrielle fit her hands over her breasts and considered them. She’d always considered them average—she couldn’t get her own hands to cover them fully, but then again her hands had once been described as small.

  Going to the fridge, she extracted a pint of Cherry Garcia flavored ice cream and was back on the counter with the computer on her lap and halfway through the pint when the bell rang.

  Jerking as if she’d been caught doing something wrong, she swallowed down a lump of ice cream and watched her laptop coast down to the floor in a clatter that gutted her. Yelping an expletive, she hopped off the counter and growled, “Damn it, I’m coming!” to whomever had the audacity to touch that bell again.

  “I can’t believe this,” she muttered, closing the laptop and putting it on the counter for later inspection after she got rid of the late-night visitor. It was probably one of her neighbor besties, and as much as she loved them, they weren’t the high-tech geniuses she’d need to resurrect her computer. “That’s what I get for multitasking when I should’ve just gone to bed.”

  When she opened the door, she leaned against the jamb and looked expectantly at the six-foot-five chunk of sex appeal standing on the other side of her door. “What’re you doing here?”

  Yeah, good job acting as though a few minutes ago you weren’t in your kitchen groping your breasts while cyber stalking him.

  Geoffrey removed his hands from his jeans pockets and crossed his arms, making his muscles flex. “A bad time?”

  “Midnight? Yeah, not the best time.” She squeezed past him to look left and right. No Robyn or Kim out and about. Hopefully he hadn’t drawn attention showing up here as conspicuously as he had. Was he trying to get her busted? “I didn’t give you my addy.”

  Dude, how’d you find out where I live? she almost tacked on, but waited for what he’d say next.

  “You told me you live at the resort. I ran into your assistant, Roarke, and he told me where I could find you if you weren’t at the Pearl. Does that answer the question you were thinking about asking me?”

  “Does it get boring, always having an answer at the ready?”

  “Never.” He hesitated, then asked, “Am I welcome inside your place?”

  No, she should’ve said. You’re too irresistible and I’m too horny.

  “Yes, come in. Fewer questions to answer in the morning if my neighbors were to see you loitering outside my condo.” Enjoying his uncertainty, she pulled him inside, shut the door and said, “The Pearl is closed for the night and I’m off the clock. You can’t be expecting me to drop everything just because you rang my doorbell.”

  “You dropped something, based on the crash I heard in here and the mother-effer bomb that followed.” He lifted a pair of solid, thick shoulders. “You weren’t quiet about it.”

  “What, did it offend you? Not only are we both adults here, but I can cuss in the privacy of my own home.”

  “Actually, I like your dirty mouth.”

  Gabrielle had no good response to that. “Uh,” she stammered. “Why are you here tonight? We said we’d meet again tomorrow. If there’s a problem, the Belleza has an entire conflict resolution team to assist. Call CR. I can connect you now.” She strode across the living room to pick up the cordless phone. When he didn’t budge, she carried the phone to him.

  “I don’t have a complaint for CR. I’m here because you never gave me an answer about coming out to my studio.”

  “It’s a lot to digest, Geoffrey. Abandon my duties for an entire two days at the peak of summer to spend a weekend with you? We didn’t discuss the details. For one thing, what kind of drive are we talking?”

  “We’d be taking my jet,” he said in a murmur that made her stomach do a strange dance. “I want you to be there, Gabrielle. But is that what you want?”

  The blue lace undies waiting in her bedroom cried yes. She shrugged. “It’s an assignment. Part of my commitment to handling your event’s needs with the utmost energy and care.”

  He paused. “You’re right. Just an assignment.”

  Gabrielle to
ssed the phone from one hand to the other. “So are you going to get into specifics or are we going to pick this up tomorrow?”

  “Hmm,” he said, his eyes washing over her and stopping on her patriotic-themed toenail polish.

  “What are you thinking?” she dared to ask.

  “The same thing I thought when I first talked to you at the Pearl.”

  “You thought I was a waitress. An inept one.”

  “I thought you were so damn sexy.”

  A vivid flash of the day before surged through her head and she pressed her palms to her abdomen and suppressed a needy sigh. She was needy, all right. She needed something from this man. Not attention. Not even love. A touch. That’s what she needed.

  She did not need him to walk into her kitchen and point to her battered laptop and ask “Is this what hit the floor?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I may have killed it.”

  “I can take a look.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to—”

  But he did anyway. Geoffrey carefully opened the computer, and she was rushing over to grab it when he said, “Nice web of a crack on the screen. Upper left corner. Right off I’d say it’s still breathing, but as a word of advice you might want to think about putting a password on it so your search isn’t the first thing someone sees when they bring it out of sleep.”

  Gabrielle’s feet were lead but she dragged herself to the counter where he stood and he turned the laptop toward her. There it was, her most recent search: “Geoffrey Girard girlfriend.”

  Mortified, she tried to gracefully slip out of this. “It’s research. Those key words are common and…”

  “Ask me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Ask me if I have a girlfriend. Ask me whatever you’re asking Google.”

  “Fine, then. Are you seeing someone?”

  “No. That ended two months ago.”