“I won’t offer any advice.” He crossed his heart. He knew how much these creative types hated having someone look over their shoulder, and he had faith in this little company. Yes, indeed he did. “Instead, I’ll be giving you carte blank.”
Rene toyed with the stem of his wineglass. “Blanche,” he corrected rather softly, though he knew that it was useless. Still, it did offend his sensibilities to hear words and expressions mangled to this extent, large commission or not.
Another, rather pronounced shrug met Rene’s correction. “Whatever.” James was too occupied waiting for Gina’s reply. “So, what d’you say, little lady?”
Chapter Two
Gina felt all three sets of eyes on her as James waited for a reply.
When she didn’t respond immediately, Rene made the commitment for her. “She says yes.”
Gina had made no reply because she had a sinking feeling that she knew whom James was going to choose to clean up the hotel’s accounting mess. Chase. And the very last thing in the world she wanted was to be stuck somewhere with Chase for any prolonged period of time.
Having dinner, even with other people around, was bad enough.
Gina pressed her lips together as she flashed Rene an exasperated look. If he was going to jump in and volunteer, why didn’t he volunteer himself instead of her?
This was clearly a time for damage control. She gave James her most beguilingly persuasive look. “Mr. James, I really don’t think that I’m the best choice for this particular job.”
James hadn’t gotten to his present position by letting other people talk their way out of his plans. He sandwiched Gina’s hand between his, intent on cementing his proposal. As far as he was concerned, he had captured his quarry and was not about to take no for an answer. Research had told him that Gina had the right touch for what he was attempting to achieve.
He looked at her pointedly. “I always make it a point to go with the best, Ms. Delmonico. In this case, you’re it.”
Yes, Gina thought, she certainly was.
Rene leaned forward. “She’d be delighted, wouldn’t you, Gina?”
In all the time they had worked together, Rene had never presumed to speak for her before, or to second-guess her before a client. That was one of the reasons they got along so well. What opinions the man had, he reserved until they were alone before airing them.
This was a hell of a time for him to change behavioral patterns.
She clenched her other hand into a fist in her lap, feeling frustrated and cornered. The James account was an important building block.
“Delighted,” she echoed, attempting to infuse the feeling she didn’t have into the word.
“Settled,” James declared. His grin indicated that he had never anticipated any other outcome than this. He turned toward the men on his right. “Now, for my accountant.”
Reed was obviously ready for him and, in Chase’s estimation, nudged his sacrificial lamb toward the altar. Reed knew that Chase was divorced, but had no idea from whom. This wasn’t the time or the place to unveil that story. It was, however, the time to wish for a minor earthquake. None materialized.
“I can’t think of a better man than Chase.” Reed rested a hand on Chase’s shoulder. “That was why I asked him to join us tonight.”
He had one chance before he went down for the third time, Chase thought, and he grasped at the straw. With what he thought was an appropriate apologetic flush, he turned toward his boss.
“Reed, I really don’t think there’s space on my agenda for the time that Mr. James’ hotel would require at the moment, tempting though it would be to get away and visit New Mexico.” Reed’s eyes were flat. Chase felt as if he were dog-paddling past a shark and doomed for extinction. But doggedly, he continued paddling. “I’m involved with the Collins and Bakersfield files. There’s that IRS audit pending.”
Reed interrupted Chase’s protest smoothly. “I can put Jackson on that in the morning. He’s familiar with all the particulars. Don’t give it another thought.” He turned toward James. “Chase is accustomed to juggling half a dozen jobs at once,” he confided. “And he’s quite good at it, really.”
The praise was a bit too much for Gina to let silently pass.
“Sometimes, though, he’s been known to drop one.” She couldn’t resist making the comment to her drink.
Reed looked at her oddly. Gina allowed an innocent smile to bloom on her lips.
“But he won’t be dropping this one, will you, boy?” James extended his hand toward Chase.
Chase grasped the man’s hand, though his eyes were on Gina. “No,” he replied firmly.
“Good. Welcome aboard, you two.” James rubbed his hands together, anticipating the end product that lay ahead. “We’re going to have a time of it, we are. The main thing I’ve learned in my long years is to make things fun while you do ‘em.” He winked broadly. “Goes better that way. Okay, let’s eat before we all starve to death.”
He raised his hand for the waiter again. “Oh, by the way.” He glanced at Chase and Gina. “I’ll be putting y’all up at the hotel while you get the job done.”
Gina took another long sip of her drink.
If asked, Gina couldn’t have remembered for the life of her what she ate, or the conversation that took place during the rest of the dinner. All she knew was that, in the name of business, she had sold her soul and was allowing herself to be sucked into a black hole.
A black hole named Chase.
She managed to maintain a smile plastered on her face throughout the meal. It vanished as soon as she left the table. She had the rest of the evening to organize the work schedule for Rene and pack. James’ personal limousine was coming for her in the morning to take her to his private jet, which would in turn fly her, as well as James and Chase, to Albuquerque.
She wondered what the chances were for Armageddon to arrive before morning.
Her mood was decidedly black as she quickly walked out of the dining area. Rene had to lengthen his stride just to keep up with her.
“I’ll take you home,” he offered as he reached the door one step before her. He pushed it open and held it for her.
Gina said nothing as she walked through. He sighed and fell into step beside her. “Is there something going on that I should know about?”
After a moment, she snapped, “No.”
Rene was not easily put off when he was after something. In this case, it was affirmation of a suspicion.
“Let me rephrase that. What is going on here? You two were looking at each other as if you were D’Artagnan and Richelieu about to engage in a sword fight.” He took her elbow and stopped her at the valet’s desk. “Wait here.” He dug into his pocket and handed the young man a number.
Gina turned on Rene after the valet left, her anger spilling out. She felt as if he had betrayed her, even though he had no idea what was going on. It wasn’t that difficult for him to pick up on her distress. He was certainly intuitive enough in all other respects. “I have a few things to say to you.”
This was about the hotel stay, he mused. “I’ve no doubt.”
Behind them, Chase emerged from the restaurant in time to catch Gina’s tone. Memories flooded back. None of them particularly warming.
“Better you than me,” Chase muttered just loud enough for both of them to hear as he passed.
A minuscule smile tugged on Rene’s lips. “Rather witty for one so young.”
Tumbling from the emotional roller coaster ride she had just been on, Gina felt the worse for wear and very, very sensitive. She supposed she was being unfair, but she couldn’t help it. Feelings were pouring out of her like balls from an upended tennis canister.
“I suppose you’re on his side.”
Rene regarded Gina for a long moment before replying. “I don’t take sides. I listen. And pass judgments.” His smile took on recognizable proportions as he watched Chase cross to the parking lot in the distance, the one reserved for self-parking. Thing
s suddenly crystallized for Rene. Of course, how could he have been so blind? “So, that’s the infamous Chase, is it?”
She was upset, confused and trying desperately to regain her control. She was not in the mood to discuss Chase, even in passing.
“Chase?” Her voice rang with innocent confusion, and she raised her brows quizzically.
As an avid theatergoer, in his time Rene had been privy to many great performances. This was not one of them. He crossed long, bony arms draped in a two-hundred-dollar jacket in front of him.
“Don’t look at me as if I just began muttering a chant to the god of fertility in Swahili. Chase,” he repeated carefully. “The man you were recovering from when you started Decorate!” She gave no sign of answering. “Chase the beast, the scoundrel who drove you to find yourself amid the fabrics.”
He could go on like this indefinitely. She knew that firsthand. Gina surrendered.
“You don’t have to get so dramatic. Yes, that was him.” Against her will, her eyes followed Chase as he got into his car and then drove away.
Off a short pier, she hoped.
“Finally.” Rene covered his heart with long, spidery fingers splayed against his chest. “An honest answer. I can die happy now.”
The valet returned with Rene’s car, and he handed the man a bill for his trouble.
The red-jacket-clad man held the door open for Gina, and she slid into the car. She waited until Rene had rounded the hood and gotten in beside her.
“Sarcasm isn’t necessary.”
“On the contrary, Gina. Sarcasm is very necessary. It’s quite revitalizing. At least for me.” He thought of the past two hours. “And I needed it after that ‘good ol’ boy’ routine we were just subjected to.” He settled into the seat and shook his head. “Nobody talks like that.”
As he turned the key, the seat belt came into contact with his pipe-cleaner-thin body. He pulled away from the curb, thinking of the month that lay ahead of Gina. At best it was going to be a difficult time if she faced it with the hostility he detected smoldering beneath the surface.
He glanced at her. “So, what are you going to do about him?”
“Do?”
They had laws against what she really wanted to do about Chase. Gina forced herself to relax and unclench her hands. She was overreacting again. But five minutes in Chase’s presence always did that to her and she had spent twenty times that amount just now. God, how was she supposed to last an entire month?
The answer was simple. She wasn’t.
“Yes, ‘do,’” Rene enunciated slowly. “It’s an active verb in case you’ve forgotten.”
She stared straight ahead, forming her newest decision. Rene wasn’t going to like this. Neither was James. She didn’t like it either. It pointed to a cowardly side of herself she didn’t care for.
“I’m not going.”
Rene spared her another glance as he queued up behind a long line of cars leaving the mall. It had become incredibly crowded in the past two hours. The newest Hard Rock Café, nestled in the middle of the mall, undoubtedly had a great deal to do with this late-evening surge in traffic.
“That’s not quite the action I had in mind.”
Gina shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Well, it’s the one I’m taking.” She folded her hands in front of her, determined to stick with her decision. “I want nothing to do with him. I certainly don’t want to rattle around a hotel for a month, knowing he’s lurking somewhere around.”
Afraid? a haunting little voice whispered.
She stiffened in silent denial, annoyed with herself for even allowing such a thought to break through.
Rene eyed her. He had come to admire her bravado, her tenacity. This wasn’t like her. “Showing him our backs, are we?”
She nodded, thinking he meant it in the same vein as showing Chase the door. “Yes.”
He just squeezed past a light turning red. Traffic was moving so slowly, he could afford to look at her for a long moment. “As in fleeing.”
Gina’s head swung around, her hair whipping against her face.
“No.” She fairly shouted the word, denying his accusation all the more vehemently because a tiny part of her thought it was true.
“Sounds like fleeing to me.” The cars inched along toward their common goal: the main thoroughfare. “Or retreating, if you prefer.”
She narrowed her eyes as she looked at his profile. “Just what is it you’re getting at?”
Thin shoulders rose and fell innocently beneath the expensive fabric. “You said you were over him.”
“I am.” Her tone was guarded as she waited for Rene to elaborate. He had a maddening way of weaving his sentences together into a common whole that usually remained elusive until he was finished.
Tonight, he was happily briefer. “Then it would seem to me to be infinitely more satisfying for you if you let him see that you are completely over him.” He turned to look at Gina as he pressed down on the brake yet again. “Unless, of course, you’re not.”
“I am.” Gina’s teeth were fairly clenched together as she made the affirmation. And she was over him, she thought.
For the most part.
“Splendid.” Finally, they were out of the slow-moving traffic, and he took advantage of the fact by bringing his car up to the speed limit along the boulevard. “Then working with the man should be no trouble for you.”
“No, no trouble at all.”
She couldn’t make the words sound believable, even to her own ears. They rang hollow. Working anywhere near Chase, anywhere near the source of her old feelings, would be a living hell and she knew it.
“I do like a positive attitude.” Rene looked to his left and saw Gina’s car ahead, sitting just as she’d left it. He slowed down. “There’s your car. Would you like me to call a towing service?” He was already reaching for his car phone.
Gina eyed the site where her nightmare had begun tonight. “No, a terminator.” Then her better instincts took over and she relented. “Wait, stop.” She saw Rene raise a quizzical brow in her direction. “Let me give it one more try.”
He thought of her earlier words on her car’s future. “A stay of execution?”
She shrugged. She’d rather think about her car than what she had to face tomorrow. And roughly thirty tomorrows after that.
“Call me an eternal optimist.”
“The term ‘cockeyed optimist’ comes to mind.” But he was smiling as he said it. He brought his car to a stop directly parallel to the car on the other shoulder of the road.
Gina got out and closed the door in her wake. “Suicidal optimist is more like it.”
Rene peered out of the opposite side, then got out. Traffic was light, but the stretch wasn’t really that well lit. “Then don’t cross the road.”
Gina shook her head at his advice. “I was thinking of tomorrow morning’s trip.” She hoped it was a large plane, with a lot of other people aboard. Maybe she could stay lost in the crowd. “And my enforced stay at the Chez Claptrap.”
Rene hurried across the road with her. “With your ex-husband.”
She sighed deeply as she unlocked the door. “Yes.”
“It might not be so bad.”
Gina dropped into the seat and swung her legs into the car. Swearing under her breath, she jabbed the key into the ignition. “A lot you know.”
The car purred like a long-lost kitten warming itself by a blazing fire.
Gina could only stare at the steering wheel beneath her hand, thunderstruck. Brutus hadn’t sounded this good when she bought the car.
Rene leaned against the hood, looking at her. “Sounds like a healthy car to me.” He pretended to study her. “Are you sure you were having trouble with it?”
“Yes,” she snapped.
The car wasn’t the only thing she was having trouble with. She was having a great deal of difficulty believing she was actually agreeing to spend the next month in the very immediate vicinity of one Chase Randolph. T
hat was like agreeing to allow herself to be bled by leeches. The end effect was going to be the same. She was going to bleed.
She looked up ruefully at Rene. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap your head off.”
Rene gave her no indication whether forgiveness was forthcoming or not. “Is this what you were like with the man not-of-your-dreams?”
Gina felt herself becoming defensive with a man she considered her best friend. Chase was turning her life inside out already.
“This is what he got me to be like.”
Rene nodded sagely. “Instead of the docile, quiet, shy flower you really are.”
Gina felt her temper getting frayed. “You are on his side, aren’t you?”
Rene straightened. “I am on the side of the pure of heart and the genteel of temperament. Drive home.” He indicated his car. “I’ll follow you in case the wretched machine decides to turn on you again.”
Gina looked at the back of Rene’s head as he crossed the road again. “A lot of that going on lately,” she muttered under her breath.
The car behaved beautifully all the way to Gina’s house. It confounded her completely. Even the annoying little sputter and shudder—part of the car’s makeup since almost the beginning—were gone.
Gina didn’t know much about cars, but for Brutus to have undergone a resurrection when no one had done anything to it didn’t seem possible. And yet it had.
Gina gave the automobile a distrustful look as she got out in her driveway. She glanced at Rene as he pulled up behind her.
“As soon as I get a chance, this car is going in for a complete overhaul.” Or a trade-in.
“That won’t be for a month,” Rene reminded her, coming closer.
Gina fumbled with the catch on her purse as she opened it. She tossed in her car keys and then began the search for the key to her front door. “I’m not going to remain in Albuquerque for a month no matter what James wants.”
Rene had always been the voice of reason. “Think of the fee.”
This time, reason was missing the mark. “Think of my sanity.”
He knew she had grown accustomed to a more sophisticated life-style than the one that city boasted. Still, he felt compelled to argue on its behalf. “Albuquerque isn’t exactly uncivilized. I hear they stopped having gunfights in the street a few years ago.”
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