by Amy Garvey
It was such a tragic story, really. She could imagine the poor girl, faced with the notion of being alone in a big city, without a reference or a position. Rumor had it that the girl’s employer was a widower, visiting the city from somewhere upstate, who intended to leave her maid in New York to fend for herself. Her heart squeezed just thinking about it.
“Silly girl. That’s no reason to do yourself in,” Rhys said abruptly, interrupting her momentary reverie. She frowned. He wrenched open a cabinet door that was nearly stuck shut, and snorted. “Well, someone clearly uses this place, love. Look here.”
He pointed, eyebrows raised, and she stretched up on tiptoe to find a handful of foil-wrapped condoms resting on the top shelf. Her gasp was equal parts surprise and outrage.
“I hope your lady in gray isn’t too modest,” Rhys said with a horribly male smirk.
“That’s not funny,” she protested, shooing him out of the space and locking the door behind them. Firmly. Maybe for good. Ghost or no ghost.
“Where to next, love?” Rhys said, and she turned to find him standing much too close to her. God, he smelled as good as he looked. “Is there a rooftop pool? A skeleton in a closet? Wait, no more closets. I’m right off them at the moment.”
“There are no skeletons anywhere,” she hissed, and smacked him on the arm when a couple walked by on the way to their room. “Hush. I’m tempted to end the tour right now, you know. You’re not taking it very seriously. Callender House really is a New York institution, you know.”
“Your uncle doesn’t come up here much, does he?” Rhys asked as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He was examining a light fixture beside the elevator that just happened to be flickering like a firefly at the moment. “Because I don’t think you want him to start in on you about the wiring. You really should see to that, you know. Fire hazard and all.”
He turned a bright, helpful smile on her, and her impulse to smack him melted. She could always tune him out and simply enjoy looking at him while he was here, she thought, and let him take her arm as they stepped onto the elevator again. It would be much more relaxing than actually listening to his litany of the hotel’s faults.
She pushed the button for the eighth floor just as the light in the car sputtered and died.
“Wiring, see?” Rhys said, shaking his head sadly, those broad shoulders hunched in a shrug. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She restrained another sigh. If she was lucky, there was a pair of earplugs somewhere on the eighth floor.
Chapter 6
A lone in the Coach and Four’s kitchen three days later, Rhys dipped a spoon into a saucepan bubbling with an orange cranberry glaze. It was perfect—sweet and tart at the same time.
Just like Olivia was turning out to be, he thought as he took a peek at the walnut-ginger risotto in another pot, which he’d borrowed from the restaurant’s pantry—just as he’d “borrowed” the kitchen after the dinner service was over, despite Josef’s disapproving scowl. Olivia was mostly sweet, no doubt about it, as delightful as a bit of candy floss at a carnival, but every once in a while the surprising bite of her tart tongue startled him.
When he had the chance to get close enough to her to hear it, that was. In the three days since she’d shown him around the hotel, he’d barely had a chance to speak to her, sod it all.
He dumped two generous handfuls of freshly cut green beans into yet another pot, and turned on the gas beneath it. Room service was the way to go, clearly. Olivia had managed to keep firmly out of kissing range the last few days, but if he showed up at her door with dinner, flowers, and his most charming attitude fixed in place, he could change that, yes sir.
He had to kiss her, that was the thing. Really kiss her. He’d landed in New York without a plan, without even a conscious thought about why he was coming, only to find himself literally on the sidewalk at her feet. And every minute since then, he’d been able to think of nothing but her. Nothing but that glossy cloud of hair that was always escaping its pins, flying around her face like a nimbus, and the dreamy look in her eyes when he found her humming to herself at the registration desk or straightening up the lobby.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true, he reminded himself as he gave the glaze another stir. Now and then he found himself quite happily contemplating the sweet curve of her hips, and the way her breasts filled out the soft, all-too-touchable sweaters she wore.
He’d fallen for women before—far too many of them, by most accounts—but he was usually able to satisfy his interest pretty quickly. Unwrap the package, taste the goods, and be on his way, sated and perfectly content to search out his next flirtation.
Aside from Clodagh, he’d done pretty well till now. And despite what he’d learned from his mum and his gran, he’d fallen for more than Clodagh’s pretty white blonde hair and butterfly mouth. He’d fallen for her lies.
Not this time, he thought. Olivia couldn’t lie if her life depended on it.
No, the problem here was that he hadn’t been close enough to touch her since Tuesday. She was like a magnet. A stubborn one, to be sure, one that had managed to stay just out of reach, but a magnet nonetheless. He’d been in New York five days now and hadn’t done anything other than follow her around like a homeless puppy, eager for a scratch behind the ears.
And she wasn’t even his type! Not that he had a type, per se, unless he defined it by women who were a little more forthright in their sexuality than Olivia was.
But that was precisely the reason she fascinated him, wasn’t it? She was shy, she was old-fashioned, she was bizarrely committed to this falling down hotel, and she was most definitely not the type to fall into bed with a relative stranger.
And if he didn’t at least kiss her soon, he was going to go mad as a bag of snakes.
A change in strategy was clearly called for. Especially since every attempt to search her out during the day had been thwarted.
And he’d had such plans! Wednesday he’d wanted to ask her to accompany him sightseeing, which he’d foreseen as a perfect opportunity for a bit of handholding in one of those big red tour buses, but the maintenance bloke had stopped him before he’d even had a chance to ask her.
“She’s busy,” he’d grunted, and folded his arms in front of his chest in a remarkable imitation of a man who’d spent some time as a bouncer at a biker bar. “In a meeting,” he’d added before Rhys had even asked what exactly she was busy with. As he looked all too willing to cuff Rhys around the ears if he argued about it, he’d retreated. Sullenly, but he’d retreated nonetheless.
Thursday, he’d imagined lunch at a bistro downtown he’d read about. Just the two of them, a nice long cab ride between the hotel and the restaurant, and a delicious meal during which he would have plenty of time to charm her.
Except Roseanne had waylaid him in the lobby with a stern glare. “She’s in the kitchen with Josef,” she’d told him, hooking an ample arm around his shoulders. “The annual Manhattan Knitting Gild luncheon is this afternoon, and the old ladies love for Olivia to eat with them—she’s got a collection of scarves or mittens from them going back twenty-five years, you know. She can’t miss it, not even for lunch with a charmer like you.”
Somehow “charmer” didn’t sound like a compliment coming from the older woman. She’d steered him toward the bar, where he’d fumed for over an hour. At least Tommy the barkeep had been willing to share anecdotes about Olivia, one of which proved that she would undoubtedly love the Katharine Hepburn retrospective showing at a theater in the Village.
But when he’d scouted the hotel for her this morning, he’d found only traces of her perfume in the library she’d just left, a book she’d put down in the lobby, and Gus.
“It’s Friday,” the other man had said with a shrug. Beneath the brim of his ball cap, he had the sad, watchful eyes of a hound dog. “Always a busy day, getting ready for the weekend and all. And I think she said something about needing to do some shopping today.”
Said
something? To Gus? Hmmm. “So you saw her this morning?” Rhys asked, aiming for a casual tone.
“Sure.” More shrugging, this time accompanied by a gentle smile. “We have breakfast together most Fridays.”
A completely irrational spear of jealousy arrowed through Rhys. Breakfast? Alone together? He could have sworn Yelena said Olivia was too distracted to date…
But Gus had gone on while his mind was racing. “I like to pick up bagels on Friday mornings,” he said, “and I always bring one to her in the office. Cinnamon raisin, toasted, with butter. It’s kind of a tradition.”
Ah. That kind of alone together. That was all right then. Rhys grinned. Gus might prove to know exactly the kinds of things about Olivia that Rhys wanted to know. “Care for some lunch, old man?” he said. “On me?”
A café cheeseburger was all it took to discover where Olivia was likely to be tonight, what number her apartment was, and what kind of food she especially liked. A good man was Gus. Especially when it was beginning to seem as if Olivia was the princess in the tower, surrounded by far too many overprotective guards.
Not that he believed in fairy tales, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d wound up in New York, outside Olivia’s hotel, for a reason. That there was a reason a little voice in his head had begun to whisper “kiss the girl” every time he was within five feet of her. Which hadn’t been often enough the past few days.
Thus, he was making her dinner. Idiotic of him not to think of cooking before now, really—it was what he did best, although he had to admit he was usually a lot smoother when it came to courting a pretty girl. Between the spilled latte and the strewn underwear, and finding himself stuck in a transom, he hadn’t precisely shown Olivia his best side.
Tonight would be different.
A bottle of wine he’d bought this afternoon was already open and breathing on the counter, and dessert—a sinfully creamy white chocolate tart with a macadamia nut topping—was already plated and garnished with blackberries. He’d outdone himself, he had.
And he hadn’t even resorted to oysters, much as he’d been tempted to.
All he wanted was a kiss, after all. Well, no, that was a lie. But he’d settle for that, wouldn’t he? He’d have to, if Olivia wasn’t interested, but that didn’t bear consideration at the moment. No, at the moment he needed to concentrate on the green beans ready to come out of their pot, and then plating the risotto. Then the chicken, of course, as soon as the sauce had cooked down just a bit more. He wouldn’t grill the breasts until everything else was done, so they’d be perfect and juicy.
He grinned as he sniffed the sauce. He was a dab hand when it came to food, that was certain. And if he couldn’t woo the woman with a meal like this one, then chances were she couldn’t be wooed at all.
He picked up the pot of beans and turned toward the sink, only to find the woman in question standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her brow furrowed in confusion.
And was so startled, he dropped the pot with a furious clatter into the sink, spraying water and beans all over the counter and his shirt.
“What are you doing?” Olivia asked, rushing forward to grab a paper towel. She was wearing an old, faded pair of jeans and another soft gray sweater, with her hair piled haphazardly on top of her head, wisps escaping to tickle her cheeks.
She was a vision, Rhys thought vaguely, before he realized that the hot water from the pan had soaked his shirtfront, and the green beans were a complete loss.
“I was making you dinner,” he said with a bit of acid, and helped her scrape the exploded vegetable back into the pot. “Planned on it being a surprise, too. What are you doing down here?”
She raised one eyebrow, but she was trying not to smile, and a moment later she picked a stray bean off his sleeve. “It is my hotel, you know. I was looking for a snack, to be honest.”
“A snack?” He waved away the notion, hoping he appeared casual, which was difficult with spilled vegetables all over him. Sod it all, why was it so hard to be charming in Olivia’s presence? Tossing a pot of green beans like a scared schoolgirl? What the hell was wrong with him? “I’ve got a proper meal for you right here. Minus the veg, sadly.”
“This is for me?” She took a step closer to the cook top and peered into the saucepan, then squinted up at him suspiciously. “What were you planning?”
He motioned to the metal trolley parked on the other side of the counter. “Room service, love.”
Clearly, she was dreaming, Olivia thought as she spotted the cart laden with dishes and silverware. And a bud vase graced with a single red rose!
Rhys Spencer had to be a product of her imagination, if not her dreams. He was too charming, too sweet, too overwhelmingly sexy.
And too interested in her. Every time she turned around, someone was mentioning that he’d been looking for her, asking about her. And now he was cooking for her? And planning to deliver it right to her door?
The implications of that sank in as she gazed at the dessert waiting on its clean white plate. Room service meant her apartment. Where the two of them would have been all alone, with a romantic meal obviously meant to share, as the pairs of dessert plates and wineglasses proved.
Suddenly her pulse was ticking like an overwound clock. After Tuesday, and the patent failure of the hotel tour, she hadn’t seen him face to face, and it had been so easy to dream of him. Call up that wicked grin, and the adorably restless spikes of his hair, the dark, musky scent of him. He’d begun to seem like something she’d fantasized, to tell the truth.
And fantasies were what she did best. They were certainly a lot easier to manage than real life, especially when real life meant an uncle who’d turned into Snidely Whiplash and a hotel that everyone she knew was determined to tell her was falling down around her ears. She’d overslept the past two days, and she was ashamed to admit that she hadn’t felt guilty about it at all. Snuggling under the covers was a hell of a lot easier than facing Roseanne, and Angel, and Josie, and the specter of Stuart.
Not to mention Rhys. Who made her blush and tingle and imagine all kinds of things she had never even done before, especially when she was standing right next to him.
“Surprise is ruined, I suppose, but dinner isn’t,” he said now, stirring something that smelled absolutely sinful. “Except, you know, for the veg.”
The sheepish look on his face was so at odds with that air of danger he wore like a second skin, she couldn’t help laughing. “That’s all right,” she said, wiping up the last bit of spilled water on the counter. “I’m not very good about eating my vegetables anyway. I’m not very good at making dinner, either. If it involves more than opening a can or turning on the microwave, I’m out of my league.”
“A can?” He stared at her as if she’d uttered the foulest curse word in history. “Please tell me different, love. Dinner from a tin is a sodding crime. Cooking’s easy, anyway. I’ll show you how.”
She felt herself coloring again when he rested his hand on the small of her back, easing her toward the saucepan on the range. The weight of it there was comfortable, but somehow dangerous, too. It didn’t make sense for something to feel so right and yet make her absolutely tingly with anticipation and nerves.
“You’ll regret it,” she said lightly, watching as he stirred some kind of sauce with a big wooden spoon. “I’m one of those types that burns water.”
“Not possible,” he scoffed, and handed her the spoon. “It’s a glaze for the chicken breasts, which I need to get on the grill in a moment. Just some blood oranges and cranberries with brown sugar and a bit of cornstarch, and some spices and dry sherry. Nothing to it, you see?”
She managed a weak smile. Nothing to it. Right. Now if he would only tell her if the cranberries had to be peeled or otherwise dealt with, and where exactly one bought blood oranges…
He was grinning again, that lopsided smile that lit up his eyes. “Not convinced, yeah? Next time we’ll do it together. Dead easy, I promise.”
“What’s that?” she said vaguely, concentrating on the spoon he’d left in her hand as he checked the contents of another pot. And trying not to focus on the “next time” he’d promised so casually. He wasn’t going to be a guest forever, after all.
“Risotto.” He spooned a bit from the pot and held it to her mouth. “Taste.”
As if they’d known each other forever. As if they ate comfortably off the same spoon while making meals together on a regular basis. It was a silly little thing, but it was sexy, too.
Of course, that didn’t stop her from sounding like a prim, humorless virgin. “Oh. Well, all right…” Then the smooth edge of the spoon touched her bottom lip, and she took in the creamy stuff with a little sigh.
“Good, yeah?” His thumb brushed a stray morsel from her lip before she could reply and she cursed her burning cheeks.
“Delicious,” she breathed. The risotto, him, everything. She was standing in the hotel kitchen in her oldest jeans with a near stranger intent on teaching her to cook, and yet she felt as if she’d walked into some elaborate fantasy. Rhys was so easy, so effortlessly charming and sensual, and so very, very delicious himself, he had to be a dream. Things like this didn’t happen to her. Things like refereeing a catfight between eighty-year-old knitters happened to her, but at least the Knitting Guild’s annual luncheon was over for another year.
“Do you taste the walnut?” He took another spoonful from the pot and sniffed it deeply before tasting it himself. “I toasted them, to bring out all that rich nuttiness, and then I added a bit of nutmeg to deepen the flavor.”
She blinked, watching as his mouth worked, the generous curve of his lips as he spoke, his tongue as he licked the spoon before tossing it into the sink. “Uh-huh.”
Everything changed then. Rhys’s glance flicked over to her face, and whatever he saw there made his eyes darker, smoky with awareness. Suddenly, electricity crackled in the air, a distant hum in the silence, and her heartbeat was a frantic drum in her chest.