Twenty Hours in Boston

by Priscilla Darcy

  She flickered a smile at him, then turned back to Moira. “A cap. Or rather, a hat. Thinking about art, I was recalling this portrait that I'm fond of, where the subject is wearing a hat. We'll have to think about that for your portrait, perhaps."

  Moira looked pleased. “Oh, that's a fantastic idea, Aubrey. An absolutely fantastic idea. We should go shopping for hats. How do you think I would look in a hat, Gray?"

  "Like an anachronism,” said Gray.

  "Ignore him,” Moira told Aubrey.

  * * * *

  Aubrey leaned back in the enormous tub in her hotel suite and enjoyed the skyline view out the window. Or told herself she was enjoying it, when really she was thinking of Gray.

  How Gray had been relaxed and charming and comfortable at dinner—everything she was sure Gray always was. He had that polish to him. On his home turf it was pretty obvious that he was one of those people who just handled situations. People kept saying he was easy-going, and she could see that. Sit and have dinner with a one-night stand? No problem. All in a day's work for Gray Delamonte.

  Aubrey decided her new mantra damning Gray to hell was a pretty good one.

  She needed to find somebody other than Gray Delamonte to be interested in. Not that she was strictly interested in Gray Delamonte. Just that she was attracted to Gray Delamonte. So she had to find somebody else to be attracted to.

  Because Gray was obviously not interested in a relationship with her. If he were, he would have had some reaction to her at dinner. But other than the initial surprise, it had been just like she was a stranger to get to know.

  In a completely different category than his Valentine's Day date.

  She had been getting over Gray so nicely in New York. Okay, so this wasn't really true—but at least she wasn't constantly running into him and remembering that he had a small nick of a scar on the side of his hip that provoked a groan when nipped at. Maybe she should call Hannah and tell her this. Probably Gray would appreciate having the woman prepped for him before he got her into bed. Would save him a hell of a lot of time.

  Sighing, exhausted, Aubrey decided what she needed was a good night's sleep. She was snappish. She pulled on an old T-shirt and an old pair of sweatpants and crawled into bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

  And was awakened by someone knocking on her door.

  Aubrey blinked blearily at the clock on her bedside table. Almost one a.m. Who could possibly want her?

  She pulled herself out of bed, walked out into the main room, peered through the peephole.

  Gray. Still in the dark charcoal suit he'd worn to dinner. Pale blue tie still perfectly knotted. In her surprise and curiosity, she opened the door without even thinking. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Gray blinked at her. He had not really expected Aubrey to answer the door looking delightfully mussed from sleep. His blood skidded to a stop in its normal course and all rushed to inappropriate places, leaving him just a bit dizzy in the aftermath, which was why he stupidly pointed out, “You're sleeping."

  "Well, not now, no,” she retorted, scowling at him. “What do you want?"

  "I just wanted to know if ... if you enjoyed your dinner."

  "You wake me in the middle of the night to ask if I enjoyed a dinner we finished hours ago?"

  Gray glanced at his wristwatch, and she watched surprise flicker over his face. “You're right.” He looked back up at her. “I'm sorry. I lost track of ... I didn't realize..."

  It was nice to be talking to him. Leaning against the hotel room door, watching the emotions play over his face, she decided it was nice to be talking to him. She was only half awake, and that was clearly why she asked him, “What were you doing that made you lose track of time?"

  "Dealing with Danny. It doesn't matter. I'll talk to you in the morning."

  "I'm already up now,” she said, and retreated into the room, sitting on the couch.

  He gathered that meant he was supposed to follow her into the room, and he wasn't sure that was such a good idea. For some reason, she made him feel like an adolescent. He didn't entirely trust his ability to keep his hands to himself.

  He took a hesitant step into the room and closed the door and stood beside it. “Really I wanted to ask you about the cap."

  Aubrey looked at him from where she sat on the couch, hair every which way on top of her head. Maybe just a small make-out session on the couch, just a few kisses—

  No!

  His inner voices warred angrily and he looked instead at Vegas outside her window.

  "Ah, yes,” she said. “The cap you left behind in your eagerness to sneak out of my room."

  A twinge of annoyance sent his gaze back to her. “About that. You cannot possibly be angry with me. You were pretty clear that I wasn't in love with you—"

  "So what if you weren't in love with me? That means you can't be polite?"

  She maybe had a bit of a point. “I—"

  "You didn't trust me not to turn into some overemotional ball of ... emotions. Do you really think you're that damn good? I have your cap. It's in New York. I'll get it back to you. Never fear."

  Gray sighed. He sat on the couch opposite her and just stared. She looked back at him, and she didn't look exactly angry, just a bit irritated. “Did you tell my mother?” he asked.

  "Are we in high school, Gray? Of course I didn't tell your mother! I don't want it getting around that I sleep with strange men whose last names I don't know. Although apparently that would seem to be your reputation."

  "I never sleep with strange men—"

  "You know what I mean. Your fear of all types of commitment has already been well-documented. Your mother, you know, thinks Hannah Dunbar might be the one."

  "My mother's delusional."

  "Yeah, but I didn't want to be the one to break it to her that her son's more the love ‘em and leave ‘em type."

  "I'm sorry that I—"

  "It doesn't matter. It was months ago. It doesn't matter."

  "Right. Can you even think of the game without wanting to put your fist through a wall?"

  "No,” she admitted. “How's your foot?"

  "It recovered quite nicely, thanks. Nary a limp left. I was teased mercilessly."

  "As well you should have been. It was a ridiculous thing to do, kicking the wall."

  "It was very manly,” said Gray with a smile.

  "Believe me,” she smiled back, “you have much more manly moves."

  Gray experienced sudden panic. Half of it was due to sitting in such comfortable intimacy with a half-naked bundle of Aubrey in front of him. The other half of it was due to being hit by her smile at such close range, at realizing anew how much it lit the blue in her eyes.

  And all of it directly resulted from the fact that he knew if he stayed in that room much longer, he would be on her couch very shortly instead of his couch—and that couldn't lead to good things. She would either reject him, which his ego would be totally unable to handle, or she would welcome his embraces, and then, hell, he would probably find himself with a clingy, impossible relationship on his hands. With his mother breathing down his neck for grandchildren.

  He stood abruptly. “I'm keeping you. I'm sorry that I woke you at all."

  "I'll get the cap to you,” she assured him, tipping her head back to look up at him. “I promise."

  "Thank you. I appreciate it. I hope you have a pleasant stay in Vegas.” Good Lord, he sounded like a damn bellboy!

  Aubrey lifted her eyebrows. Apparently their relationship had regressed to that of hotel owner and esteemed guest. She supposed she should be grateful. Much less complicated.

  No matter that Gray seemed to have no lingering emotional attachment to her. How could an emotional attachment linger when it had never existed in the first place? “I'll look for those museums,” she replied.

  "Good. Well ... good night."

  She watched him click the door closed behind him, then she collapsed backward onto the couch as it occurred to
her, finally, that she had just had a long conversation with the hands-down sexiest man she'd ever met—without the armor of makeup or even brushed hair. No wonder he was behaving like an employee around her.

  Remembering her mantra a bit belatedly, Aubrey recited it toward the ceiling.

  Damn Gray Delamonte to hell.

  Chapter Nine

  "That's what it feels like to be a Red Sox fan. You make phone calls thinking to yourself, ‘Hopefully, my Dad picks up, because there's at least a 5-percent chance that the Red Sox just killed him.’”

  —Bill Simmons, ESPN.com October 17, 2003

  February 13, 2004

  Aubrey was just getting out of the shower when the knock sounded on her door. She peeked in that direction with trepidation. Why was it people only showed up at her door when she was in a not-to-be-seen state? Probably it was Gray, honing his inappropriate-Aubrey-encounter radar.

  The knock sounded again. Sighing, Aubrey wrapped herself in the cavernous robe that came with her room and peered through the keyhole. It was a Bienvenue employee, dressed in the French-country-inspired livery of the Bienvenue employee.

  Aubrey edged the door open the smallest crack, hoping it hid a great deal of her wet, shampoo-tousled hair. “Yes?"

  The employee handed her an envelope. “Courtesy of Mr. Delamonte,” he said.

  "Huh?” said Aubrey stupidly, looking at the envelope. It was a heavy cream stationary envelope—Bienvenue stationary envelope.

  "Have a nice day,” said the employee, walking away.

  Aubrey thought she should have tipped him, but she didn't have any change in her bathrobe and she decided it was too much hassle to call him back and have him wait while she scrounged for some. Besides, she was too curious about the contents of the envelope.

  She closed the door and ripped open the creamy envelope. Out fell several brochures for art museums in the Las Vegas area. There was no note. If the employee hadn't said Gray had sent them, they could have come from anybody.

  But they had come from Gray. He had thought to gather up information on something he obviously knew nothing about because she had mentioned that she liked it. And that was sweet.

  Too sweet.

  Aubrey recited her mantra again as she slid the brochures back into the envelope and walked into the bedroom, dropping the envelope on the bed. As she shrugged off the robe and searched for clothing to wear for the day, she called Kaye.

  Kaye picked up on the third ring with, “Hi, Aubrey. I saw where you called last night. I called you back but didn't get an answer."

  "I was having dinner with Moira,” she explained, choosing a knee-length dark blue denim skirt. “And then I was too tired when I came in to talk, and anyhow you would have been asleep by then. How's the baby?"

  "Actually sleeping more than twenty minutes at a time now, can you believe it? I thought I'd never get a decent night's rest again. How's it going out there?"

  "Fine. The portrait's crawling along. I'm almost done with the background. Then I'll start doing serious work."

  "You're only just getting started on the serious work? You're going to be there until the end of time."

  Aubrey chuckled, attempting to pull on a sleeveless white blouse without dropping the phone. “Not quite that long. But a while yet. I really like Moira. This is more like fun than work. Are you coming out again soon?"

  "Maybe I will. I miss you, you know."

  "I miss you too. I just thought maybe you had another meeting soon with Moira about her memoirs or something..."

  "What's wrong, Aubrey?"

  "Nothing. Nothing, really. Really."

  Kaye didn't seem convinced. “I don't have another meeting scheduled with Moira until next month. Hang on, I'll find my schedule and—"

  "I need you to do me a favor,” Aubrey told her friend. “Can you stop by my apartment and send me the Red Sox cap that's in the coat closet, on the top shelf?"

  "Okay. Sure. Have you taken to wearing baseball caps as a fashion statement now?"

  She was teasing, and Aubrey knew that she was teasing, and still she could not get herself to tell Kaye the truth. That the cap belonged to Gray. That Gray worked at the Bienvenue. Worse, was the son of the subject of her painting, the son of the subject of Kaye's editorial project.

  She didn't want her to think that she had kept the cap out of some fit of sentimentality. Which she hadn't. And she didn't want Kaye to think that having to deal with Gray's presence in her life was going to affect her in any way.

  So it was much easier to just say, noncommittally, “Can you get it for me?"

  "Of course,” Kaye promised. “So how are you doing out there? Are you happy?"

  "Getting there,” she decided. “Getting there."

  * * * *

  Gray waved Mark into his office while he was busy listening to the manager of his San Francisco Bienvenue hotel detail a small fire that had erupted in one of the rooms. Cause still under investigation—but the suite had been rented by a rowdy rock star so Gray was pretty confident that the fire wasn't due to faulty electrical wiring or anything like that.

  He hung up after the manager promised to call back when more was known and said to Mark, “What can I do for you?"

  Mark had made himself at home in the chair in front of Gray's desk. “That about the San Francisco fire?"

  "How do you know about the San Francisco fire?"

  "Hotel gossip,” Mark replied.

  "God help us. And before I forget, Lucy's bringing in a couple of guests who have requested extra security."

  "Extra security? What for?"

  "They think they're VIPs. So important that naturally they have mortal enemies who will be trying to kill them at every turn. It's fairly ridiculous, but it will keep them happy."

  "And gambling,” added Mark.

  "Exactly. Marjorie said you wanted to talk to me about something?” he prompted.

  Mark took a deep breath. “Yeah, I—"

  "Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Delamonte.” The kid he'd sent on his errand to Aubrey's suite poked his head into the office. “I just wanted to let you know that I delivered the package."

  "Oh,” said Gray quickly. “Thanks. Bye.” Not such a subtle hint. The kid retreated immediately.

  Mark looked intrigued. “What package?"

  "Nothing.” Gray waved his hand, attempting to look thoroughly innocent. “It's nothing. What was it you wanted to say?"

  Mark looked uncertain. After a moment, he began, “I—"

  "I sent some museum brochures to Aubrey,” Gray blurted out, so that Mark would see that this was so minor that he didn't care if Mark knew about it. “She's into art. I didn't realize that. And she's new in Vegas, and I thought some museums would make her feel more at home, and the brochures were pretty easy for me to find, so it was really just a throwaway errand.” He waved his hand casually again, as if it was nothing at all.

  Mark blinked. “Huh?"

  "I sent some museum brochures. To Aubrey. That's what the package was."

  "Who is Aubrey?” asked Mark.

  Gray was rendered speechless for a moment. How could anyone see Aubrey and not remember her forever? “Aubrey! The girl I—"

  But Mark had by then placed the name. “Oh, Aubrey. That's right. You sent her some museum brochures?"

  "Yeah."

  "Why'd you do that?"

  "She mentioned she liked art. And it was just a throwaway errand.” That hand gesture again. Surely it couldn't look that casual after the third time...

  Mark regarded him, head tilted a bit, eyes narrowed. Gray felt decidedly squirmy and uncomfortable under the gaze. He didn't deserve such a gaze. It wasn't like sending something to a guest to make her stay a little more comfortable was unusual. It certainly wasn't. Sure, the Chairman of the hotel's Board of Directors didn't normally assemble the package himself, but—

  There was a first time for everything, wasn't there?

  "Totally throwaway,” he said again when he thought Mark had been
silent for quite long enough.

  "Okay,” Mark agreed after another second, and stood up.

  "Wait. I thought you had something to tell me."

  "I did. But it's not that important. You're distracted."

  "I'm not distracted."

  "Uh-huh. You could take her to a museum, you know. That would be nice of you."

  "Why would I take her to a museum? She can take herself perfectly well."

  "I know you're not that much of an idiot so I'm going to ignore that stupid question,” Mark replied mildly.

  "The brochures were just so that she would have a pleasant stay. She's a guest. It was a—"

  "Throwaway errand,” finished Mark. “I heard you. I'll make sure Lucy's VIPs have extra security."

  "You're sure that whatever you had to say can wait?"

  "Yeah,” he decided after a second. “Yeah, it can wait. I'll see you later."

  Gray watched him leave, narrowed his eyes and allowed himself a few seconds of thought. What could Mark have wanted to talk about? Probably nothing. What would Aubrey read into his gesture of sending her the brochures? Probably nothing. Hopefully nothing.

  "Ms. Dunbar is scheduled to arrive at two o'clock.” Pause. “Mr. Delamonte?"

  Gray forced himself to focus on his secretary, forced himself to translate what she'd just said to him. “Oh!” He realized after a moment. “Right. Ms. Dunbar."

  "Shall I arrange for flowers in her suite, Mr. Delamonte?"

  "Good idea. Nice flowers."

  "Yes, Mr. Delamonte."

  "And I need reservations. Someplace slightly trendy and mostly romantic."

  "Yes, Mr. Delamonte. For tomorrow night?"

  "Yes. And,” he decided on a whim, “also reservations for two at Picasso's for tomorrow night."

  Marjorie radiated skepticism toward him. In her years of employment, Gray had never seen a single expression cross over the woman's face. She communicated her emotions solely by telepathy, as far as he could tell. “Picasso's?” she repeated.

  "I know I'm cutting it close for reservations at Picasso's for Valentine's Day, but use my name. And throw a bit of money around, if you have to."