Home Sweet Home

by Melanie Shawn

  The concierge looked up and did an immediate double-take. It was clear from his expression that he recognized Karina, but the stricken look on his face was quite different than the fumbling or even thrilled reactions that Lauren had seen people have to Karina in the past. This guy looked like someone had just told him his dog was dead.

  “Miss Black,” he said solemnly, “I feel entirely remiss in my duties. I had no idea you were staying with us this weekend.”

  Karina smiled her 'star wattage' smile, the effect like a beam of pure golden sunlight radiating from her face.

  “I wasn't, James” she said cheerfully, glancing at his name tag, and then snapped her Amex Black card down on the desk between them, “I am now, and I'm going to need some things.”

  The man's face lit up, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.

  “Absolutely,” he said smoothly, taking the card and beginning to type into his computer, “What can I provide you with?”

  “First of all, do you know when the bachelor auction begins?”

  “In 45 minutes,” he replied, without even having to consult a schedule.

  “Alright then, we really don't have much time. I'm going to need a room, first of all...”

  “The penthouse?” James interjected, sounding confident.

  “Absolutely,” Karina replied equally as confidently, and then continued, “We will need a selection of gowns brought up, as well as a makeup artist and a hair stylist – actually, time is short, probably two of each to be safe – and I need that within fifteen minutes.

  “Additionally, I'm going to need four tickets to the bachelor auction.”

  James forehead wrinkled, “I believe the minimum commitment is a table.”

  “That's not a problem,” Karina assured him, “Just make it happen, James. I'm counting on you.”

  James smiled. “Excellent, Miss Black,” he typed furiously for a few moments, and then handed her a leather portfolio, “In here, you will find your room keys and a guide to various complimentary services provided our top tier guests. Your makeup artists and hair stylists are on their way, as is the selection of gowns. I have arranged for champagne, chocolates, and a selection of seasonal fruit to be waiting for you and your guests to enjoy in the room while you wait.

  “I will personally now see to your tickets to the bachelor auction, and please don't worry about the tight time frame. I will make it my business to ensure that the auction does not begin until your party has arrived. The tickets and your card will both be delivered to your room as soon as the arrangements have been made.

  “Is there any other way that the Fairmont can be of service to you, Ms. Black?”

  “James, you're fantastic!” Karina said warmly.

  James was clearly basking in the praise from this famous, beautiful woman, but he merely replied, “The Fairmont thanks you for your business, Ms. Black. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with me if there's absolutely anything else I can do for you.”

  The girls gathered their things and made their way to the Penthouse, stepping into the breathtaking three-bedroom suite and halting, stunned. Even Karina, who was used to this sort of luxury, was duly impressed with the grandeur surrounding them.

  “Oh my, Karina!” Lauren exclaimed, almost choking on the words, “This must have cost...”

  “Best not to think about it,” Karina assured her, “Now let's find that champagne, shall we?”

  “But...we didn't need the Penthouse, for God's sake!” Lauren sputtered, growing ever more nervous and uncomfortable.

  “Yeah, we did actually,” Karina said matter-of-factly, “That's the tradeoff for all of the perks, you know? If you want them to give you the star treatment, you have to spend like a star. It's only fair. Now stop thinking about the moolah and start focusing on your mission, woman! Let's uncork this bubbly and plan what you're going to say to Ben!”

  Lauren agreed, and they sat down, munching on the delicious goodies and sipping the fine champagne until backup arrived in the form of wardrobe, hair and make-up.

  If not for Lauren's recent foray into the world of being primped and dressed by others as part of her TV hosting gig, she would have been much more uncomfortable during the hurried dressing and styling session that followed, but she was amused at herself to find that she actually considered it old hat, familiar.

  When a porter arrived with the envelope containing their tickets and paddles for the bachelor auction, Lauren actually began to feel somewhat confident. This plan was really falling into place.

  As they were walking out the door of their suite to make their way back down to the lobby, Karina stopped Lauren.

  “Open your purse,” she said decisively.

  Lauren's forehead crinkled, “Do you think I stole something and put it inside of this tiny little clutch they gave me?”

  Karina smirked, “Stop trying to out-smartass me, it'll never happen anyway. Now, open your purse.”

  Lauren complied and Karina dropped the keys to the Penthouse suite into the small bag.

  “There,” she said with satisfaction, “Now if things work out with you and Ben, you guys can just come straight back here without having to find me and get the key.”

  Lauren's eyes widened, “You're giving us the Penthouse Suite for the night?”

  Karina grinned, “Awfully cool of me, right?”

  Lauren shook her head, not understanding, “Where will you guys go?”

  Karina laughed, “I think James might be able to scare something up for us. No worries.”

  As it happened, the auction did not even need to delay its start, so skilled and efficient were the beauty technicians that James had sent. The four of them took their seats at their otherwise empty table and began watching the parade of men take the stage.

  Amanda was actually appalled at the barbarism of the whole thing. “They just...they just...put themselves out there like pieces of meat, for women to ogle and fight over...”

  Karina snorted, “Please. You just described, like, their wet dream.”

  With every man that walked out and wasn't Ben, Lauren grew more and more fidgety. Karina said, “You better sit still, or you're gonna accidentally buy another bachelor.”

  Finally, the emcee announced that Ben was next. He was the celebrity guest and so had been saved for last, like a finale.

  Before Ben had even taken two steps down the runway, Lauren's hand had shot into the air, displaying her paddle and its number clearly.

  The auctioneer called out her number and she lowered her paddle, heart pounding.

  Karina looked at her, shaking her head. “Maybe that was a tad bit eager, love.”

  Lauren nodded with chagrin, her hopes of being the winning bidder evaporating as she saw the bids climbing higher and higher. She hung her head, defeated.

  “Well, I didn't mean give up altogether,” Karina said urgently. The bidding seemed to be leveling off at about $20,000 and would most likely end soon.

  “Going once...” the auctioneer said.

  Lauren intoned miserably, “I don't have that kind of money...”

  “Going twice...” the auctioneer continued, a note of finality in his voice.

  Karina snatched Lauren's paddle away from her, shooting it into the air and shouting, “Fifty thousand dollars!”

  A gasp arose in the ballroom and Ben strained to see who had made the outlandish bid. However, because of their late purchase of a table, they were nestled way in the back corner, in the shadows where they couldn't be clearly seen from the front of the room.

  “Sold! To #174, the generous lady in the back of the room!” the auctioneer cried gleefully, banging his gavel.

  Karina turned to Lauren, who was staring at her, open-mouthed.

  “Good thing I do have that kind of money,” Karina said, handing her back the paddle, “Now you go collect your man!”

  “Why did you do that?” Lauren said, stunned.

  Karina shrugged, “You know how you said Ben basically dev
oted his whole life to taking care of his mother and sister? Well, I don't have that. I have my grandmother, I have Ryan and Sue Ann, and I have you three. You're my sister, Laur. There's nothing I wouldn't do to see you happy.”

  Lauren teared up, but Karina admonished her, “Time for mushiness later! Don't mess up your makeup right before you go knock the socks off the most expensive man in San Francisco!”

  Lauren nodded, recognizing the wisdom in this statement, and gave all three girls a hug before rushing off to the backstage area where the bachelors and their dates were meeting up.

  Right before entering the room, Lauren had an attack of nerves and actually considered dropping the whole crazy scheme right there. It was only the thought of having to live that down with the Fabulous Four for the rest of her life that propelled her forward and through the door, despite her trembling hands and roiling stomach.

  --- ~ ---

  Ben was exhausted and frankly, was in no mood for this awkward and forced 'date' he was about to go arrange. He didn't think he was in any shape to give someone even $50 worth of attention and fun, let alone $50,000 worth. Damn, what had he gotten himself into?

  He hadn’t slept at all last night. He had been able to do nothing but replay his catastrophic conversation with Lauren in his mind, over and over again, until the words seemed tattooed on his brain.

  'It was fun but it was just a hookup.'

  God damn, he felt sick to his stomach.

  He knew he had not handled the situation well the night before. He just wasn’t used to rejection, had never learned to deal with it gracefully. Hell, if this is what it felt like, he hoped to never have to learn that lesson.

  Dammit...maybe he was in denial, but he knew that what was between him and Lauren was more than what she claimed. He KNEW it! And he planned on doing whatever it took to convince her of that fact. He hadn't gotten to where he was today by giving up after the first ‘No.’ She was about to find out just exactly what a persuasive salesman he could be when he put his mind to it.

  He just wanted to get this little meet and greet over with so that he could head back to Hope Falls and somehow, somehow convince Lauren to give him a chance.

  As he stepped into the Green Room, where the women were waiting to set up the time and date of the dinner they had won with their bachelors, he didn’t make eye contact with anyone. He just scanned the room for paddle #174.

  He saw it and started walking towards it. He realized it wasn’t the fault of the poor woman who had bid that he had screwed up his love life so badly, and she didn’t deserve his foul mood, so he put on one of his biggest smiles as he raised his head to greet her.

  His heart stopped when he saw the beautiful green eyes of the woman he was in love with staring back at him.

  She raised her paddle slightly and said, “Hi,” in a small voice.

  His mind was trying to catch up to what his eyes were telling him was true. That Lauren - his Lauren – was standing here in front of him.

  “Hi,” he replied, an automatic response. His wooden voice sounded like a stranger's to his ears.

  Lauren looked like she was about to jump out of her skin, so he moved towards her to pull her into his arms.

  She put her hand up and said, “Wait, Ben. I need to get out what I came to say.”

  Ben stood still, holding his breath in anticipation of the words that she was eager to speak. This couldn’t be another rejection, could it?

  Who drove for three hours and then paid $50,000 just to reject someone for the second time?

  She shuffled nervously from side to side before licking her lips, which made him want to pull her to him and kiss away any anxiety she may be feeling.

  She looked up and met his eyes, and he could tell that it was difficult for her to do this. Taking a deep breath, she began her speech.

  “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am for the way I acted last night...This thing between us just happened so fast and I just wasn’t ready to face what it was. But I needed you to know that you are not just a hook up. You are so important to me. More important than pretty much anything, actually. And I…I…”

  She shook her head a little and tried again, her voice coming out in a whisper “I love you…”

  She shook her head yet again, and looked up at him with fresh resolve in her eyes. “I love you,” she repeated, still softly, but with quiet conviction.

  He smiled, “Sure about that?”

  “I am sure, that’s what scares me.”

  This time he did pull her into his arms, “You don’t have to be scared. We're in this together. I love you, Lauren Harrison.”

  Lauren's voice trembled, “But what about the fact that you live in LA and I am in Hope Falls? What if the show doesn't get picked up? What if...”

  Ben put a finger on her lips to silence her. “Lauren, we could live in a world of what ifs. Anyone could. So much in life is uncertain. I'd rather focus on what we are sure of. We know we love each other.

  “The rest of it? We’ll figure all that out, I am pretty resourceful when I am properly motivated,” he said, waggling his eyebrows up and down, which had the desired result of making her laugh. Oh, that laugh. It would be the undoing of him. He would do absolutely anything to hear it, and he couldn't see that changing anytime soon.

  When he saw the beautiful smile that remained on her face even after her laughter had subsided, his heart swelled with love. He reassured her even further, “Seriously, sweetheart. All of that is nothing more than geography. You are my heart, which means it doesn’t matter where I ‘live’ - wherever you are is my home.”

  Lauren kissed him and Ben felt like the luckiest man on earth.

  He was seized with a desire to get down on one knee right there and ask her to marry him. He knew she was it for him, there would never be anyone else. He was, to fulfill his Mom's prediction, racing her to the alter.

  Still, he restrained himself. Since just admitting that she loved him had made her look so nervous she almost turned green, he figured that a spontaneous proposal immediately upon the heels of that declaration may be moving a wee bit too fast for her. He could give her time, he wasn’t going anywhere, she was his home.

  Lauren smiled playfully. “Guess what?” she said, “I have a surprise, as well.”

  “What?” he grinned back.

  She pulled something out of her purse and held it out for him to examine.

  “What is that?” he asked, puzzled.

  “Oh, nothing much,” she said in a faux-blasé tone, “Only the key to the Penthouse Suite, which is ours for the night if we want it.”

  Ben grinned, “I don't know, gotta think that one through...” he teased.

  --- ~ ---

  As he stood at the window of the Penthouse behind Lauren, both of them wrapped in nothing but bed sheets, his arms around her as they took in the spectacular views of San Francisco at night and drank a toast to having found each other - Ben marveled at what a lucky man he was.

  He didn't know what the future held for them. There would be twists and turns in their road together, even bumps. Not every night would be like this, full of Penthouse Suites and champagne toasts. But whatever life threw at them they would face it. Together.

  Coming Soon - The Crossroads Series

  Here's a sneak peek of

  "My First"

  Chapter One

  “Welcome home!” Katie said sardonically to herself as she sat, eyes closed, in her rental car on the side of Highway 90. She had a paper bag pressed tightly against her mouth and a mantra running through her brain on repeat.

  You can breathe. Just breathe. Breathe in and out slowly. You can breathe.

  Katie had been back in Illinois less than two hours and here she was, smack dab in the middle of her first panic attack in eight years. She gripped the steering wheel hard, tried to soothe her racing heart, to anchor herself to reality. She forced her movements to be slow and deliberate.

  'This seems to be working, albeit slowly,' sh
e assured herself. When the overpriced therapist who had taught her the breathing exercise and suggested the mantra had laid out his plan, Katie had wanted to roll her eyes. She had wanted to tell him that he clearly had no flipping idea what a panic attack really felt like if he thought that repeating a little magic spell about breathing inside of her head was going to have any effect at all. She had wanted to tell him that panic attacks didn't feel like nervousness, for God's sake, or butterflies that you could just calm with the power of your flipping mind. They felt like having a heart attack, like you were dying, and have you ever heard of someone having a heart attack curing themselves by simply telling themselves to BREATHE for heaven sake?

  Of course, Katie hadn't said any of those things, she had smiled politely and practiced with the bag and kept her judgment of his professional aptitude (i.e., that he was a total quack!) entirely to herself.

  Still, since she hadn't had a panic attack in the past eight years, she hadn't ever gotten to test out the technique and prove his quackitude with rock solid evidence. Now that she was in the middle of one, and the exercise actually seemed to be working?

  Well, I'll move his status down to 'Jury's Still Out on the Level of His Quackosity' but I'm not nominating him for the Nobel Prize just yet, Katie thought cynically.

  The panic attack was subsiding, but Katie was still feeling some of the physical symptoms. Her head felt as if it were floating away, her fingers were tingling as if they were being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles, and she was being bombarded by an obnoxiously loud ringing sound. She forced herself to anchor to the sensation of the paper bag around her mouth to ground her in reality, and repeated the mantra (which, she had to admit, was kind of growing on her...)

  You can breathe. Just breathe. Breathe in and out slowly. You can breathe.

  Slowly, bit by bit, she drifted back to the present and into her body. She closed her eyes to appreciate the little sensations that she was now aware of - the leather of the seat pressed cold against her back...the icy breeze from the air conditioning blowing refreshingly on her face.

  She was aware of the weight of her chest rising and falling. Her arms felt heavy. Lowering them to her sides, Katie was vaguely aware that the paper bag had slipped from her hand and landed on the console beside her.