Authors: Cheryl Harper
Randa looked around at the lobby. “I don’t really want to stay anywhere else.” She pulled out her credit card and slid it across the desk to Laura. “Thank you so much for your help. That sounds like an excellent plan.”
Laura nodded and entered her credit card information. “That’s fine, Miss Whitmore. You’ll need to see me or Tony here at the desk on Friday and we’ll get you set up.”
Randa shot a look at Tony but he hadn’t moved. He watched Laura but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Or if he was thinking. Or really even if he was breathing. What an annoying quality in a man.
“What’s the dog’s name?” Randa looked back down at the dog to escape his stare.
“Misty. She’s kind of the hotel mascot.” Laura slid her card back across the table along with a key.
Randa did her best to ignore the sadness that came with imagining the hotel mascot with no hotel. Because when this became a Whitmore property, Misty would be evicted for sure. She gave the dog a final ruffle and said, “All right. Point me in the right direction.”
Laura nodded. “Tony’s going to show you to your room, but I did want to mention that Viva Las Vegas is our full service restaurant serving lunch and dinner. We’ve got room service available here in the hotel. Tony will show you the gym and the pool on the way to your room.”
Randa glanced behind her at the brilliant white sign that marked Viva Las Vegas. She could hear faint strains of rocking guitars and pianos and knew she could count on Southern fried goodness there. Her mouth watered at the thought.
When she turned back to Tony, she wasn’t sure he was going to do any of things Laura was signing him up for. He was statue still and just as warm. Then he slowly turned his head and looked at Laura for a long, drawn out, uncomfortable minute. Laura seemed unimpressed. “Don’t forget to help the lady with her bags now.” Randa held her breath and let it out quietly when Laura fluttered her eyelashes at Tony.
One corner of his mouth curled up before he took quick, efficient steps around to the front of the desk. Determined to show Tony that she wasn’t any happier to have his help than he was to give it, Randa hurried over to yank the straps of both of her smaller bags over one shoulder. She teetered again under the extra weight but steadied herself with a hand on her rolling bag. Tony called Misty with a quick whistle before he bent over to pick up Randa’s remaining bag. Then he tilted his head and Randa thought she saw his lips twitch. “Please, let me carry your bags.”
She held up a hand. “Oh, no, I have them. You should have seen me traipsing through the airport. I’ve got a good handle on how to manage lug—”
Tony slid his hand under the straps on her shoulder and smoothly pulled them over his own. Randa felt the path of that hand like a burn and froze for a second or two before she forced herself to breathe. She wondered what his touch on bare skin might accomplish.
“Follow me.” Tony clenched his hand and then shook it like he’d felt a tingle too. Instead of hurt, this time Randa felt the flutter of satisfaction. Maybe it was only a tiny reaction but she got the feeling that even that was more than Tony was used to.
Randa watched him cross the lobby and then glanced from him to Misty. The dog looked at Tony and then back at her before it looked like she shrugged her shoulders.
“Come, Misty.” His voice was rough, probably from lack of use, but deep. In a way, it matched his face, which was too stark and serious to be really handsome, but he could speak volumes with his eyes. She had a feeling Tony might be one of those deep thinkers, still waters that pondered big questions. Randa ignored the voice in her head that said he’d be a heartbreaker with a little more hair, a little less ink, and an entirely new wardrobe. Didn’t matter. She wasn’t here for men, heartbreakers or otherwise. She was here to get a little peace and some distance from the men already in her life, the ones she couldn’t dump or discourage because they were related. Also, they paid the bills. And when the credit card bill for this latest salon visit came in, someone was totally going to need to pay it.
Randa did her best to keep up with Tony but her four-inch heels weren’t made for speed. They were made for sex. She recognized the flaw in her plan almost immediately. Nothing she’d brought was for comfort, but she lived most of her life selling the right look.
“Hey, Tony, could you slow down just a bit? I think Misty’s breathing hard.” Randa shot an apologetic look down at the dog. Misty might seem to be laboring under the weight of all her skin but she was having no trouble keeping up.
Tony stopped in front of a door, swiped the key card, and opened it. She sort of expected him to let the door slam in her face but he held it open and then shut it carefully behind her. He walked to the closet and opened the suitcase rack before he set her rolling case on it. Then he put the other bags he was carrying on the floor next to it.
Unsure what to say in response to his helpfulness, she glanced around what was a fairly standard hotel room. Except for the life-size photos of Elvis in different poses. “Wow. Great photos.” She kicked out of her heels and wiggled her toes in the golden carpet. “Are all the rooms this nice?”
Tony turned to flip on the light in the bathroom. “This is just the standard room. All the first-floor rooms are like this, but the second and third floors and luxury suites have other themes.”
She inched around him to peek into the bathroom. It was black. Black tile, black toilet, brilliant silver mirror with bright white lights . . . it was a lot to absorb. “And the bathrooms too?”
Somehow his face softened. She didn’t get a full smile but she got the idea that he was amused at her amazement. Then he nodded. He carefully stepped around her, obviously doing his best to make sure he didn’t brush up against her. Randa was glad he was cautious. Really. She told herself she was better off not knowing if the zing of his touch was more than a fluke.
He was headed to the door at his previous quick pace when she said, “Um, what about the gym and the . . . what else were you supposed to show me?”
His shoulders slumped a bit and he picked up her key card. “Follow me.”
Randa looked long and hard at the Laboutins passed out in a drunken sprawl on the carpet. She stepped over them and followed Misty out into the hall. She could hear the whisper of her jeans, which were now too long on the carpet. And nothing else. Tony didn’t say anything. And she had no idea how to get the conversation started.
Near the end of the hall, Tony stopped and pointed. “Gym. Closes at ten, opens at six. If you need help, call the front desk.”
Tony raised an eyebrow. Randa nodded. And the three of them resumed the tour. It was kind of nice communicating on a nonverbal level like that. Maybe Tony was on to something.
The hall ended with a glass door labeled “Pool.” And Tony opened the door to let Misty out. “If you come out, you’ll need a key card to get back in. Otherwise, you’ll have a long walk back to the lobby front door.” He handed her the room key and they were both careful to avoid any brush of skin.
Randa nodded her understanding.
Tony pointed. “See that building?” When Randa peered through the glass, she leaned close enough to smell Tony’s detergent and aftershave. He smelled so, so good. Not rich, but healthy. She stepped back quickly and bumped the wall. “That’s the employee apartments where you’ll be staying.”
Randa wrapped her arms tightly over her chest. “Thanks for the tour. I appreciate it.”
Tony was serious as his eyes met hers and finally he sighed. “Welcome to the Rock’n’Rolla, Ms. Whitmore. I hope you enjoy your stay. Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to ensure a pleasant experience.”
He’d just put together more words than she’d heard him use altogether since she arrived. But the impersonal hotel speak showed less personality than his dark eyes had. She had the feeling that the real Tony was as much like his professional persona as the Rock’n’Rolla Hotel was the business-class W properties.
As she walked back to her room, she realized she already missed Misty. And she was more intrigued by the Rock’n’Rolla and its manager than was good for her. She’d have to get over both. She had a job to do.
Want to see how it all started at the Rock’n’Rolla Hotel?
Continue reading for an excerpt from Cheryl Harper’s novella,
“LOVE ME TENDER,”
available now in
Kiss Me: An Avon Books Valentine’s Day Anthology.
An Excerpt from
Are You Lonesome Tonight?
J
ULIE
D
ILLON PRAYED
under her breath while she did a particularly active form of airplane yoga. She contorted her nearly six-foot frame into this position and that to wrangle the seat belt and buckle out of the seat before cramming her twenty inches of hip into a seventeen-inch seat.
“Please don’t let anyone sit next to me. Please, God, let’s leave this one seat empty, okay?”
This had been the day from hell, if hell was a frozen wasteland that sent freezing precipitation across half the country. So far, she’d gone from Atlanta to Chicago to Charlotte and right back to where she started before dawn. After a quick race through the airport, she’d been one of the last people to board the final flight of the day. It would take a miracle for her to make it to Dallas tonight but she wanted to get home. She was staring Valentine’s Day in the face, and if she didn’t make it home tonight, she’d be at the mercy of the world’s romantics tomorrow. Maybe the good luck that had gotten her to the gate on time would hold and that seat would be vacant for the hour and a half it would take to fly from Atlanta to Dallas.
As Julie leaned back to take a deep, calming breath, she kept an anxious eye on the front of the cabin and the still-open door.
Really wish I’d taken this jacket off before I buckled in
. With her knees crammed up against the seat pocket in front of her, she decided there was no way she’d ever be comfortable on this flight, jacket or no jacket, and besides, she didn’t have enough energy to repeat the process and take it off. Instead, she waved her hand limply around her glowing face and decided to cool herself by sheer force of will. She closed her eyes to concentrate and kept whispering “Please let it be empty” under her breath.
“Sorry, darlin’, but that prayer isn’t going to be answered.”
At the deep, soothing voice, Julie’s eyes snapped open and she swallowed a groan. She didn’t want anyone in that seat, but she sure as heck would have picked just about anyone else besides Luke Pearce. She should have expected him. They’d both been in Atlanta for client meetings.
The Dillon Agency specialized in sports law, and business was very, very good, especially for Luke. His latest client was a University of Georgia linebacker ready to go pro. Julie had been in Atlanta to review and discuss employment contracts with her biggest client, a minor league baseball team. If only she’d known how good Luke was at his job when he’d asked her out in the first place. She might still have questioned her luck but “No” would never have crossed her lips. At the time, all she could picture was the last time she’d been fooled by a man who was really just looking for approval from her father, Big Jack Dillon. And now . . . well, now she just felt like an idiot around Luke most of the time. Not that she’d let him know that. Living and working with her father for this long had taught her the value of a good poker face.
Now they both had to get home to Dallas somehow. She tried to pretend she was unaffected by him when they happened to work together. It happened so infrequently that it wasn’t hard to keep up the pretense. Being shoehorned together into a space that might fit one human comfortably was going to test her powers of indifference.
He slowly shrugged out of his suit coat and put it in the overhead compartment before folding himself neatly in beside her. Somehow, it looked like his hips were a perfect fit. His wide shoulders nudged and jostled her with every move he made to get buckled in. When he snapped the buckle, he turned a lazy grin her direction. She was in awfully close quarters to absorb the perfection of his wavy dark hair and brown eyes without reacting. His smile was hard to ignore.
She wanted to smile back. So badly. Instead, she cleared her throat. “Was I saying that out loud?”
“No, but I think every person who flies has probably prayed, ‘Please let that kid sleep all the way through, let the toilets work, let the flight be smooth and my connection on time, and don’t let that guy sit next to me.’” He wiggled his arms a bit, each shift rubbing across her right arm and thigh. “These seats get any smaller and we’re actually going to have to get a butt cheek removed to get in.”
Julie’s lips twitched but she wasn’t going to laugh. He made that difficult. “Listen, maybe we should try to get someone to switch with one of us. We’d probably both be happier.”
He waved his hand. “I am in no way complaining about being wedged in with you. Besides, I don’t think the right combination exists to fit us into a spot like this comfortably.”
As the flight attendant closed the door, he added, “I just think that’s the next machine that ought to go up at security. Maybe they could call it the Ass Minimizer 2000 or something.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Let’s get to work on that. An invention like that would make us a buck or two.”
Her smile fought its way to the surface before she snorted. “Believe me, I’ve been trying to lose some portion of my”—she licked her lips—“rear end for most of my life. If I could have invented something like that, I’d have already done it.”
And then she wanted to smack her forehead. Or maybe die. Calling attention to the size of her rear was never a good idea.
When a wicked smile spread across his face and his eyes heated, she knew that a mental smack to the head would never be enough.
“I think that might be a shame, darlin’. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Julie rolled her head on her shoulders to try to ease some tension. “Luke, can we not do this? The very last thing we need to be talking about is my rear, overabundance or not. It’s not appropriate for coworkers. Maybe stick to something you do know very well, like the flight attendant’s measurements, the latest stats on your fantasy football league, or . . . maybe we just shouldn’t talk at all.” The bitch defense. It usually worked pretty well for her, yet it shouldn’t have surprised her that it had very little effect on him.