Turn Up the Heat (10 page)

Bellamy sank into the water up to her chin and cried.

“If you don't dish, and I mean
right now
, I'm going to explode!”

Holly held out a steaming mug of coffee, which Bellamy took with a grateful grunt as she padded from the common area to the kitchenette, wearing her bathrobe and a face full of determination to forget all about her night with Shane.

“Good morning to you, too.”

“Screw good morning! I need details!” Holly followed, hot on her heels, as Bellamy rooted through the fridge to unearth a tiny carton of half-and-half.

“There aren't any.” She shrugged, much to Holly's exasperation. No
way
was Bellamy going to admit being within nanoseconds of reaching the summit of Mount Oh-My-God while getting her fully clothed grind on. Especially since the guy in question had put the brakes on the whole shebang by uttering the three worst words in the English language.

Nope. Bellamy was in no mood to relive the craptastic events of her night. How many times could a girl hear “it's not you” before she got the message loud and clear that it was, in fact, very much her?

Jenna trudged in from her room, bleary-eyed, just in time to watch Bellamy's dodge-and-deflect. “Oh, hey B.” Jenna yawned and stretched. “Could you please tell her about your wilderness hike with Mr. Fix-It before she erupts? Spontaneous human combustion is so messy.”

Was it too late to go back to bed? “I hate him. How about that?” Bellamy asked sweetly, downing half her cup of coffee in one swallow. “Ugh, this stuff is
awful
.” She grimaced at the horrible mix of bitter and burnt invading her taste buds. Damn. Room service couldn't even get coffee right.

“Wait, you can't hate him. How can you hate him? I thought he was a good kisser.” Holly pouted.

“I can, and I do.”
And yes. He's a fan-freaking-tastic kisser. Not that I'll be making that mistake again.
“Is that my phone?” Bellamy furrowed her brow, searching for the source of the all-too-familiar annoying beep.

“It sounds like it.” Jenna scooped the iPhone up from where Bellamy had tossed it on the counter the night before and flipped it to her.

Holly planted her hands on her hips and stood in the doorway of the kitchenette like a bulldog in fuzzy slippers. “No way! You're seriously going to shut me down on the dirt?”

Bellamy pressed her lips into a tight line. “There's no dirt. I'm dirtless, dirt-free, utterly devoid of dirt of any kind. Clean as a whistle.” She tried to keep her face neutral as she flicked her phone to life.

Wait . . . how could there possibly be eleven unread texts and four voice mails on her phone leftover from a Saturday while she was on vacation? Nobody liked her
that
much.

“Hey, was there some kind of weird crisis last night that I don't know about? I have a ton of . . .” Realization hit Bellamy when she saw the caller history screen, making her heart take a swan dive toward her perfectly pedicured toes. How were
all
of these messages from her boss? She dropped her head into her hands and hoped that nine thirty wasn't too early to drink.

“What?” Jenna asked with a furrowed brow.

“Bosszilla is on the warpath.”

Bellamy pressed the phone to her ear. She had a sinking feeling that unless she figured out how to alter the time-space continuum to manage being in two places at once, she was definitely going to have to head home and figure out a way to come back for the Miata on Friday. Her boss was bound to flip into the stratosphere at the idea of Bellamy waiting in the mountains for her car to be fixed.

“Seriously? That witch needs a hobby,” Holly said, thankfully letting Bellamy slide in the naughty gossip department.

Jenna gave a humorless smile and nursed her coffee, leaning against the narrow counter dividing the kitchenette from the common room. “I think making Bellamy's life a living hell
is
her hobby.”

“Well, she's getting really good at it,” Holly quipped.

Bellamy jerked the phone away from her ear, her boss's recorded voice so grating and awful that the harping would be perfectly audible even if she laid the thing on the counter.

“Bellamy, I understand you're away until Tuesday.” The words
away until Tuesday
dripped with so much disdain that Bellamy cringed. God forbid she try to have a life on her days off. “But I absolutely need that Anderson contract on my desk first thing when you get back to the office.”

Bellamy swallowed. The Anderson contract, a.k.a. the Doorstop, was sitting, half done, on Bellamy's desk at work, and her boss had told her she had at least a week to finish the research. How was she possibly going to pull this off?

The voice mail droned on. “Oh, and another thing. We've moved up the deadline for the research on the project you've been working on with Cooper, and I'm going to need all of those figures no later than midweek.”

The message continued until the time limit for voice mail cut off, but far be it for a little thing like that to stop ol' Bosszilla. She'd just called back and left her litany in installments. By the time Bellamy got to Mission Impossible, The Final Chapter, she was exhausted just from listening. Meeting these new deadlines would be difficult even if she was back in the city. There was no
way
she could pull it off while being stranded in the mountains with no car and the paperwork a hundred miles away.

“I don't think I can handle this.” She propped her elbows on the counter and dropped her head into her hands. “You know, when I finished my MBA two years ago, this is
so
not what I had in mind.”

“Oh, honey. You had no way of knowing you'd get stuck working for such a heinous troll. Can you move within the company? Maybe there's an opening for an analyst on another team,” Holly said, giving Bellamy's back a gentle rub.

Man, she must be toeing the line of pretty pathetic to garner the sympathy-pat before breakfast. Bellamy sighed, peeking out from the thick tendrils of hair draped over her fingers. “Yeah, but you know what? That might just be a quick fix for a slow problem.”

Jenna drew her brows inward, leaning toward Bellamy from the other side of the counter. “What do you mean? When Bosszilla's not hounding you—which, granted, is half the day—you're great at your job.”

Bellamy managed a tiny smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I'm not stroking your ego just for the hell of it. That's the truth.” Jenna's voice was straightforward as her eyes focused in on Bellamy's over their coffee mugs. “You graduated twelfth in your class at the most prestigious freaking business school in the country. Come on, admit it. You don't exactly suck.”

“Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you love it, though. It's just not what I thought it would be, that's all.” Bellamy thought of all the hours she spent holed up in her office, meticulously researching contracts and negotiating deals for clients. The overwhelming majority of those hours had been spent wishing she were somewhere else. Somehow, all of her hard work and accomplishments just didn't seem to outweigh the negatives.

Holly's eyes went wide. “Are you saying you want to quit?”

“No!” Was Holly nuts? “I'm just bitching about my job, is all. I can't quit! I busted my ass to get a degree. I just took the boards last year, for God's sake! What else would I do?” Wow. Her job sucked and all, but there was no need to jump on the crazy train. She hadn't fought her way through UPenn to toss it all away when the going got tough.

“What else would you
want
to do?” Jenna's question threw Bellamy off-kilter, and it stopped her halfway between the counter and the cabinet over the mini-fridge, where she'd stashed the homemade muffins from the bakery at Joe's.

“What do you mean, what do I want to do? I want to come up with a pain-free way to get my ass home tomorrow night so I can work on the stupid Anderson contract until daybreak and get Bosszilla off my back. Can I just ride with you guys?” She'd simply have to suck it up and have the Miata towed back to the city once Shane fixed it. Not ideal, but there were no other choices on the table.

“No. I mean, if you could do something you really love, what would you do?” Jenna asked, point-blank.

Bellamy grabbed the bag of muffins and gave one to both Jenna and Holly before shrugging. “I don't know. I guess I could go into marketing.” She took a bite of her muffin, savoring it. At least
someone
knew how to get the whole blueberries-to-batter ratio right.

“That's the best you can come up with?” Jenna smirked.

“Hey!” Holly protested around a mouth full of cakey goodness. “I'm in marketing, you know. And oh my
God
are these good. But not as good as yours,” she amended, nodding at Bellamy.

“Exactly my point. You're in marketing because you love it.” Jenna acknowledged Holly with a nod, then flicked her gaze back to where Bellamy had just parked herself on a bar stool at the counter. “But not everybody loves her job, obviously.”

“You're forgetting the fact that I spent years going to school for this. Everyone expects me to have a business-oriented career. Plus, not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I
am
pretty good at it,” Bellamy replied, brushing the crumbs from her muffin into a tidy little pile.

“Oh please. Everyone who? Your parents? Sweetie, you're twenty-seven. It's time to cut the strings,” Jenna said.

“Not when the strings have owned a very successful realty business together for over twenty years and supported me while I went to grad school full-time. It's no secret that they're expecting me to join their company as soon as I get enough experience. Sure, they love me, but it would be kind of tough to swallow if I waltzed in and said I suddenly hated big business. Plus, what the hell would I do? Sitting around resting on my laurels isn't going to pay the bills.”

Jenna cranked out a grin. “Your answer's right in front of you, you know.”

Holly frowned and pulled back. “I don't get it.”

“You just said it yourself. Who makes the best blueberry muffins you've ever had?” Jenna's eyes lasered in on Bellamy, and her implication hit like a crate full of cannonballs.

“Oh, come on, Jenna. You can't be serious. You think I should sell muffins for a living?”

“No, dumbass. But becoming a chef wouldn't be such a bad idea.”

Bellamy barked out an involuntary laugh as shock ricocheted through her veins. “Please! Whipping up a batch of goodies for you guys here and there is one thing; trying to make a living of it when you have no experience and no training whatsoever is
quite
another. Culinary school takes years, and even then I'd only make peanuts for my troubles.”

That's why they called it a dream job, right? Because clearly, Bellamy would be dreaming if she thought someone would pay her to cook for a living.

“You know what, B? Your being a chef isn't a half-bad idea.” Holly looked at her with a sheepish nod.

Great. Now they were both crazy. Bellamy made a mental note not to bitch about her job quite so loudly anymore. “It's insane. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to figure out this mess before that yoga-pilates fusion class that's supposed to leave me stress-free and give me a butt you can bounce a quarter off of.”

Jenna shook her head with a soft chuckle. “Okay. But I'm telling you. You should think about it.”

Right, Bellamy thought as she scrolled through her phone to access her e-mail. Like anything more unlikely could happen than her blazing off on a new career path.

It made the whole impulsive evening making out under the stars with Mr. It's-Not-You look rational in comparison.

 

 

Shane lay flat on his back, looking up into the belly of the Mach 1 and thinking he'd be a billionaire if he could come up with a cure-all for being a complete jackass.

Oh, that and he wouldn't feel like shit over how his night with Bellamy had ended.

He replayed the whole thing in his mind for the
n
th time, picturing her green eyes glaring at him up on the Ridge. He hated that he'd been unable to meet those pretty yet pissed-off eyes before she walked away with nothing more than a clipped good night and her head held high. Man, how come doing the right thing felt so crappy?

Maybe because if he'd been smart in the first place, he'd have stayed the hell away from her.

“Shane? You in here?”

Shane's face creased in confusion as he pushed himself out from under the car with a booted heel. “Grady? What're you doing here on a Sunday?” Even from his vantage point on the floor, Shane could see the concern on the old man's face as he walked into the garage.

“Lookin' for you,” he said, his gravelly voice going all matter-of-fact.

“You found me. Is everything okay?” Shane sat up, nursing a twinge of concern.

Grady gave a singular, solid nod in the affirmative and looked around the garage. Shane winced as Grady's gaze swept over Bellamy's Miata. It was obvious not only that Shane had pulled out the old tranny to make way for the new one, but that Grady knew Shane had done it without him. The last thing he wanted was to overstep his bounds.

“Been busy, I see.”

Shane would've rather heard anger than the recognition that went with Grady's words, as if he'd pegged exactly why Shane had been spending so much time in the garage.

“Yeah, sorry. I was bored. I just figured I'd keep my mind straight by starting on it.” He nodded over at Bellamy's car, trying not to let his thoughts slip to its driver.