by Vi Keeland
“Is that brown?”
I glanced down at the blazer I wore. “It’s part of the hotel’s uniform. I wear it when I’m behind the front desk. What’s wrong with it?”
Scarlett seemed confused at my question. “It’s brown.”
I laughed. As expected, Scarlett looked like she’d just stepped out of a fashion magazine instead of off a seven-hour flight. Her shoulder-length blond hair was styled in roaring-twenties finger waves. She had on wide-legged cream slacks with a simple navy silk blouse, but the six or seven layers of pearls wrapped around her neck, oversized men’s Rolex on her wrist, and bright red pointy shoes on her feet made the outfit scream fashionista. Scarlett was a good five inches shorter than me, standing at only five foot two, but I doubted anyone knew that since her heels were always sky high. Her skin was as pale as mine, yet she could pull off bright red lipstick like no other. I think when your mother names you Scarlett, you might not really have a choice.
“We all can’t look picture perfect like you. How was your flight? And I thought you were bringing another person?”
“I did. He had to go straight to a meeting. I told him I had a pressing engagement and he’d have to handle it alone.”
I pouted. “I hope you aren’t gone too long. I was looking forward to having drinks. I haven’t found a new Friday night happy hour buddy yet.”
Scarlett draped her arm around my neck. “You are my pressing engagement. Why else would I take such a dreadful early-morning flight?”
I smiled. “Oh, great! That’s exactly what I need.”
It was the first time in a few days that I hadn’t felt a bit blue. I hated to admit it, but the lack of attention from Weston had left me feeling almost melancholy. It was stupid, I knew that, but logic didn’t pep me up any. Sadly, our fighting—and what came after our fighting—had been the highlight of my last few weeks. Ever since our lunch with Travis two days ago, Weston had been scarce. He’d even been keeping the door to his office shut now, which he’d never done before.
Granted, we were both really busy. Between the construction, the meeting we’d had with the union, our legal teams holed up in conference rooms and constantly requiring us to chase things to continue their due diligence, and just the general time constraints of trying to run a hotel you’re barely familiar with, it was a wonder either of us had time to notice the other one’s absence. I really hated that it bugged me at all.
Scarlett’s visit couldn’t have come at a better time. There was no better cure for feeling down and out than a heaping dose of Scarlett’s sarcasm.
I grabbed one of her two oversized wheelie bags. “How long are you staying? You only had me book four nights. This looks like enough luggage to last two months.”
“Darling, I’d need a separate plane for my bags if I were staying two months.”
I laughed. “Come on, let me show you to your room. I already checked you in. I’ll let you settle, and then we can enjoy happy hour at the main bar upstairs. It has a beautiful view of the City.”
***
“Come meet my new friends.” Scarlett swiveled on her bar stool as I walked back into the lounge. I’d been called down to the basement to deal with a broken pipe. When I returned, two very handsome men were seated to her left, and both stood.
“You must be Sophia.” The taller of the two smiled, extending his hand. “I’m Ethan, and this is my business partner, Bryce.”
I looked to Scarlett to fill in the blanks. I’d only been gone for about twenty minutes. Perhaps they were people she knew here for the fashion show. “Nice to meet you.”
“Ethan and Bryce are in the travel industry, too,” Scarlett said. “They own private planes that are rented by people who aren’t satisfied flying first class commercially. I told them they could buy our next round.” She picked up her drink and swirled the straw. “What more does a girl need than a best friend who owns beautiful hotels and two new friends who own private planes? Sounds like a match made in heaven, if you ask me.”
There were no seats left at the bar, so Bryce motioned to the one he’d been sitting in. “Please, take a seat.”
Scarlett caught my eye and wiggled her eyebrows discreetly. The men were handsome and obviously successful, but I’d been looking forward to some alone time with my friend. Though Scarlett seemed excited about our new companions, so I smiled and took a seat.
“What can I get you to drink?” Bryce asked.
Just then the bartender, Sean, walked over. He set a napkin down on the counter in front of me. “You want a vodka and diet cranberry, Ms. Sterling?”
“Ohhh. That sounds good. You have diet cranberry today?”
He nodded. “Sure do. Mr. Lockwood made sure we ordered a case of it the other day.”
“He did? Are we adding a special drink to the menu that uses it?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” He shrugged. “He just told us to make sure it’s in stock from now on because that’s what you like.”
It had felt odd to take a seat and agree to have drinks with these two men. But I quickly chalked that up to being out of practice. Liam and I were together for a long time, and I hadn’t jumped back into the dating world yet. Well, not really. Obviously Weston and I had had our dalliances. But the bartender’s mention of Weston doing something so small, yet sweet, made me realize the reason I felt uncomfortable sharing a drink with a man had nothing to do with being out of practice.
Forcing that thought from my head, I said, “Vodka and diet cranberry sounds perfect, Sean. Thank you.”
Bryce smiled. “I guess it’s hard to buy a woman a drink in a hotel she owns, huh?”
I smiled, and the four of us fell into easy conversation. Eventually, the seat to my left opened up, so Bryce sat down next to me. It allowed the conversation for four to turn into two more intimate conversations of two.
“So, I take it you live here in the City?” he asked.
“Right now, I live here in this hotel. My family just recently became partial owners of The Countess. I’d been living in London the last few years and moved back to help transition things here.”
“Does that mean you’ll go back to London after things are settled?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.”
Bryce smiled. “I’m happy to hear that. New York is my home base, too.”
His flirting was innocent, yet it made me feel guilty to participate. Obviously, Weston and I hadn’t talked about seeing other people. Not that he and I were actually seeing each other. I wasn’t naïve enough to think there was anything other than a physical relationship going on, and even that seemed to have fizzled as of late. So, I forced myself to stay open-minded, even though all I really wanted to do was go back to my suite with Scarlett and tell her all about me and Weston.
I sipped my drink. “So your office is here in the City, then?”
“Only a few blocks away. I’ve never been inside this hotel though.” He looked around the bar and out the tall wall of windows nearby. “The view is amazing. I have to admit, Ethan wanted to come here for drinks to celebrate a new contract we just signed, and I didn’t feel like it. Now I’m glad I did.”
Bryce and I sat together for a half hour, our conversation flowing pretty easily. I learned that six months ago he came out of a two-year relationship, and I shared that my long-term relationship had also recently ended.
“We got a dog together,” Bryce said. “Or rather, she picked out a dog, and I got to feed it and walk it.”
“What kind of a dog was it?”
“Is, not was. I got the dog in the breakup. Sprinkles is a shih tzu. She was the one who wanted the dog, yet she showed up at my apartment with some clothes I’d had at her place and the dog. Said if I didn’t take it, she was going to the vet to get him put down. What kind of a person does that? Anyway, now I have a girly-looking dog named Sprinkles.”
I laughed. “Did you not want the dog to begin with?”
“I wanted a dog, but I’d been thinki
ng more along the lines of a black lab named Fred.” He shrugged. “The little guy is a damn yapper, but he’s grown on me. He sleeps on my pillow right next to my head and likes to lick my ear at five o’clock in the morning. If I’m being honest, it’s pretty much the only action I’ve seen in a while.” Bryce laughed.
I had a smile on my face until I saw the man walking toward me. Weston did not look happy. His long strides ate up the distance between us.
“The front desk said you would be here. I didn’t realize you were on a date.” He didn’t say the word date so much as spit it at me.
“I’m not—I mean, I wasn’t… We aren’t…” I shook my head. Motioning to Scarlett, who’d turned around, I said, “Scarlett and I came for happy hour.”
Weston glanced over at Scarlett, gave her a curt nod, and returned his angry glare to me. “You were dealing with a busted pipe in the laundry room?”
“Yes, why? Once the plumber arrived, I came back to finish my drinks with Scarlett. Is everything okay?”
Weston’s eyes slanted to Bryce and back to me. “The plumber wants you to sign off on the repair estimate since you hired him. I told him I could take care of it, but apparently you’re the only one capable of making such a decision in his eyes.”
I stood. “Oh. Okay. I’m coming.”
Weston did another sweep of our group, and his jaw flexed. “Scarlett.” He nodded, turned around, and marched back out of the bar.
“Umm…” I stood. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Bryce stood also. “Was that your manager? He was a little gruff the way he spoke to you. Do you want me to walk with you to meet the plumber?”
I held up my hands. “No, I’m good. It shouldn’t take too long.”
Weston was nowhere in sight as I made my way down to the basement laundry room. At first, when he’d walked in and found me sitting at the bar talking to another man, I’d felt guilty. But as I rode the elevator, my mindset started to shift.
What an asshole.
How dare he storm into the bar and give me such an attitude?
He hadn’t even spoken to me the last few days.
He’d been completely unprofessional.
By the time the elevator doors slid open in the basement, whatever misplaced guilt I’d been feeling had morphed into anger. My heels echoed loudly on the floor as I marched to the laundry room and swung open the door.
Finding Weston inside, I tossed him a dirty look and walked over to the plumber, wearing the fake smile I usually reserved for when my father was around. “Hi. Mr. Lockwood said you wanted my approval on the estimate?”
The plumber had been kneeling on the floor packing away his tools. He snapped the top of the metal box shut and stood, extending a piece of paper to me. “I capped off the water that goes to the two machines on the end for now. But you got some pretty bad rusted pipes overhead.” He pointed to the ceiling where a few tiles had been removed, exposing the plumbing. “Looks like you have original pipes in here. They should have been replaced twenty years ago. You’ve been lucky. I gave you an estimate for re-piping all the machines to the main and an estimate for just getting these two machines up and running again.”
Great. Rotted pipes.
Looking down, I eyeballed the bottom line on the estimates. My family kept a database of approximate prices of most repairs. Managers could approve up to five percent more than the average, based on the job. When the pipe had burst earlier, I’d checked the average cost of replacing a broken pipe in the laundry room, and the repair estimate in my hand was in line with that. But I hadn’t checked what re-piping an entire laundry facility should cost.
I looked over at Weston. “Do you have any thoughts on this?”
He didn’t even glance at me as he responded. “I hopped on a washer and took a look at the pipes in the ceiling myself. No point in doing just a repair when everything up there is rotted. It’s a fair price.”
I nodded and spoke to the plumber. “When can you start a full re-piping?”
“Tuesday. Can you handle being down two washers until then, or do you need me to get those up and running tomorrow when the plumbing supply store opens?”
I shook my head. The Countess had at least twenty washers and as many dryers. “We should be fine until Tuesday.”
He nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll see you next week.”
Weston opened the laundry room door for the plumber and extended his hand for the man to walk out first, though he didn’t follow. Instead, he pointed down the hall. “The elevator is just down the hall to your right. Have a good night.” He barely waited until the guy started to walk away before shutting the door.
With the two of us alone in the laundry room, the big space suddenly felt very small. Weston stood with his back to me, facing the door, for a long time. Neither of us said a word. The basement was so quiet that I could hear the clock on the wall ticking. It felt like I was listening to the countdown for a bomb about to explode.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
More silence.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until Weston reached out and put his hand on the doorknob. Then I exhaled a sigh of relief.
But I’d breathed too soon…
Instead of turning the handle, Weston twisted the lock.
The loud clank of the bolt fastening into place echoed through the room, and my pulse took off like a rocket.
Weston turned around. Without a word, he slipped off his suit jacket, tossed it on top of one of the dryers, and began to roll up his shirtsleeves. My eyes were glued to his corded forearms as my heart ricocheted against my rib cage.
He finished one sleeve and began to work on the other. “Are you planning on fucking the nice man you’re having drinks with, Fifi?”
I glared at him. “What business is it of yours if I am?”
“I’m spoiled. You’ve said so yourself, right? Well, us spoiled people do not like to share their things.”
“Are you insinuating that I’m a thing? You’re such an asshole.”
Weston calmly finished rolling up his second sleeve and finally looked up at me. The smile that spread across his ridiculously handsome face could only be described as sinister. “You are so much more than a thing. In fact, you’re everything. That’s why I have no intention of sharing you.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “That’s not exactly your choice.”
He took a few steps toward me, and my body began to vibrate. “No, you’re right. It’s not my choice who you give your body to.” He twirled a lock of my hair around his finger and gave it a strong tug. His eyes locked with mine. “But you don’t really want anybody but me.”
I was about to argue with him, but we both knew where that would take us. So instead, I straightened my spine and decided to make this conversation useful.
“Why have you been avoiding me the last couple of days?”
Weston looked away. He seemed to consider my question. “Because you’re a nice woman, and you deserve better than a playboy alcoholic.”
“You’re not an alcoholic. You stopped drinking fourteen months ago.”
He shook his head. “That’s not exactly the way it works. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.”
“That’s a technicality, a definition for a word. You’re not drinking anymore. That’s what’s important, isn’t it?”
He looked up into my eyes. Sexual tension radiated between us, but he seemed to be listening. And I had more I wanted to say.
“And as for being a playboy, are you currently sleeping with any other women?”
Weston shook his head.
“Okay, then. So you’re not currently a playboy or a drunk. Now that we’ve established that, are there any other reasons you’ve been avoiding me?”
Weston stared into my eyes. “You deserve better.”
“Maybe I don’t want better. You know, I’m pretty much an only child. So if anyone is selfish, it’s me. You might not
want other people touching your things. But I want what I want.”
Weston’s eyes dropped to my lips. He reached a finger to my neck and traced my pulse from jawline to my collarbone. “Fine. But no fucking other men while your spoiled ass is getting what she wants.”
I squinted at him. “Fine.”
“Slip off your panties, Fifi.”
I blinked a few times.
He repeated himself, this time more gruff and each word spoken in a staccato burst. “Slip. Off. Your. Panties.”
Goose bumps broke out all over my body. I needed my head examined. A nice, handsome man who wasn’t a Lockwood sat upstairs in the bar waiting to get to know me, and here I was in the dingy basement with a man who’d just referred to me as a thing. Yet my arms shook as I bent and reached under my skirt. Hooking one finger over each side of the lacy fabric, I shimmied my underwear down my legs. Letting them drop to the floor, I stepped out, one dramatic foot lift at a time.
Weston’s eyes glittered. He side-stepped around me to one of the washers and twisted the dial. The machine turned on and began to hum. Turning back to me, he ran his tongue across his bottom lip as his eyes swept over my body from neck to toes.
“Hike up your skirt.”
My eyes jumped to his. “What?”
“Up around your ass. Hike it up.”
I hesitated, but honestly, I was so turned on that there wasn’t much he could ask that I wouldn’t do. Grabbing the hem of my skirt, I bunched it up until the material was gathered around my waist. Standing with everything from my waist to my toes completely on display left me exposed in so many ways.
Weston stepped forward, gripped my waist with two hands, and lifted me off my feet. He carried me over to the washing machine he’d turned on and gently set me on top.
“Spread your legs.”
I opened them a little.
Weston shook his head slowly. “Wider. One leg on each side of the machine. Straddle it for me.”
At that moment, the empty washing machine began to vibrate. It started slow, but quickly ramped up to jumping around like a Mexican bean.
Weston saw the concern on my face and smiled. “It’s fine. An empty washer on spin cycle isn’t going to buck you off, so spread those legs for me.”