Читать книгу Room Service - Amy Garvey - Страница 7

It was hard to think straight during an adrenaline rush, Olivia decided as Rhys steered her into a chair. And that’s what she was probably feeling—adrenaline zooming through her bloodstream, pure and simple. Fight or flight, panic response, there were probably a dozen terms for it.

But she really didn’t care what it was called, she thought as she stared at a star-shaped piece of chandelier on the carpet not three feet away. She felt as if someone had slapped her, hard, and it was all too clear that no matter how weird this day had been, it was definitely not a dream.

“You all right?” Rhys said, leaning in to offer her a glass of water.

She stared at it, wondering where he’d found the glass, and said without thinking, “Ella Fitzgerald once sang to Mayor LaGuardia under that chandelier. I don’t remember what song, but I know it’s written down somewhere.”

He seemed to consider this for a minute. “Uh, yeah, that’s brilliant. What happened here anyway?”

She sighed and took the water from him, checking for broken glass before she took a sip. “Nothing good.” Then she smiled up at him. “Except for you. That’s the second time you rescued me today. Or tried to.”

“I can still take a swing at him, you know.” He winked at her, and lounged back in his seat. “Old guy like that can’t run very fast, I warrant.”

There it was again, that thrilling flicker of arousal.

Which was just as surreal as everything else about this moment. The glittering bones of the chandelier on the carpet, the sound of renewed shouting coming from the kitchen, the diners who were no longer even pretending to eat and were staring at her instead.

It would be so much better if this really were a dream.

Rhys was still watching her, she realized, raking his fingers through his hair restlessly. He’d changed his shirt—Mick Jagger was gone and the word “Arsenal” had replaced it, whatever that meant.

“Who was that bloke?” Rhys said suddenly, narrowing his eyes.

Who was he? That was the question Olivia wanted to ask. But before she could answer him, Josie’s voice broke the silence and Olivia saw Josie and Roseanne heading toward the table, Josie’s auburn ponytail bouncing over her shoulder and Roseanne’s graying brow knitted in concern. Her heart lifted, just a little bit, which was good since it had sunk so low it was practically down at her ankles.

Josie raised an eyebrow at her, and gestured toward the fallen chandelier. “I thought I told you no more wild parties.”

Roseanne squeezed past Rhys and took the chair beside Olivia, winding an arm around her shoulders. “Oh, leave her alone. What happened, honey?”

Roseanne was in charge of bookkeeping, and she had worked at Callender House since Olivia was a baby. Any minute now she’d be petting Olivia’s head the way she had when Olivia was still in kindergarten, and Olivia wasn’t about to argue.

“Should I start with the cake or the chandelier?”

“Start with Stuart,” Josie insisted. “I saw him marching through the lobby. Weren’t you supposed to have lunch?”

“That was right out after the cake in the face,” Rhys put in with a naughty smirk. “Lost his appetite, he did.”

Josie was horrified. “You threw a cake at him?” she asked Olivia.

“Of course not!” Olivia sighed. “Unfortunately, Rick did. Actually, he didn’t really throw it at Uncle Stuart, but Josef ducked.”

“What does Josef have to do with it?” Roseanne asked, glancing back at the doors to the kitchen as if either one of the chefs would come charging out any second, armed with more baked goods.

“He was mad about the cake,” Olivia said, brushing more crumbs from the tablecloth.

“So he…pulled down the chandelier?” Josie asked.

“No!” Olivia sagged against Roseanne’s arm, but she couldn’t help smiling when Rhys bit back a laugh. The whole thing sounded ridiculous. It was ridiculous. Except for the part where she was pretty sure Stuart meant to take the hotel away from her.

“Someone start from the beginning, yeah? Because I still don’t know who that sodding bloke was,” Rhys said.

Josie turned confused eyes on him. “Who are you?”

“Rhys Spencer,” he said, offering her a hand. “Friend of Olivia’s.”

Both Roseanne and Josie raised their eyebrows at this in a silent plea for explanation.

“I met Rhys this morning,” Olivia said, glancing up at him as her cheeks heated. Again. God, why wasn’t there a cure for blushing? “Outside.”

Then she stopped, mouth still open. She didn’t even know the rest of the story, and certainly not why or how he’d appeared in the restaurant out of nowhere.

“I’m a new friend,” Rhys said smoothly, and winked at her.

More raised eyebrows. It was an epidemic.

And also a little insulting, Olivia realized as she sat up and shrugged off Roseanne’s arm. As if she couldn’t have a friend who was gorgeous and sexy and had the most delicious British accent she’d ever heard.

Just because she’d never even met a man like Rhys before didn’t mean anything. Much.

“Very new,” she added pointlessly, and was rewarded with another wink. So new she didn’t know anything about him, but Roseanne and Josie didn’t need that little detail.

“Wait a minute,” Josie said, holding up both hands. “You’re on that TV show, the cooking one. You’re the British chef all the fan sites are rooting for.”

Rhys gave Olivia a sheepish smile as her mouth fell open in surprise. He was on TV? Now?

“Yeah, I’m that British chef,” he admitted. “Show’s on a break until we film the finale a month from now.”

“I thought you looked familiar,” Roseanne said, clearly sizing him up with even more appreciation now, but Josie was unimpressed.

“Reality TV aside,” she said, “what happened in here? It looks like the place got raided.”

“Josef and Rick were arguing about a chocolate cake that got ruined, and then there was a crash, and then Helen rushed into the kitchen to say the chandelier had fallen down, and then Stuart showed up, right on time as usual, and then Stuart got a cake in the face,” Olivia said with a weary sigh. “I think that about covers it.”

“Not quite, love,” Rhys put in. “There was that nasty bit about the hotel at the end.”

Roseanne bristled, and sat up straight. “What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure, to tell you the truth,” Olivia admitted. Suddenly crowded by the questions, she got up and paced a few feet away.

Which only attracted more attention from the noneating diners. Except for Yelena, who was chatting up Willie from her usual table in the corner, turban bobbing.

“Maybe we should take this discussion elsewhere,” Josie suggested when she followed Olivia’s gaze to the interested patrons watching from their tables. “I’m thinking the bar might be appropriate.”

“Brilliant,” Rhys said, and got up to slide his arm around Olivia’s shoulders. Just the weight of it made her tingle with awareness. “Lead the way.”

The bar was deserted, which wasn’t unusual for a Monday afternoon. Still, it was a little too deserted, she thought as she pulled a stool away from the polished length of mahogany and sat down. Where was Tommy?

“No barkeep?” Rhys said, leaning over the counter to scope out the selection of bottles. “And no Grey Goose? I think the occasion calls for some quality spirits, love.”

“I don’t usually drink before dinner,” Olivia protested, wondering if she should tell Rhys to come out from behind the counter before Tommy appeared and waved his offended dignity around. Rhys had flipped open the bar’s hatch door and walked right in as if he belonged there, and was even now taking glasses down from the racks.

“Who is this guy?” Josie whispered fiercely in her ear as she pulled up another stool. “I mean, aside from some random reality TV person?”

“I don’t care,” Roseanne said before Olivia could answer. “I sure like to listen to him. Imagine if I brought him to the next Renaissance Faire with me. God, can you picture him in leggings?”

“Shhh!” Olivia warned her when Rhys looked up, a bottle of Stoli in one hand and a bottle of Jim Beam in the other.

“Pick your poison, ladies,” he said with a grin.

“I actually need a drink,” Josie said in amazement. “Has the whole world gone whacko today?”

Olivia shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“Tell them what the sodding fool said to you,” Rhys suggested as he poured a shot of bourbon and passed it to Roseanne.

“Yes, please do,” Josie said, reaching across the bar for the bowl of pretzels. “The suspense is giving me a headache.”

Olivia stared into the tumbler of vodka Rhys had poured for her. She’d never had liquor straight up, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to start now. But when she thought about Stuart’s voice as he hissed, “The hotel will be mine,” she decided to give it a shot.

“Oh my God, it burns,” she choked out a minute later. “I think my eyes are actually watering.”

“Make her something foofy, will you,” Josie said. “She’s not exactly a shot drinker on a good day.”

“One Flirtini, coming right up.”

“Are you a renegade bartender, too?” Josie demanded. “And will someone please tell us what Stuart said?”

“He said the hotel will be his.” An echo of her earlier panic vibrated in the back of her head, like a headache threatening to take hold. “Exactly like that. He sputtered and criticized, just like he always does, but this time he said—”

“The hotel will be his,” Josie repeated. Her eyes flashed fire when she glanced up from her drink to look at Olivia. “Who does he think he is, Darth Vader?”

“Oh, honey.” Roseanne bit her bottom lip and fingered the end of her long, gray braid. “I’ve been afraid of this.”

Olivia gaped at her. “What do you mean? He’s always hated this place.”

“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what it’s worth.” Roseanne’s voice was softer now, and she reached out to pat Olivia’s hand. “You’re going to have to be very careful, sweetie.”

“Careful about what?” Josie asked. She set down her glass and crunched into a pretzel with a little more violence than was strictly necessary. “The hotel is Olivia’s.”

“That may be,” Rhys said, sliding a martini glass toward Olivia, “but there are a million ways he could make that very difficult for her, yeah?”

“Driving me out, you mean?” Olivia said. There went her pulse again, fluttering like a caged bird.

“Exactly.”

“Well, he won’t.” She stood up, ignoring her drink, and paced toward the middle of the room, absently pushing chairs into place at their tables as she went. “He can’t.”

When she was a child, the bar had always been off limits. “Nothing for little misses to see in there, sweetie,” her father would say with a laugh. Her mother had agreed, but as often as not Olivia would run down the service stairs and creep through the lobby when she was supposed to be in bed. She’d find parents seated with friends or hotel guests at one of the round tables in the dark, smoky room, her mother in a cocktail dress with her good pearls on and her hair done, her father in his customary blue suit, his glasses polished but still sliding down his nose when he laughed.

And now it was hers.

She couldn’t remember the last time the bar had been as crowded as it was in her memories. Now, more nights than not, half the tables sat empty. She squinted and crossed the room to run a finger over one of the picture frames. The Chrysler Building reached for the sky from beneath a film of dust. The place wasn’t even getting cleaned regularly.

The fact that she was here, not in a cocktail dress, not in pearls, but in her old gray pants and an even older sweater, drinking vodka on a Monday afternoon, didn’t exactly lift her spirits.

She turned around and faced the others, all of whom were sipping their drinks and watching her as if she were about to break into song.

“He’s not taking this hotel away from me,” she said after a deep breath. “He can’t. There’s nothing in the world that will make me give up this place.”

“Bravo!” Roseanne said, clapping. The bourbon had already pinked her cheeks.

“It’s a landmark,” Olivia continued, confident now. “It’s history, it’s my legacy. Mine.”

Even Josie clapped this time, and Rhys whistled, long and low.

Olivia sketched a bow, pleased with herself. Stuart couldn’t scare her, the big bully. Callender House was hers, and that was the way it was going to stay.

Just then Angel pushed open the door and stuck his head inside. “Um, Olivia?”

She smiled at him. “Yes?”

“The nameplate outside just fell off completely.”

Perfect. She sighed. “Where’s my drink?”

Josie helped herself to another shot when Olivia left the room, with the yummy Brit following her. It was a workday, but around here, that didn’t mean much.

“Hit me, too,” Roseanne said, holding out her glass.

Josie poured bourbon for both of them. “It’s not usually this crazy around here, is it?”

“Not quite,” Roseanne admitted. “How long have you been here now?”

“Two months.” Josie knocked back the shot, and coughed when she’d swallowed. “And I really don’t want to look for another job. Again.”

She wasn’t even sure why she’d taken this one. Okay, well, part of the reason was being “let go” from the St. Regis, but she refused to feel ashamed of that. If the manager couldn’t stand to hear the truth about what one of the guests had been found doing with a member of the housekeeping staff, it wasn’t her fault. A little flirtation between consenting adults was one thing, but fur handcuffs? In the linen room? Please.

And Olivia had offered her a big promotion. Not a big salary, but at least a promotion. Guest Services Manager. It looked good on a business card, and it would have taken her a decade or more to get to the same position at one of the big hotels.

“How long have you been here?” she asked Roseanne idly.

“Twenty-seven years,” Roseanne answered with a placid smile. “Olivia’s grandfather hired me, and then I worked for Olivia’s dad. Who was just a little less eccentric than his father.”

“Twenty-seven years, huh?” At the idea of twenty-seven years in one job, another drink seemed tempting, but Josie stifled the urge. Drunken subway riding was never a good idea, and passing out on her keyboard probably wouldn’t win her any brownie points around here either.

“I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Roseanne set her glass down and propped her head in her hands. “I get my time off every year for the faire, I have my own office and free lunch, and I know if I ever get kicked out of my apartment, I can move in here.”

“That’s a…plus,” Josie said dubiously. “Unless the hotel closes down. I have to say, registration is not exactly at an all-time high. And the residents? Most of them are paying circa-1978 rent.” She considered that for a moment as she lined up pretzels on the bar. “Which is a good deal, actually. Maybe I should move in here.”

Roseanne snorted, but a moment later her grin faded. “I am worried, you know. Stuart’s never actually threatened to take the hotel away from Olivia before.”

“I don’t know why he is now,” Josie pointed out. “I mean, I like it here, and Olivia’s great, but this place isn’t what you’d call a cash cow.”

“Nobody knows that better than I do.”

“Reassuring to hear from the woman in charge of my paycheck,” Josie said dryly. “I hope Olivia’s thought of some ways to get more paying guests in here.”

Roseanne sighed, her faded blue eyes sorrowful. “If she hasn’t, she will now.”

“Who will what?”

Josie looked up to see Gus Fitch ambling toward the bar—and then ducking beneath it, just as Rhys had.

She threw up her hands in defeat. “Did I miss the memo about fix-your-own-drink day or something?”

“I’m filling in for Tommy,” Gus explained, squirting water into a glass he’d filled with ice. “He pulled out his back.”

“But…you’re a guest,” Josie sputtered, looking at Roseanne for backup.

The older woman shrugged and took a pretzel from Josie’s pile. Apparently, bourbon did nothing to fuel her righteous indignation.

Gus had been a guest since Josie had started work at the hotel, but Olivia had told her he’d actually been at Callender House for nearly a year now.

Which was, in Josie’s opinion, pretty weird. Gus Fitch had written two best-selling books, one on his childhood as the son of a famous film director and another exposing the truth about the Riverside Institution, a mental hospital. He’d been on Oprah, for heaven’s sake.

Not that he looked it. Josie wasn’t sure what a best-selling author was supposed to look like, but it seemed to her it should involve a little more bling than Gus indulged in. He was wearing his usual uniform of faded jeans, loose cotton sweater, and baseball cap today, and Josie didn’t think she’d ever seen him in anything else. Even on Oprah, come to think of it. Coupled with his sad puppy dog eyes and his low, soft voice, he reminded her of an overgrown kid who’d just witnessed his baseball team losing the pennant race.

But he was sweet. In fact, he was sort of the default hotel mascot, as far as she could tell. He knew everybody, and everybody loved him. Including Tommy, she guessed, who was famously territorial about “his” bar. There was even a plastic sign tacked up beside the mirror: Tommy’s Parking Only.

“So what’s the occasion?” Gus asked as he refilled the pretzel bowl. For a volunteer bartender, he took his responsibilities pretty seriously, Josie noted. “You guys don’t usually knock back shots in the midafternoon.”

“Stuart got nasty with Olivia at lunch today,” Roseanne said with a weary sigh. She settled back on her stool, which creaked under her weight.

“Right after the chandelier fell down and Rick threw a cake at him,” Josie added.

Gus blinked. “That’s not good.”

“You’re a master of understatement,” Josie said, but she smiled as she did, and Gus blushed a little bit.

And then he smiled at her, a real smile, a shy, just-for-her smile. Maybe it was the bourbon, but suddenly she understood why everyone liked him so much. Because she did, too.

“That’s going to take some fixing,” Olivia said as she stood on the sidewalk outside the hotel and examined the now dented nameplate.

“Fixing?” Rhys grunted. “Time for the rubbish heap, I think. Get a new one.”

“No!” Bending to pick it up—and finding it far heavier than she’d thought—Olivia propped the tarnished brass gently against the wall. “This is the original sign. It’s …it’s…historic.”

“Not everything old is historic,” Rhys argued, and slouched against the bricks as he folded his arms over his chest.

Well, the Callender House nameplate was historic. Whether it was or not, Olivia decided, frowning at her own logic. After the cake and the chandelier and, frankly, the vodka, she wasn’t prepared to argue about it with a stranger.

Which reminded her that Rhys Spencer, for all intents and purposes, was just that. Scowling at him, she asked, “Where did you come from?”

“Right about there, I think,” he answered, pointing at a spot on the sidewalk with a wicked grin.

She sighed. “I mean it. You just turn up out of nowhere, saving me from disaster. I can’t decide what kind of penny you are.”

His brow lifted in confusion, disappearing beneath that shaggy, dark fringe of hair. “What kind of what now?”

“Penny. You know.” She wasn’t going to blush this time, damn it. “See a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have good luck? But then there’s ‘turning up like a bad penny,’ too.”

“I think you’re undervaluing me either way,” Rhys teased, but when she scowled harder, he threw up his hands in surrender. “No need to get narked, love. I’m a chef. I just arrived in town this morning, as a matter of fact, by way of London and lately L.A. In fact, I have to head back there for the finale of the show in a month.”

“A chef? Really?” She tried to picture him in a white chef’s coat—and, even sillier, a white chef’s hat like Josef had always worn—and had to stifle a giggle.

“I don’t wear the hat,” he said, and scowled right back at her. Goodness, the man was practically a mind reader. “And yeah, I cook. Always have. It’s the one thing I do brilliantly.”

As she watched his lips form the words, she highly doubted that cooking was the only thing he did brilliantly, as he put it. Look at that mouth. He was probably an excellent kisser.

A flicker of surprise skittered up the back of her neck. What was she thinking? No one had said anything about kissing.

She realized she was still staring at him and dragged her gaze away to ask, “So what brought you to New York?”

“Don’t know.” He grinned and pushed away from the wall to reach out and take her hand. “Hadn’t been here in a long while, and I needed a change after all that blasted Los Angeles sunshine.”

It was hard to take in everything he was saying with his lean fingers clasped around hers. “Where are you staying?” she managed, trying to ignore the warmth of his hand, and the distracting way he was running his thumb over her knuckles.

“Didn’t I mention that, love?” He pulled her closer, just an inch or so, but it was enough to send an electric tingle of awareness through her body. She glanced up into those smoky gray eyes, and felt her mouth fall open when he spoke again. “I’m staying here. I’m your newest guest.”