Читать книгу Weekend in Vegas!: Saving Cinderella! - Jackie Braun - Страница 13

A WEEK had passed, and Alex had grown into her job so quickly that she was starting to feel as if she really belonged at McKendrick’s—something that was alarming, because she didn’t belong. McKendrick’s was too closely tied to Wyatt, a man who made her remember how it felt to be in his arms every time she saw him.

Just like a lot of other women had, she reminded herself. And a woman with her record certainly knew better than to travel that route. She wanted to help Wyatt’s hotel win. Because it was a wonderful place, because Wyatt wanted to win and because…well, because she just wanted to. But her involvement had to stop at the hotel.

So she did her best to focus on McKendrick’s, on the ballroom that was being renovated, on the reporters who had heard about the hotel’s finalist status and had come to take pictures twice already. The thing not to concentrate on was the fact that Wyatt hadn’t come near her since the day after their kiss. He’d clearly concluded her training and was on to other things. So she shouldn’t be thinking of the man at all, except…

She could still see Wyatt with that little boy. The loner who had told her that he wasn’t meant for marriage and children, who was clearly uncomfortable dealing with emotional people, had set aside his personal preferences to bond with and comfort a wounded child. If she thought about how she had felt watching Wyatt in that moment…Alex’s heart tipped crazily. Visions of all the leaps she’d made into doomed love slammed into her soul.

Don’t remember how you felt. Never let down your guard on your heart, she ordered herself. Just work.

She did. She drove herself. And when Wyatt sent around a memo that all employees were to take regular breaks and lunches, she took a five-minute break and a ten-minute lunch. A part of her knew that taking this job had been a huge mistake, but she had agreed to it. Now all she could think was that if she kept working the days would pass. Belinda would return, all this would end, and the worst that would have hap-pened would be that Alex had melted in Wyatt’s arms once. Surely she could survive that one mistake?

As long as she didn’t stop to think, she’d be fine. Because thinking led to recalling the sound of Wyatt’s voice. It led to reliving the sensation of Wyatt’s mouth on hers.

The kiss had been a mistake, as he had said, but it had felt too wonderful—and had made her want more.

“Grr,” she told herself.

At Randy’s questioning look, she automatically held up a piece of paper. “You wouldn’t believe some of the suggestions for the new name of the ballroom.”

“I could help you with that.”

She blinked. “Thank you. You’re a good guy, Randy.”

He blushed. Actually blushed. “Just doing my job.”

“Well, you do a great job. I may need help if we get too many more of these. For now I’ll let them sit. I have to map out a tour for the Airinson group. They’ll be here at two.” She glanced at the list she was making.

At that moment Randy’s phone rang. He picked it up. “Yes. No. She took a lunch break. How long? Well…”

He mumbled a few more things Alex didn’t catch, and when he hung up he gave Alex one brief, evasive look, then turned away.

Five minutes later Wyatt strode across the lobby with Jenna, who worked in the office, skip-stepping to keep up.

“Come on,” Wyatt said to Alex. “Time to get your basic nourishment. I don’t want you keeling over at your desk.”

“I had lunch.”

“I heard about your ten-minute lunch. And that you were interrupted by a phone call. Let’s go.”

He looked down at the overflowing contest basket and at the stacks of paper on her desk. The collection of cute little personal items and photos she kept there was almost obscured.

“Enforced downtime just arrived,” he told her. “Tell Jenna what’s a priority. Randy will back her up if she needs help.”

Since Randy was obviously the one who had ratted her out, Alex looked up at him. “You have a big mouth,” she told him.

“Don’t blame Randy. You can’t skip meals or work non-stop,” Wyatt told her, “and Randy had his orders.”

To her amazement Randy was looking guilty. “I know you were just trying to help,” she told him.

“You do a great job, but you work too hard.”

It was the nicest thing he had said to her. “You’re a sweetie, Randy,” she said.

He looked horrified. “Don’t tell.”

“It’s just between the four of us,” she promised. “Let me finish this tour map,” she told Wyatt. “The Airinsons are counting on me. Then I’ll eat.”

Wyatt gave her an exasperated look. “The Airinsons will find free tickets to a show in their room and an apology from me for pulling you off the job. Jenna will make a great map for them.”

“I promise I’ll do my best, Alex,” Jenna said.

“Okay. I’ll get the rest of my lunch.” Alex reached for a drawer.

“No need. I’m taking you out of here.” Wyatt’s jaw was rock-solid, his look grim. Something was wrong.

Alex stopped arguing and followed him.

He handed her into his black sports car and drove to an exclusive, out of the way restaurant. She looked at the prices on the menu and flinched.

“Thank you for taking me to lunch, but I—Why are you looking like a thundercloud?”

“This isn’t working.”

Her heart fell. “I told you the first day that I might not be the right person for the job.”

He glared at her. “You are the right person.”

“But you just said…”

“I didn’t think I would have to drag you from the clutches of an insane jerk. Nor did I think I would have to kidnap you to get you to take a break. Most people stop working at designated times to rev their engines and just get some fresh air. That’s why it’s called a break, Alexandra.”

Okay, now she saw the trouble. Wyatt took the hotel seriously. Everything about the hotel, including his employees’ welfare. “I don’t want you to worry about what happened the other day with that…that…”

“Gorilla,” Wyatt supplied.

“He wasn’t that big.”

“He was a lot bigger than you.” Oh, clearly this topic had been festering inside him.

“You could have simply come to me and forbade me from interfering in altercations between guests.”

He gave her a “you’ve got to be kidding” look. “You’re the woman who told me that you tend to be overzealous about helping people. You ignored my memos about breaks and lunches. You implied that you make decisions based on emotions.”

“I did not.”

“Didn’t you? Well, somehow I must have just gotten that impression. Oh, yes, now I remember how. Maybe because you squeezed yourself in between that boy and the man, so that you would take the pummeling if he decided to let his fists fly.”

“You would have done the same.”

“Maybe.” How ridiculous. Of course he would. The only thing that had saved that jerk of a man from a punch in the jaw had been the fact that Wyatt knew how to exercise self-control. Except when he was tasting a woman’s lips.

Alex frowned to herself, but Wyatt had moved on.

“It doesn’t matter if I would have, anyway. I’m taller, bigger and stronger than you. He could have hurt you.”

“But I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You’re pushing yourself and not getting away from your desk enough.”

Again Randy’s words about guilt nudged at her. “I don’t want you to feel guilty just because I forgot to take much of a lunch break today. I was getting to it.”

He gave a harsh bark of a laugh. “You,” he said, pointing a breadstick at her, “are a workaholic.”

She laughed and picked up her own breadstick. “You ought to know. You’re one, too.”

But he was still frowning. “Seriously, Alex. Cesar, who works the night desk, told me that you came downstairs the other day to help Lois out when things got busy, and then you slipped in two extra tour groups. After hours.”

“Work is how—” she began, and then stopped. How could she put this? Work is how I keep my mind off you? Or worse…

Reality struck. Work, helping people, was how she’d always tried to impress those she cared about, the way she’d tried to win their affection. The possibility that she was doing that now made her ill; it totally frightened her. Because Wyatt was the one man she’d never even stood a chance of winning. He’d told her so. Randy had told her that. Everyone had told her. And yet she couldn’t stop. With the awards, there was too much at stake. Reports of Champagne’s new improvements were coming in daily.

“What does this award mean to you?” she asked.

He frowned. “It doesn’t mean life or death,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I want you making yourself sick.”

“Okay. I promise I won’t make myself sick. I’ll be reasonable.”

He looked incredulous.

“I’ll be more reasonable than I have been,” she said. “Why do you want to win? Why are you working so hard to obtain it?”

His jaw tensed.

“Please,” she said. “Tell me.”

His eyes turned fierce and angry. “I don’t want to want it, but I do. It would be…validation.”

Something in his eyes reminded her of Randy’s comment about Wyatt’s past. Let that be a warning, she told herself. It had been a girl from Leo’s past and a woman from her stepfather’s past that had taken them out of her life. Men with dark, secret pasts had never been good for her. “I want to help you win,” she said.

“And I want to win. But not by harming your health. I can’t be abusive, Alex, demanding that everyone jump in an effort to make me happy. I don’t want and I can’t have a slave.”

That cool edge that always tinged his voice was gone, replaced by something much more raw. Alex wanted to know what that was about, but Wyatt clearly didn’t want to share anything that personal. And maybe…Was she afraid to know more? Afraid of what she might feel?

She studied him, looked down at the table, then up again.

“You don’t have to worry. I won’t be a slave for any man. I’ve willingly volunteered to be a lesser person before and I’m through with that. It hasn’t worked out well for me. But nothing you’ve asked me to do falls into that category.”

His green gaze held her captive. “You’re going to have to explain that ‘lesser person’ part.”

Alex tried to look away, tried to think of some light way to laugh and brush away this question. Opening her soul to Wyatt would be a mistake. It would be a connection…and there could be no connections with this man.

“Oh, you know, it was just one of those minor ‘left over from my childhood’ things. After you have not one father but two fathers walk out the door, you tend to try a little too hard to salvage your relationships. You give a little too much of yourself. I might have subverted my needs to others once or twice, but, as I said, that’s completely in the past. It’s irrelevant.”

She had tried to say it in an offhand, breezy manner, but Wyatt wasn’t looking breezy. “Elaborate on subverting your needs to others.”

Alex considered sidestepping that command. She could have reminded him that he was being highhanded and that baring her soul wasn’t a part of her job, but then she made the mistake of looking into those fierce green eyes. Her breath caught in her throat. Dizziness threatened. She wanted to lean closer, and suddenly talking seemed like the safest thing to do. Telling him about the stupid mistakes she’d made suddenly became a way to put some distance between them, to keep her mind off the man.

So, despite the fact that she didn’t want to go into the humiliating details, she told him about tutoring Robert, mentoring Leo, and helping Michael with his parenting problems. “They thought they cared, but they were just…grateful and euphoric, I suppose,” she said. “And once their selfconfidence was restored, I was only a rung on the ladder, one that had served its purpose. They felt guilty, but it didn’t change things. I learned a valuable lesson. So you really don’t have to worry about me overdoing it at McKendrick’s. I like the work, but I’m not volunteering for a servile position.”

“Idiots,” he said.

“I was making the point that you don’t have to worry about me being a sacrificial lamb. I wasn’t aiming for your pity. I was trying to tell you that helping you isn’t hurting me. You’re not taking advantage of me, because I know all about that and this isn’t it.”

“They wounded your spirit,” he said angrily.

“But I survived.”

“That’s because you’re an intelligent, competent, selfassured woman.”

“Yes, I am,” she said, and realized that it was true. Her bad luck with love hadn’t broken her. Yet. “I’m not being egotistical. I know my flaws. But I also know what I like and what I’m good at, and that’s connecting with people on a basic, friendly, let-me-help-you level. It’s what drives me at work and what will help me get to where I want to be. I can help you win.”

“By running yourself into the ground?”

She sighed. “Wyatt, weren’t you listening? I thrive on work. It makes me feel good about myself. This job makes me feel powerful. To you I’m running myself into the ground. To me I’m just…being me.”

Without thinking, she reached across the table and placed her hand on his. Bad mistake, since she was now totally physically aware of him. Her first thought was to jerk back, but then he’d know how much he was affecting her, so she didn’t.

“I know my tendency to overdo makes people crazy. I did warn you about it that first day. But I’m not in any danger. I’m used to taking care of myself,” she said. “I know how. When both my fathers left us, we were out on the street lots of times with no home. My mom was a mess, and I had to be the grownup at times. So it’s good of you to worry about me, but…”

He swore. Actually swore—even if it was beneath his breath. “You are driving me crazy,” he told her. “I am not a good person. I have never been a good person. When I was growing up, my family members could barely control me. True, they were all first-class brutish animals, who detested the fact that I had even dared to survive my infancy, but they weren’t completely wrong about me, either. I lived to make them miserable.”

“Ah,” she said. Now she saw…something—a small piece of Wyatt’s past—and it filled her with pain. It involved a small boy and a much larger person bearing down on him. She remembered a comment Wyatt had once made about perfection. She remembered the moment with that guy the other day calling that little boy an idiot and Wyatt explaining how he had once made a lot of mistakes, too. “Your family wanted to change and control you.” Somehow she kept her voice from breaking.

He glowered. “As you said, I didn’t share this with you to earn your sympathy. I don’t talk about this stuff…to anyone but you need to know that I’m not ever going to be the knight in shining armor type. I’m the fists flying, spit in your eye type, and without even thinking about it I could hurt you, Alex. I wouldn’t want to, but it would happen anyway, so don’t start getting that ‘I’ll take care of you’ look in your eyes. I’ve seen you use that with customers.”

“And you’ve liked it then.”

“Yes, but I’m not a customer.”

“You’re my boss.”

“Yes,” he said. “I am. Most definitely.” Her hand was still resting on Wyatt’s. Now he flipped his palm over and took her hand in his own. “Don’t make me worry about you.”

Again she remembered what Randy had said about Wyatt becoming withdrawn when he broke a woman’s heart. Was this where she repeated her past again? A man regretting he’d gotten too close, who now had to find the nearest exit? She was sure that Wyatt’s withdrawal when he walked away from a woman was the result of the guilt he felt. A man who had been made to suffer, who had been denied love as a boy, would…would what?

Maybe he’d become an over-achiever, intent on proving that he deserved his place on the earth. Maybe he’d even want to accumulate accolades and awards to throw in their faces. And maybe…would he insulate himself by refusing to care about anyone deeply again? Good chance of that, and any woman who didn’t understand was bound to get her heart shredded. Would he worry about being the cause of other people’s pain? Oh, yes, it seemed he would. Because he would know too well what pain felt like.

“Have you really hurt women?” she asked, surprising herself and apparently surprising him, too, by his expression. He had just told her that he didn’t share this stuff and shouldn’t have shared what he already had. “I’m sorry. It was just a passing comment I heard. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

Wyatt sighed and frowned. “You should have if it was bothering you. And the answer is yes. And no. Not physically. Never. But emotionally? That’s a big yes.”

And it was clear that he hated that.

“All right. I’ll try not to make you worry,” she promised. “I’ll set the alarm on my watch and I’ll take my breaks. Randy will remind me. I won’t get sick on your watch. I promise you that.” And I won’t fall in love with you and bring that anguish to your eyes, either, she silently promised. At least she wouldn’t if she could help it. It was hard to resist a man who watched over his employees this carefully.

The darkness lifted from his expression, just a bit.

“But I have a good work ethic,” Alex told him. “I’ve told you how much my work and my success and doing a good job means to me, how it empowers me. So…since I don’t like taking too long for my lunch break we should eat.” Because now she was totally conscious that he was still holding her hand. His thumb was caressing her palm. It felt…exquisite.

She stared at where he was touching her.

He let her go and shrugged. “My mistake.”

Alex started to remind him that she was the one who had touched him first, but when she opened her mouth to say it, he stared at her with those fierce green eyes and she knew that he already knew what she was going to say.

He lifted one lazy eyebrow. “My mistake,” he said again. She nodded. “You’re the boss,” she told him again.

“Sometimes I wonder,” he muttered, as the waiter came up and took their order.

But what Alex was wondering when she returned to work after lunch, was how she was going to maintain a professional distance from Wyatt now that she’d seen a glimpse of his soul. The urge to fix, to help, was kicking in. She knew that feeling, and she’d lived to regret it. The fact that her reaction to Wyatt was more intense than anything she’d felt before only made things worse.

Start planning your return to San Diego, she told herself. Good advice. She would take it. She picked up the phone and began to dial.