Читать книгу Brides, Babies And Billionaires - Мишель Смарт, Rebecca Winters - Страница 34

CHAPTER TEN

‘I THINK WE should just pretend this never happened.’

Blake welcomed the cold water on his heated and fatigued body. He knew that at some point hot water would be needed to soothe his screaming muscles, but for now the cold took away the pain his two-hour gym session had yielded.

‘I think we should just pretend this never happened.’

What it failed to do was wash away the memories of the previous evening. The memories of him acting completely out of character.

Completely out of control.

He’d tossed and turned the entire night, so despite the incredibly long day he’d had, and despite how tired he’d been, he hadn’t been able to get a wink of sleep. Which was why he had instead, at four in the morning, made use of his home gym.

He adjusted the water when he felt the cold down to his bones, and closed his eyes as heat pounded against his body. He had probably pushed himself too far, he thought. And he knew he would pay for it the entire day. Hell, probably for the entire week. But it had kept his thoughts off the mess he had made. For a few hours, at least, he thought, when his mind yet again looped back to the single thing he couldn’t stop thinking about.

‘I think we should just pretend this never happened.’

He wished he could. He wished he could pretend he hadn’t spent the day watching her work. He wished he hadn’t noticed how well she had done—how she had taken an unimaginable scenario and turned it into what he was almost certain would be a victory for Elegance. More than anything, he wished he hadn’t given in to the impulse of taking her onto his boat.

Yet that wasn’t the reason why her words had haunted him from the moment she’d said them. Because, as much as he wished he could pretend everything that had happened between them hadn’t happened, he couldn’t—for one simple reason:

He didn’t want to.

He turned the water off and towelled himself dry. He knew the moment Callie had started asking him about his mother that her line of questioning wouldn’t be easy for him. He didn’t talk about his mother to anyone—he hadn’t even mentioned her to Julia—and yet he’d told Callie about her the day they’d had supper after their tour. When he had barely known her.

He had convinced himself that it had just been to comfort Callie, after he’d figured out that her parents had died—especially since she hadn’t offered the information freely. But it hadn’t taken him long to realise that it had also been because he’d felt comfortable with her. And, if he was honest with himself, that was part of the reason he had insisted on maintaining a professional relationship with her.

If he was comfortable enough to share his most hidden memory with her, it wouldn’t take long before she lodged herself in his heart. And then she would be able to hurt him. And if his instincts weren’t wrong—as they’d been before—and she’d fallen for him, he’d be able to hurt her, too.

As he began dressing for work he thought about his mother for the first time in years. She had disappointed him.

He had watched her pack her bags into the car, and then she’d knelt in front of him and said, ‘I’m sorry, Blake. I hope one day you can understand that I couldn’t do this. This life was never for me.’

She’d kissed him on the forehead and driven away, and he had watched the car fade into the distance.

He couldn’t remember feeling more helpless—or more heartbroken—than at that moment when he was eleven and his mother had left. He didn’t know if it mattered to him now that it had been the last time he had seen her or the last time he had known some semblance of a normal family life. But what he did know was that he had vowed he would never feel that way again. He didn’t ever want to feel as if he didn’t have control or to feel heartbroken again. Most of all, he had assured himself that if he were ever a father he would never let his child feel the way he had. He would make sure that his child had the family he’d never had.

Something clicked in his head and he realised that Julia had made him feel all those things—had forced him to break all those promises he had made to himself such a long time ago. And the worst thing was that now he was terrified Brent would be feeling the same way he had—helpless and disappointed.

The mess of his mother, Julia and Callie swirled through his head, and he began to think about his relationship with Julia in a way he’d never considered before. To think of why he’d reacted the way he’d reacted to her, why their relationship had broken down so completely. And though there were many layers to it—most of which seemed hazy to him at the moment—one layer suddenly became incredibly clear.

Blake closed his eyes and resisted knocking his head against the wall. And he thought one thing repeatedly—that he was a fool.

* * *

Callie got into work early that morning, not bothering with breakfast at home because she knew she could sneak into the hotel kitchen and grab some of the food that would be warm and ready for the breakfast buffet in half an hour.

After doing just that, she unlocked her office and thanked the office angels who had helped her clear her desk the previous night. Because now she could set her breakfast and her coffee on a desk that she could actually see, instead of on a pile of papers she hoped weren’t important.

She sighed as she bit into a warm slice of toast, and moaned when it was accompanied by the coffee boost she so desperately needed. She hadn’t slept very well, her mind muddled with thoughts, and at about three in the morning she’d forced herself to stop thinking about the events that had caused the ache in her heart and instead focused on business. She knew the proposal the previous day had gone well, but she wanted to kick it up a notch. At five a.m. she’d had a fully drafted email about what she thought would do just that. Now she just had to find the courage to hit ‘send’.

She took her time eating her breakfast, and then read through the email a couple more times. When she couldn’t procrastinate any longer she sent the email to Blake, and copied Connor in just in case. She hadn’t spoken to him about the proposal, but he’d sent her a message congratulating her. Which she’d only read after midnight, since she had been too busy kissing her boss and dealing with the resulting anguish to switch on her phone before then.

It was barely ten minutes later when she received a response, and she held her breath as she opened it.

Come and see me.

That was it? Nothing about the perfectly outlined event she had just sent him the plan for?

She bit back her disappointment and pulled out her compact mirror to make sure she didn’t have breakfast crumbs on her face. She gave herself a pep talk on her way to the conference room and told herself she was as prepared as she would ever be before seeing her boss, with whom she had so hungrily made out the night before. An image of him with an open shirt standing in the moonlight flashed through her mind, but she forced it away.

She was a professional. She could do this.

But her resolve nearly faltered when she saw him. He looked nothing like the dishevelled man she’d left in her brother’s office the night before. His hair was slicked back and his suit was pressed. Worst of all, his face was expressionless when he looked up at her.

‘Morning, Callie. I just got your email.’

‘Yes, I know.’ She forced herself to match his demeanour. She was the one who had wanted him to be like this. Except now it didn’t seem to be what she wanted at all.

‘So...what do you think?’

He ran a hand through his hair and just like that the neat style collapsed as a piece fell over his forehead. He didn’t seem to notice, but she did, and she wanted to walk over and fix it for him. And then she could sit on his lap...and then they could continue where they’d left off last night...

She shook her head. Where had that come from? She had been so sure that she had made herself immune to him. She’d forced herself to replay every moment of the previous evening and repeated all those words that had hurt her so that she could strengthen her resolve. And then she had forced herself to forget the way his hands had felt on her body, the way he’d kissed like Cupid himself.

She had even dressed the part—loose white linen pants and a cream waterfall jersey that hid the curves of her body effectively. And then she had resolved never to think about him and what he did to her body, to her heart, again. She had focused on her work and come up with a pretty decent idea, even if she said so herself. Now she was just waiting for him to acknowledge it.

‘It’s a good idea. A really good one.’ He tilted his head. ‘A gala event for all our potential investors would do wonders for their interest in the hotel. Especially if they’re introduced to the competition. I just don’t know how you’ll be able to pull it off in seven days. Maybe we should push it back?’

‘Timing is important.’ The words were so formal that she resisted the urge to roll her eyes at herself. ‘We should hold the event when the proposals are still fresh in the investors’ minds and before the negotiations start, so it can help influence their decisions. That means next Friday is our best bet.’

She sighed when he didn’t respond.

‘It’s just an idea,’ she said. ‘But I think that if we do this we’ll have an opportunity to show the investors the possibility of much larger events in the hotel. So far we’ve only done corporate events, but if we started adding birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, I think it would be a source of revenue for the hotel that will increase profits immensely.’

‘Yes, I saw all that in your email. But how?’ Blake stood now, and leaned against the table as he had so many times in the weeks they’d worked together. ‘How are we going to pull off the best event the hotel has ever given in a week?’

She faltered. ‘We could do it. We’ve racked up favours from all kinds of vendors and services, and I know a lot of them would be grateful for the opportunity to—’

‘How long did it take you to organise my welcome event?’

‘I didn’t organise that. Connor did, mostly.’

‘How long did it take Connor to organise the event?’

She bit her lip, and didn’t answer him immediately.

‘Callie, how long did it take for Connor to organise the event?’

‘Fourteen weeks.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Fourteen? And you want to throw an event bigger than that in one week? In addition to working on the proposals we’ll be doing for four of those seven days?’

She locked her jaw and looked at him. ‘Yes.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Forget it—it’s fine.’ She turned away.

‘Callie, wait,’ he said, before she could leave. ‘I was going to say I don’t think you can do it alone. We’ll have to get everyone involved. We need to call in all our favours, with every vendor and every service provider, and make this happen. Because we can do it. Together.’

Suddenly Callie was transported back to the previous day, when similar words had made her feel more valued than she ever had before. And she cursed him for still having the ability to make her feel that way.

‘Okay, great.’

He smiled at her, though there was something behind it that she hadn’t seen before. ‘So let’s get to it. There’s a lot of work to be done.’

Her heart stopped. ‘You’re going to help with this?’

He nodded. ‘That’s generally what’s meant by “together”.’

‘I just thought you meant all the staff.’

‘Oh, everyone will help. But you and I will be running it.’ He sat down and started typing on his laptop. ‘We seem to work well together.’

She stared at him, wondering who had kidnapped the surly boss she’d worked with before and replaced him with this cordial man in front of her.

‘Yeah, apparently we do.’