Shane quickly ended the call, too restless to talk. He scrubbed the kitchen from top to bottom until it glistened but still couldn’t work out his growing discomfort.
Glad he kept a pair of swim trunks in his desk, he decided to hit the employee pool for a late-night swim to try to blow off his anxiety.
He heard splashing as he entered the pool area. Sure enough, there was Audrey, her petite length gliding from one end of the water to the other.
What an amazing creature she was, gliding through the pool. He thought of the fire. How sure and brave she was, marching into the flames if it meant saving the lives of those two children. It was moments like that in life that showed what a person was truly made of.
She proved how much she could care. And she should have that kind of care in return. Even though it wasn’t something she was open to receiving, it was something he could never give. Not now. Not ever.
Tempted to leave unnoticed, he decided to confront her. She was entitled to the truth. He dove in and matched his laps to hers so that they reached the end of the pool at the same time.
“What is it with us?” Audrey half smiled. “We’re in some kind of sync.”
They both noticed a flash of light coming from behind the fence that enclosed the pool area.
“I need to say something, and I’m just going to come right out and say it.” Shane commanded her to look him in the eye.
Her eyes opened wide, making Shane want to cower from the words he was about to speak. But he pressed on.
“I don’t take sex casually and I’m guessing you don’t, either.”
She bit her plump bottom lip.
“But what happened between us was a one-off. A mistake.”
Was it the pool water, or did her eyes mist with tears? He knew that he’d make her cry at some point. Best, he thought, sooner rather than later.
She whispered, “I see.”
“I can’t afford to have anything like that happen ever again.”
“You can’t afford it?”
“I can’t take the chance.”
“What chance?”
“That I’ll hurt you.”
“Shouldn’t that be my decision, not yours?”
They both turned to follow the distracting light that flashed above the top of the fence again.
“Please let me finish.” Shane gritted his teeth. “I can’t let anything develop between us. Maybe if I were a different man. But I’m not. You already mean too much to me, Audrey. My heart can’t take it.”
“But...”
Whatever she was going to say would be too painful, so he covered her mouth with a kiss. It would be the last one. With his kiss, he gave her all he had inside so he’d always know that deep in her heart, she would remember this moment. It was a kiss that would have to last a lifetime.
There was no question that it would for him. Audrey, Audrey. In such a short time, she’d changed him forever. Brought him back to life, as a matter of fact. Through her, he’d reached up and clutched a bit of hope above the rubble he was buried under. Through her, he believed in himself again.
And only without her could he continue.
When you really love something, you have to let it go. Wasn’t that how the saying went? He loved her so much that he had to protect her from him, from what he was, and wasn’t, capable or deserving of. As much as it would damage both of them, he had to do what was in her best interest. He didn’t merit something as precious as her heart.
He broke from their last kiss and said with finality. “I can finish the cookbook on my own. Because I can’t be that close to you. I can’t have you spending time in my kitchen. Business partners is all we’re meant to be.”
Tears streamed down Audrey’s face.
“Shane! Audrey!” A voice came over the fence. Their eyes darted toward it. A paparazzo popped up and began flashing his camera at them again and again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hotel Heiress Can’t Choose Between
Restaurant Brothers!
THAT WAS THE caption above the two photos that were released to every gossip site on earth. In one photo, taken last night Shane and Audrey were caught kissing in the employee pool under the moonlight. The second photo was of Reg and Audrey posed in the wedding pavilion two weeks ago. When Audrey was wearing that flowered dress she hated. They were supposed to be taking engagement photos just for practice. Before Reg changed the plan and returned to New York.
Audrey stood in her dad’s office and shook her head back and forth. “We saw the camera flashes last night.”
Daniel sat at his desk while Shane leaned back in his chair, leg spread apart, eyes downcast.
Reg joined them via Skype. “I can’t imagine how those first photos of you and me were leaked,” he said to Audrey.
“One of the photographer’s crew,” Daniel said. “Anyone who had access to the photographer’s files. Or maybe the guy himself.”
“I’ll call our lawyer,” Reg added, “Although that doesn’t help us figure out what to do now.”
“Nothing,” Audrey said definitively. “We do nothing. Just let it blow over. There will be a different hot story by the next news cycle in a few hours.”
Shane gave her half of a smile and then looked back down to the floor.
After the paparazzo had startled them in the pool last night, Shane yelled at the guy. He and Audrey stood dripping wet poolside. She was reeling both from the unexpected intrusion of the photographer, and from Shane’s declaration that he no longer wanted her help. That he wouldn’t pursue anything personal with her. Which, of course, stung worse than any of the other blows.
After Shane chased the pap away, Audrey did her best to hide the heartbreak that speared through her at his statement of finality. She mumbled a quick good-night and retreated to her bungalow.
Even though they had shared so much together already, he was very clear. He no longer wanted her involved in his life.
He’d made breakthroughs in his cooking. She didn’t know if she’d really had anything to do with that other than providing a sounding board. But something seemed to have clicked and he was moving forward at last.
It hadn’t been just one-sided. Night after night, she told him everything about her day. Every work challenge she faced or decision she had to make. It gave her focus and clarity to share all of her thoughts. She was doing her best work in years.
Granted, it was a Shane Murphy made out of cardboard she divulged her thoughts to, but without the effect the real Shane had on her, it wouldn’t have meant anything.
Which is why she tried to ignore her four-hundred-pound heart and flushed neck as they held this meeting to discuss damage control about the photos. Everything was happening too fast—she really hadn’t had a chance to understand or process her disappointment. They were in business together so avoiding Shane wasn’t an option, although it’s the one she would have chosen if she could have.
Once the meeting was over and Shane left Daniel’s office, Audrey sank into a chair by the window. Her dad could tell she was upset and joined her in the chair at her side. They looked out to the action on the Strip. Even during the day, plenty of revelers had drinks in their hands and, probably empty pockets too.
She spotted a group of young women all wearing bridal veils that were attached to red headbands with cat ears. They giggled their way down the boulevard. Must have been an all-night bachelorette party.
Las Vegas, real and fake. The Eiffel Tower. New York skyline. Roman statue. Medieval castle. Ancient pyramid. Shane and Audrey.
Audrey told Daniel that Shane had excused her from her duties. She hadn’t spoken to her dad about what had passed between them on a personal level. Since nothing was going to come of it, she saw no reason to now.
Yet he guessed at it. “You have feelings for Shane.”
�
�Never.” She pressed her lips together.
“Daughter,” Daniel said, reaching over to take Audrey’s hand. “I know you had it rough growing up. I was consumed with running the hotels but I wasn’t blind. Your mother was a very unusual woman.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“I did my best to compensate but I know that for a daughter there’s no substitute for a mother. In her own way, though, she did love you. When I’d see her late in the evening after you’d gone to sleep, she’d tell me all about your accomplishments at school.”
“After she’d heard about them from the nanny?” A tear slipped from Audrey’s eye.
“Yes, but there was pride in her eyes as she listed your achievements.”
“Wish I’d been allowed to see that.” At least five more tears leaked out.
“Audrey, you’re twenty-eight. You have to open some doors and let love in. Set the past to the side. Move forward.”
She clutched her father’s hand as dozens of fresh tears dropped down her cheeks. He’d never know that she had opened the door a sliver, only to have it slammed shut in her face.
The rest of Audrey’s day was another blur of meetings and decisions. She went out to a local golf course to work on some incentives the hotel would offer. A limo would pick guests up at the Girard where they’d be sent off with a boxed breakfast and hot coffee. At the golf course, they’d have a desirable early-morning tee time before the sun got too blistering. A brunch with mimosas at the eighteenth hole would cap off the morning. Upon returning to the hotel, guests would be welcomed back with a basket full of after-sun products and icy packs for aching muscles plus a nice assortment of fruit, nuts and green juices for the afternoon. All well thought out. An impeccable Girard promotion. The kind of thing Audrey took the most pride in.
Audrey’s joke of a dinner was comprised of hummus and pita plus loads of cookies leftover from an earlier meeting with Housekeeping when they discussed press releases about the hotel’s energy efficient laundry practices. Afterward, Audrey was restless. She paced her empty bungalow, for the first time not wanting to even look in cardboard Shane’s direction. It occurred to her to go out.
It being Vegas, she could participate in any of a hundred different activities. She might see an elaborate show. Or a comedian or a piano-lounge singer. While away some time placing bets on a low-stakes slot machine at one of the big casinos. Drive off the Strip to go to a shopping mall or neighborhood restaurant and spend the evening like a resident Las Vegan.
But none of those options sounded good to her. Unable to inspire herself for anything unfamiliar, she changed into her bathing suit, threw on a cover-up and went to the employee pool.
The sky was especially black. Audrey inched into the pool and then pushed off to begin her methodical laps. She thought of how many laps she had swum in her lifetime. How much she enjoyed the feeling of herself buoyant and fast through the water. Here she often did her best thinking.
Shane. Shane was her best thinking. No one could have planned the unlikely sequence of events that had played out here in Vegas. That once Reg was out the door, her feelings for Shane would creep in the window. The idea of an arranged companionship was usurped by a love so real it decimated all of the pillars Audrey had built and surrounded herself with. Like an innocent ape, one man demolished her blockades with the loping sweep of his mighty arm. And then ran away into the jungle.
Shane had made her fall in love with him. Yet he didn’t love her in return. Could there be a more ironic twist of fate in this city of chance?
Audrey swam, kicking off from turns, using measured strokes, taking rhythmic breaths. Back and forth, shallow end of the pool to the deep and then to the shallow again. Was she wishing through every second of it that Shane would appear at the pool like he had every time she’d been swimming since she arrived in Vegas? To tell her he couldn’t live without her and everything he had said to her was a mistake? Absolutely.
With every lap, she looked over to check if the gate was opening.
He never came.
Two weeks later...
“Shane, can we get some shots with you and Reg?” one of the invited guests at the press brunch called out.
As he had been for the past two hours, Shane continued to make the rounds at the rooftop event. Reg was flagged over and the two Murphys put on their glittering restaurant brothers act as the photos were snapped. Rail-thin and short-haired, Brittany watched from the sidelines, clearly proud of her man. Reg had on a smart suit, uncharacteristically without a tie to be appropriate for the poolside. Shane wore his chef’s coat with black jeans.
“Get the cookbook,” Reg, ever practical, instructed as he blotted under his nose with a napkin.
Shane reached for the mock-up he had placed on the stool beside him. Shane’s Table at Home bore its cover art of him smiling up from the salad he tossed in a big wooden bowl. Pieces of lettuce were miraculously caught in flight. Shane had no idea how a shot like that was achieved. He and Reg had reviewed at least a hundred photos of him for the cover, until they found one that best upheld Shane’s brand of rock ’n’ roll meets world-class chef.
As he and Reg and the cookbook posed, out of the corner of his eye Shane spotted Audrey with a small circle of interested people surrounding her. Holding up a spa product or something, she seemed to be promoting it to her attentive audience.
His belly contracted at the sight of her, as spectacular as the late-morning sun. If there was ever an electrical outage, her smile could power the Strip.
She looked brunchalicious in white slacks, which he could tell were long enough to conceal the very high heels that she favored because she liked to look taller than her petite, yet perfect, height. A gold blouse that crossed in front flattered her marvelous femininity. And her shiny hair in loose waves was that kind of effortless look that probably took a lot of effort.
Sugar.
Indeed.
Over the past two weeks, not an hour had gone by that her stunning face hadn’t popped its way front and center into Shane’s mind. He’d felt certain that he couldn’t pursue anything with her, not the completion of the cookbook nor what had passed between them personally. That when you loved something, you had to protect it even if that meant shielding it from yourself. If it meant denying himself the one thing he realized he most wanted, so be it. He’d sworn he’d never again be a hindrance to someone’s well-being, he just couldn’t risk having the power to hurt Audrey. The woman he loved.
The woman he loved.
The past two weeks had been busy from morning to night but Shane had still found time to agonize about Audrey and what he was turning his back on. It didn’t help that he was involved with her in this business venture that was vitally important to both of their families. Normally, if you decided against a relationship, you could simply walk away and not have to see that person again.
In the months that turned to years after Melina’s death, he’d been asleep in his own trauma. Audrey had woken him up, spun his wheels in a new direction. He’d always be grateful to her for that after years of stalling out.
He glanced over and saw his parents, Connor and Tara, talking to Daniel. They had flown in for the opening. He’d had dinner and a heart-to-heart talk with them last night. They knew the next move he’d decided on.
Always one for extremes, in the last two weeks Shane had done nothing but work. Locking himself in the kitchen from dawn to midnight, he focused solely on creating new recipes for the cookbook. He was forced to dig lower into his own well of inventiveness, his knowledge of flavors and of technique. He’d researched foods native to the area, something he always enjoyed. He’d driven to off-the-beaten-track ethnic grocery stores and farmers’ markets. In the past two weeks, he’d come up with some of the greatest recipes of his career.
He looked over to the reason. Of course it was because of her. She had reintrodu
ced him to himself.
“Come over here and take a few shots for Vegas Food and Wine.” Reg guided his brother to do another smile show.
They invited their new manager Enrique over for photos. Shane couldn’t have readied the restaurant for opening without his competent service. Rachel in LA had trained him well. After a handshake, Enrique returned to supervising the brunch buffet.
“Mom, Dad, Daniel, can we do some shots?” Shane rounded them up. He beckoned with his hand to the woman he loved who had been watching the grouping. “Audrey, join us please.”
After a glance down to the ground, she strode over, shook Brittany’s hand on the sidelines and then took her place next to her dad for the photo.
Shane had seen precious little of Audrey in person for the past two weeks. Which was probably for the best, since any time he smelled her perfume or was in proximity of her warm skin, he’d had to rein himself in from breaking his resolve.
After the photo, Shane moved toward the other end of the pool for some hellos. His feet stepped forward but his eyes were glued on Audrey as she shook hands and charmed another grouping of people. The woman he loved in her native habitat, being fabulous at her job.
The woman he loved.
She’d obviously kept her distance from him, as well, these past weeks as email became her preferred method to notify him of business matters. And by including Daniel and Reg in all correspondence, she further professionalized their communications.
Shane had completed the TV show, working through four other segments with Phil. Audrey came by each set to nod her approval but didn’t stay for the tapings.
The woman he loved.
Yesterday, Shane had made up his mind. Once and for all. What he carried in his pocket was proof.
The cookbook, the TV show, the restaurants. As important as they were, he’d finally learned what he needed. What mattered the most.
Shane made nice with another cluster of guests enjoying the coffee bar but scanned the pool area until he located Daniel. When he could break away, Shane moved toward him.
Her Las Vegas Wedding Page 15
