As he dried himself off though, he was already wondering how soon he’d feel her hands on him again.
Maybe he could have lunch with her, he mused as he drove the short journey from the gym to the hotel. The phone interrupted his thoughts and he pressed answer on his hands free.
Damon’s voice thundered through the speakers. ‘I see you’re up then.’
‘Up, dressed, work-out completed.’
Damon grunted. ‘You sure know how to relax on your holiday.’
‘I am relaxing.’ He thought of how loose his body felt, how he’d even forgotten what day it was.
‘You do sound perkier than usual.’ A pause, and Adam heard a muffled voice come and go. ‘Sorry, that was Anita. She says hello. Well actually she has a long list of questions for you, but I’ve told her the interrogation will have to wait. So, how is the nice hotel owner?’
Adam swung into the hotel car park and slammed the brakes on a little too forcefully. ‘Still nice.’
‘Umm. Define nice.’
Adam turned off the engine, exhaling roughly. ‘I was feeling relaxed until you phoned.’
‘The quicker you tell me what I need to know, the quicker I’ll leave you in peace.’
‘You gossip like a woman,’ Adam muttered before taking a breath and blurting. ‘Faith’s better than nice and I slept with her last night.’
He heard a rush of air, presumably as Damon almost choked. ‘Bloody hell, that Northern air must have done something funny to you. For a minute there I thought you said you’d given up your vow of celibacy and slept with the hotel owner.’
‘Now piss off and leave me alone.’
‘No, no.’ Adam could imagine Damon flapping his hands. ‘You don’t get to drop a bombshell like that and put the phone down. Details, Hunter, details.’
‘You want to know the positions …?’
On the other end of the phone it sounded like Damon was being slowly strangled. ‘God no. Just …’ He sighed. ‘Just tell me you’re doing okay.’
He heard both the words Damon was saying, and the ones he wasn’t. His friend had witnessed the worst of him over the last few years. Witnessed, empathised with, supported, yelled at in frustration, at times cajoled, at other times manhandled him, kicking and screaming. However bleak his life had become, Damon had been there to pick up the pieces. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he answered gruffly. ‘I’m fine. Get out of that office and home to that saint of a wife who puts up with you. There isn’t anything for you to do now that can’t wait until next year.’
‘You know, as you’re so rarely in a good mood, I might just take you up on that while I can.’ Damon hesitated. ‘Am I allowed to wish you a happy Christmas?’
Adam leant back against the headrest, briefly shutting his eyes. Then he sucked in a shaky breath. ‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘I don’t think the words happy and Christmas will ever go together in my mind.’ His mind flashed to Faith, her body straddling his, her eyes smiling down at him with promise. ‘But I’m working on it. See you next year.’
His mind was full of her when he walked through the hotel door, but the image he had wasn’t the one he was faced with. She looked harassed, holding a crying baby while trying to talk to a slender woman with dark hair and a harshly attractive face.
‘I wasn’t expecting you this early, Mrs Bannister,’ Faith was saying, one hand smoothing up and down the back of the squawking, red-faced infant.
‘Clearly.’
‘I can show you the room.’ Chloe, her red hair looking particularly spiky this morning, walked round to the front of the reception desk.
The woman ran her eyes over Chloe’s black Dr Martins, her chequered red and black tights and up to her short black denim skirt. ‘And you are?’
Chloe frowned at the sharp tone. ‘Chloe.’
‘Umm. My husband told me I shouldn’t be put off by the teenager on the desk.’ Hurt flashed across Chloe’s face and Adam itched to intervene but he didn’t want to cock this up for Faith. Reluctantly he hung back. ‘I presume this child won’t be on the desk if we decide to hold our gathering here.’
It was clearly a statement rather than a question and Chloe’s eyes flared with resentment. ‘I’m not a child.’ Thankfully before she could annoy the opinionated Mrs Bannister any further, the phone rang on the reception desk. With a huff, Chloe went to answer it.
And still the baby cried. Faith, who’d taken to pacing up and down, met his eyes. The plea he saw there froze him to the core. She couldn’t be asking him … no. It was too much.
He stood rooted to the spot, heart thundering in his chest, as Faith looked helplessly over to Chloe, who was still on the phone, and then to the woman whose business Adam knew she desperately needed.
‘You know what, I’m not sure it’s even worth me seeing the room.’ Mrs Bannister’s lip curled in disgust. ‘This place seems to be more of a kids’ club than the sophisticated hotel it’s advertised as.’
Again Faith’s eyes pleaded with his. In that moment, Adam hated her for what she was asking him do. He gave his head a small shake.
Her eyes rounded and she glanced down at her grumpy nephew before looking back at him. Please, she mouthed silently.
He cursed, equally silently, feeling trickles of cold sweat running down his back. As every one of the muscles that had just felt so loose, started to knot, he dumped his sports bag on the floor by the reception desk and strode over to her. ‘Give it to me.’
‘It’s a boy,’ she mumbled, handing the squawking infant over. ‘Jack, meet Adam. Adam, meet my nephew, Jack.’
Awkwardly he held the boy at arm’s length, his heart pounding, his stomach churning so much he feared he might puke right there and then. All over Mrs Bannister’s patent black stilettos. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
Faith motioned for him to put Jack over his shoulder. Swallowing down his fear Adam did exactly that, the boy feeling ridiculously small. Too light, too delicate, even though his little body was rigid with temper. ‘I’ll take him to my room.’
Unencumbered by the two-foot wailing machine, Faith’s eyes shone with gratitude before she turned them towards Mrs Bannister and gave her a professional smile. ‘I apologise for my nephew. I’m looking after him for a few hours this morning to give his mother a rest. I’d planned to hand him back before your arrival.’
I can do this, Adam told himself as he left them to it and made his way towards his room. But as he jigged the grumpy baby up and down on his shoulder, resentment added to his unease. He wanted to help the woman he’d started to like, really like, but he hated feeling forced into it. Especially hated being forced into this, looking after a baby, for Christ’s sake.
And while he was at it, why the bloody hell was she looking after her sisters’ kids, when she should be focusing on her own needs?
Chapter Twelve
Faith eased the prickly Mrs Bannister away from the lobby and down towards the function room. Dimly, she could hear Jack crying in the background, but the sounds were becoming less angry. Guilt lay heavily inside her as she recalled Adam’s look of horror as she’d silently pleaded with him to take her nephew. She shouldn’t have done that to him. Men were frightened of babies. Even hulking great giants of men, apparently.
She sighed, knowing she was going to have some major grovelling to do, but she’d panicked. With Chloe on the phone, Charity fast asleep in her rooms at the back of the hotel, her parents out. Giving Jack to Adam had seemed the only option to stop Sally Bannister walking out.
‘It’s a good size,’ the woman in question murmured as she cast a critical eye over the room Faith had kept for small functions.
‘We’ll decorate it for you,’ Faith told her. ‘We can wind lights round the beams and string them across the ceiling. We have some tables we can set for the meal then
push to the back if you’d like a dance floor.’
Sally Bannister’s face wasn’t giving anything away, Faith noted grimly. She bet the woman played poker in the evenings. When she wasn’t scaring small children with her permanent scowl.
‘And the bedrooms?’ she said finally, once she’d run her finger along the window sill.
It came up dust free. Faith chalked herself up a point and made a mental note to double the housekeeper’s Christmas bonus. ‘I can show you a couple of rooms. They’re all of a similar size and décor, but as it’s an old building no two are exactly the same.’ She hesitated. ‘How many rooms would you be looking at?’
‘If we decide to proceed.’ Her emphasis on the first word left Faith in no doubt who was in control of their little meeting. ‘We’d be looking at seven, possibly eight rooms.’
Currently she had only two rooms booked for New Year’s Eve. ‘We can manage that,’ she told her. ‘Though of course we’re getting enquiries every day,’ she added quickly.
Sally Bannister looked at the rooms silently and as they walked back to the reception, Faith had no idea whether she liked them or not.
When they reached the lobby, Chloe was polishing the reception desk. Faith let slip a small smile. She’d given her niece a list of jobs to do when it was quiet, which was pretty much ninety percent of the time. Looks like not everything she said fell on deaf ears.
‘My husband told me last time there were dogs running around.’
‘Ah, yes. They were accidentally let out.’ She kept it deliberately vague, not wanting to lie, yet very aware they’d left Guy Bannister with the impression the dogs belonged to Adam. ‘It won’t happen again.’
Sally pursed her lips. ‘If you can promise that while my guests are staying here there’ll be no dogs, no crying babies.’ She arched a brow in Chloe’s direction. ‘And no teenagers on the desk, we’ll confirm the booking.’
Behind Sally’s back, Chloe stuck up her middle finger. If it had been just that, just a rude gesture in response to a nasty comment, Faith would have pasted on a smile, shaken Sally Bannister’s hand and done a jig the moment the woman was out of the door.
But there was more than rebellion and temper in Chloe’s eyes. There was hurt. It was the second time Sally Bannister had upset Chloe. The first time Faith had bitten her tongue, desperation for the booking overriding her natural instinct to defend her niece.
She couldn’t, wouldn’t overlook it a second time.
‘Chloe is my niece,’ she told Sally firmly. ‘Unlike many teenagers her age she’s not spending the build-up to Christmas lying in bed until midday and then wallowing in front of the TV. She’s setting her alarm and coming to work here. I’m proud of her. If she wants to work on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, I’ll be happy to have her here.’
As Chloe gaped, Sally Bannister sucked in a breath, her face looking like she’d just eaten a plate of raw dandelion leaves. ‘Then it seems you’ve just wasted my morning.’
Her heels clattered furiously across the lobby floor as she stalked out.
The heavy door slammed shut behind her.
‘I didn’t like her,’ Faith said calmly into the silence, though inside her stomach was a churning, knotting mess. Holy crap, she’d just thrown away eight bookings, plus the room hire. Plus the meals.
Chloe began to snigger. ‘Me neither. She was a total bitch.’ She wrung her hands together, glancing once more at the door before meeting Faith’s eyes. ‘I don’t mind not working New Year though. I might not be around, anyway.’
‘I don’t expect you to work it,’ Faith reassured her.
‘Then why…’
Understanding slowly dawned on Chloe’s face and Faith walked over to her and placed a hand on her cheek. ‘I wasn’t going to have that woman badmouth my beautiful niece.’
Chloe huffed, her eyes darting away. ‘I’m not beautiful.’
‘Yes, you are.’
Her gaze flickered back to Faith’s. ‘You’re biased, you’re my aunt. Boys don’t think I am.’
‘Then you’re mixing with the wrong sort of boys. Stupid boys.’ Chloe snorted and moved away, but as she returned to her polishing, Faith was sure she caught the glimpse of a smile. ‘What was the phone call you took?’
‘A party of four wanting to eat in the restaurant and book two rooms for the night.’ She smirked. ‘New Year’s Eve.’
‘Who needs Sally Bannister?’ Just as she was starting to relax though, Faith experienced a dart of alarm. ‘Please tell me you took down their details?’
Chloe raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Of course. I’m not completely stupid, you know. I said you’d phone them back to confirm.’
Exhaling in relief, Faith gave her niece’s slim shoulders a quick squeeze. ‘I meant what I said, you know. We had a few wobbles at the start but you’ve been a huge help, Chloe. Thank you.’
‘Duh, you’re paying me, you don’t have to thank me.’ The flush in her cheeks and the pleasure in her eyes said otherwise.
‘Right, if you’re okay to stay here a little longer I’d better go and find my nephew.’ Last seen in the arms of one of my guests, she thought with a fresh rush of guilt. One who was paying her, rather than the other way around.
Her stomach fluttered nervously as she knocked on Adam’s door.
‘It’s open.’
She wasn’t sure what to expect when she opened the door, though at least it was blissfully quiet. As she stepped cautiously inside, the sight of the huge strapping man lying on the bed, a sleeping baby curled up on his chest, tugged at her heart. About to say something soppy and sentimental, she stopped short when her eyes met Adam’s. He was angry.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly, anxious not to wake her sleeping nephew.
‘Why?’ he asked. When she gave him a confused look he shook his head. ‘Why were you looking after your sister’s baby? You’re already looking after Chloe.’
She was taken aback by the vehemence in his tone. ‘Charity is shattered,’ she said stiffly. ‘Why wouldn’t I offer to look after Jack for a bit?’
‘Because you have a business to run? A potential guest to show round?’
‘Charity’s sleeping in my bed. Not that it’s any of your business. I’d planned to take Jack back to her in time for the meeting. Sally Bannister was early.’
He heaved out a sigh, causing Jack to bob up and down on his chest. ‘Okay. It just strikes me than you have to learn to say no to people. Business reputations can be made and lost in the first few months.’
He was making her sound like a naïve, incompetent fool. ‘Any more advice you want to give me?’ She asked coldly.
‘Don’t offer to help and then shove the burden of doing it onto someone else.’ His tone was equally cool.
She bit her lip, feeling the prick of tears and hating it. ‘I said I’m sorry. If Sally Bannister had been on time there wouldn’t have been an issue.’
Adam heard the tremor in Faith’s voice and cursed silently. Why was he being such a git to her? She didn’t know he’d been a gibbering wreck the moment he’d seen the baby. How could she, because every time he’d had a chance to talk to her about anything personal, he’d ducked the issue.
‘I’m sorry, too,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not good with babies. It freaked me out a bit.’ It was the closest he could come to admitting how shaken up he’d been.
Her eyes strayed down to the sleeping bundle on his chest, and back up to his. ‘The evidence would suggest otherwise.’
‘He was just exhausted from all the crying.’
‘Maybe. Or maybe he found that a big, warm chest makes a very comfortable pillow.’
Something flickered in her eyes and he wondered if she was remembering how she’d slept part of the night on him last night, too. ‘I’m all for being s
lept on. It’s just I prefer the person doing the sleeping to be female and twenty-seven.’ He stared straight at her. ‘Curly brown hair and pretty hazel eyes are another strong preference.’
A glimmer of a smile crossed her face. ‘Does that mean I’m forgiven?’
‘Only if you forgive me for shoving my nose in your business.’
She sighed and sat on the end of his bed. ‘Hard not to, when I know you’re right.’
He stilled, running his hand over the baby’s back in an unconscious movement. ‘Didn’t you get the booking?’
‘Oh, I got it, provided I didn’t have Chloe working when the Bannisters’ precious party was here.’ Annoyance threaded tightly through her voice. ‘As if I’m going to let Sally Bannister dictate whether my niece works that day or not.’
‘I noticed she was rude to Chloe.’
She turned to him, her eyes serious. ‘Tell me honestly what you thought when you first saw Chloe on the reception desk.’
He winced. ‘Stroppy teenager? Not sure what it says about the professionalism of the hotel? But the second time I saw her I revised my opinion,’ he added hastily. ‘I thought she was a troubled teenager, not a stroppy one.’
‘Yes, I think she is. I also think working here, not having too much time to obsess about what her friends are up to, is doing her good.’
‘And that’s more important to you than anything, isn’t it?’ he asked gently. ‘Even more important than your hotel?’
‘She’s family.’ She gave him a wry smile. ‘You don’t understand that, do you?’
‘No,’ he said honestly. ‘But I think Chloe is lucky to have an aunt who does.’
Faith smiled, and as she shifted further onto the bed, the neat black skirt she wore rose up a fraction, giving him a glimpse of her thigh.
‘Chloe’s mother, my sister Hope, is a great mum, you know,’ she said, clearly oblivious to the effort he was making to not look at her legs while he had a baby sleeping on his chest. ‘Up until the last few months Chloe’s been a normal, happy teenager.’ He tried valiantly to focus on what Faith was saying. ‘It’s just Hope’s freelance writing work has really taken off, so recently she’s been really busy. I think maybe Chloe’s missing their connection. Missing someone she can open up to.’
A Little Christmas Faith (Choc Lit) Page 10
