by Jo Leigh
“That woman should work for the Pentagon,” Bentley said, finally heading toward the bathroom, gear in hand.
“Who?”
“My mother, who do you think? She’d be our nation’s secret weapon. A hostile country wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“While this is a delightful conversation, one I’m simply dizzy to continue later, can it and get dressed. We have work to do.”
“What is it with this ’we’ business. First her, now you. I wish everyone would quit telling me what to do!”
Mitch smiled briefly. “Yes, dear. Go get showered.” He turned back to his paper.
She sniffed her ire, then slammed the bathroom door.
He spent the next twenty minutes jotting notes and ideas, none of which had the ring of a winner. He heard Bentley come out.
“I’ve got some ideas here,” he said. “Mostly if the power goes. But I still think we need…” Bentley stood behind him, her delicate scent turning his brain to mush and taking his power of speech.
“Pretend we’re thieves?” she said, reading from his notes, her voice this close.
Then he felt her hands on his shoulders, and the inexplicably erotic feel of her breast pressing against the back of his neck as she continued to read.
“I don’t want to go to jail over this story, Mitch.”
“Uh…”
“And that’s out,” she said, pointing at the word hooker.
She was quiet for a minute, and Mitch reminded himself to breathe again. To swallow. To blink.
“I do like the one where you rappel down to his window from the roof during the hurricane. Practical as always. That’s my Mitch.” She stepped away, and he was able to form a coherent thought. “Got any better ideas?”
“Bribes?”
“Good. That’s good. Who?”
“How about your friend Shelli?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“So, someone else. Someone in the kitchen?”
He turned, ready to face her now that she was sitting on the couch and not near enough to touch. “The point is, we have to do something. Today.”
“Together?”
Mitch shook his head. “Divide and conquer. Let’s get out of here, out into the hotel. I’m more creative on my feet. I need to be able to slink into doorways, hide behind palm trees. Use my action decoder ring.”
“When should we rendezvous, Mr. Bond?”
“This afternoon. Twoish. In the stairwell?”
She smiled. “Twoish it is. And I bet I come back with a story.”
He raised a brow and twirled an invisible mustache. “A friendly wager, eh?”
“Such things have been known to occur.”
“And what are we wagering?”
“The byline.”
“Whoa,” he said, getting serious. “You don’t mess around.”
She shook her head, picked up her purse and opened the front door. “I’ll see you in the funny papers.”
He just had time to think that she looked better in jeans and a silk blouse than most women looked in formal gowns. Then she was gone. And he had work to do.
BENTLEY CAME OUT of the utility room, praying that no one from the housekeeping staff was nearby. She pushed the cleaning cart as quickly as she could to the service elevator and willed the doors to open. They did, and she scooted inside.
The maid’s uniform she’d borrowed didn’t fit all that well. It was a few sizes too big, and the muted floral material hung unattractively past her knees. The hair net and the hat would camouflage her from the back, but she didn’t know what she would do if someone saw her head-on. The thing was to keep her head down. Keep quiet. The real maids weren’t due for several hours, but no one should raise a brow over this little change of plans.
She pressed the button for the sixteenth floor, and the elevator lurched upward. It was going to be so fine telling Mitch how clever she’d been. She could already see her byline under the headlines.
No one stopped her on her ascent. At the sixteenth floor, she checked the hallway. It was empty, as it should be. She’d found out the hotel was woefully understaffed because of the weather, and it would have been highly unusual for someone to be up here.
The cart wheel squeaked as she went toward room 1600. Her tennis shoes didn’t make a sound. But as she drew closer, she found her pulse jacked up to high gear.
She reached the door and raised her hand to knock.
“Hey, Peter. The maid’s here already.”
She froze. It was Mitch! She whirled around, ready to brain him.
The look on his face was almost worth having her cover blown. But not quite.
“Ix-nay on the aid-may,” she whispered loudly.
He started to laugh, but then Peter came out of the kitchen, and he became instantly serious.
Bentley turned around, desperate to keep her identity hidden from her old friend Peter. How had Mitch gotten to him? And why had he picked that second to open the door?
“That was quick,” Peter said. “It’s in the bathroom, honey. I broke the big bottle of lotion.”
She thought about running away, as fast as she could. But then her beautiful plan for getting to Colker would be ruined. Instead, she turned, pretended to cough and hid her face with her hand. As she went past Mitch, who was still standing at the door, she stepped on his foot. Hard.
Peter was pouring himself a drink, not paying her any attention. She hurried to the bathroom, and just as she. went inside, she heard Mitch call out.
“You can mop the kitchen floor when you’re done in there, miss.”
Chapter Fourteen
Mitch was enjoying himself immensely. Peter had poured him a drink, then gone off to answer the phone, so Mitch was now free to watch Bentley clean the bathroom.
“I think you missed a spot,” he said, sipping his Bloody Mary. “By the tub.”
She was bent over a mop, her huge dress flopping around her knees and her anger arcing toward him like lightning. “I’m going to get you for this,” she whispered. “The UN will have to intercede before I’m through.”
He laughed. “What are you going to do, vacuum me to death?”
“You’ll beg for mercy.”
“Oh, that sounds kinky.”
She stopped mopping, wiped a stray wisp of blond hair from her eyes and took a step toward him. “If Peter recognizes me, you’re a dead man.”
Mitch stepped, sideways and looked into the living room. “He’s still on the phone. You know, he is a real good-looking guy. You say he offered you a thousand?”
She grabbed the window cleaner and threatened him with it, her fingers looking mighty itchy on the trigger. “Stop it, you little weasel. I mean it”
“No, no,” he said, putting his hands up in mock horror. “Don’t clean me, please!”
She squirted the cleanser at him, but he ducked, only getting a little wet by his left ear. “Peter’s coming,” he said. “Hurry.”
She turned to the mirror and squirted a great deal of soap onto it, making sure her back was toward the door. Mitch felt there was no real need to mention that Peter was still on the phone. He hadn’t told a total lie. At some point, Peter would come back here.
“Get him away,” Bentley whispered, her voice urgent even though it was very low. “Distract him. Let me out of here.”
“But if I do, you’ll get to Colker first.”
“Of course I will. So what?”
“It’s this byline thing. I’m just not comfortable with—”
“Hey, Carter.”
It was Peter. Mitch and Bentley both froze.
“Yeah?” Mitch called.
“You ready for another Mary?”
“No thanks,” he said, smiling. “I’m in here with the maid. Making sure she doesn’t steal anything.”
“Well, when you’re through, come on out here. I’ve got a story you’ll like. Some broad was up here yesterday, a real beauty. I almost had her for lunch.”
Mitch laughed again, louder this time, so Peter would hear him. “Hold on. We’re getting to the good part. She’s cleaning the tub.”
Peter’s laugh was surprisingly loud, but then he’d been drinking since this morning, if the glasses littering the room were any indication.
“I almost had her for lunch?” Bentley looked wildly around the huge bathroom, then grabbed a bottle of very expensive after-shave. She opened the bottle and turned it over the sink. The odor of the cologne reached Mitch a second later. When it was empty, she went to her cart and pulled out a container of bug spray. She smiled for the first time that afternoon as she poured the contents into its new home. “I’ll give him a story to tell,” she said.
“Remind me never to tick you off,” Mitch said. “You’re diabolical.”
She turned to him, her face inexplicably beautiful with her cheeks so red. “You have no idea.”
Mitch drained his drink. “Oh, lookee here. Seems I need a refill.”
“You can run, but you can’t hide,” she said as he walked quickly toward the living room.
Once he was a safe distance away, he stopped. “Don’t forget to change the sheets, Gertrude.” Then he smiled happily for the benefit of his host.
“So I was telling you,” Peter said, taking Mitch’s glass. “This broad, she came to the room yesterday. She was asking about my neighbor, too.” He paused, looking thoughtfully at Mitch. “You don’t know her, do you? Bentley somebody?”
Mitch shook his head. “Nope. Never heard of her.”
“Hmm. Well, as I was saying, she came in just when I was expecting a friend. You know—” he winked broadly “—a friend?”
“Sure,” Mitch said, nodding. “I got you, buddy.”
“But this broad. She was the best-looking babe I’d ever seen out here. I mean it. I figured George had lucked out and hired a beauty queen or something. But she had real class, too. You know?”
“You’d be surprised how well,” Mitch said.
“Huh?”
“Nothing. How’s that Bloody Mary coming?”
Peter fussed with the drink for a minute, then handed the glass to Mitch.’ He’d put in a new stalk of celery, too. “Anyway—”
“Hold it a minute, will ya?”
Once again, Peter got that bewildered look on his face.
“I gotta go to the can,” Mitch said.
Peter accepted that pronouncement with grace. “Make yourself at home.”
Mitch excused himself and went back to the bathroom. Bentley wasn’t there. She was in the bedroom, only she wasn’t changing the sheets. She was just standing there, staring at the mess in the room. It looked as if Peter had had one hell of a party in there.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him back into the bathroom. Once inside, he shut and locked the door. “Okay,” he said. “You win. I’m going to get him to go inside the kitchen. He won’t be able to see you leave. So be fast about it, would you?”
“Why would you do that for me?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s gotta be a reason. You wouldn’t do it out of the kindness of your heart. Alleged heart, I should say.”
He leaned forward quickly and kissed her on the mouth. “Honey, I love you. Don’t you know that by now?”
She looked stunned. “Are you kidding?”
He kissed her once more, for good luck. “I’d never kid about a thing like that.” He opened the door and looked around. “Two minutes. Then get the hell out of here.”
He waited a few seconds, then started to leave, then remembered to turn around and flush the toilet. Then he really did leave, still not certain why he was giving her the chance to escape. Unless, of course, it was true. That he did love Bentley more than he wanted the story.
Oh, damn.
BENTLEY MANAGED TO MAKE it out of Peter’s suite, although she couldn’t recall how if she had to. Her mind had been in a fog, swirling with the words “I love you.”
The kiss had been quick, the situation ludicrous, but when Mitch Slater had said, “I love you,” he’d meant it. How she knew that wasn’t clear. But she did.
He loved her, and he knew who she was. Who her family was. Now what the heck was she supposed to do?
She stood in the hallway, staring at Peter’s door. She wanted to rush back inside and corner Mitch. Make him tell her what he meant. How he meant it. Was it the kind of love she’d heard about? The kind that makes it impossible to live your life without that other person? Or was it the kind of love that simmered over the years, content to exist but go no further?
It seemed like a pretty important question. But if she went back inside that penthouse, both their covers would be blown. Surprisingly, that didn’t matter quite as much to her anymore. After all she’d gone through, after all the struggles, she was prepared to throw her Pulitzer out the window. Well, maybe not out the window, but she was willing to put it on the back burner. Which, frankly, scared her to death.
What was happening here? This talk of love— she’d never thought it would hit her, and she would have sworn an affidavit that it wouldn’t be with Mitch. Holy cow. She wasn’t in Kansas anymore, that’s for sure.
She reached inside the pocket of her dress and pulled out the selection of key cards she’d borrowed. Turning absently to suite 1600, she slipped the first one into the lock. When it didn’t work, she tried number two, all the while wondering if she should, in fact, be opening the door across the hall.
Card number ten did the trick. The door swung open, and she pushed her cart inside the suite. Like Peter’s, the walls on either side of her were completely made of glass. The furniture was mostly antique, and the art on the walls looked expensive as hell. She noticed the clouds and the wind outside but had no time to gawk. She had no idea where Colker was. He could walk out any second and find her there. So she went over to the counter between the kitchen and the living room. The phone was there, and so were papers, neatly stacked and weighted by a geode. She glanced down and saw the proof they’d been after. Darren Colker had signed the page with a barely legible hand.
Now that she knew, she turned around, went to her cart and wheeled it outside, shutting the door behind her. The truth was, she hadn’t thought any further than that. She didn’t know what to do or how to get Colker to agree to an interview. It certainly wasn’t going to happen while she was disguised as a maid.
She took one more look at 1600, then she wheeled her cart to the elevator and took the long ride down to the basement. The whole time, all she could think of was Mitch Slater, and how he’d tilted her world.
BENTLEY THREW THE REMOTE control on the bed. It was almost dinnertime, and Mitch hadn’t returned. She’d waited till three in the stairwell. When she came back to the room, she’d been bombarded by urgent phone calls from her mother, from Jack, from the wedding coordinator, from her mother again. Stephanie’s chances of getting here in time for her wedding were hovering between slim and none, but Babs wasn’t about to throw in the towel. The bachelor party would be held that night, even though it had been moved to a lower-level ballroom instead of the patio, where it had been planned.
Mitch was expected to be there, of course. And while he was watching some girl jump out of a cake, she was supposed to be entertaining the female guests who’d made it to the hotel. Oh, boy. They were going to hold the wedding shower in absentia. The gifts would be opened, the punch would be drunk, the finger sandwiches eaten, all without the bride.
Bentley tried to imagine a worse way to spend an evening, but she couldn’t.
Dinner was going to be a buffet, then the men and women would go their separate ways. Which was all well and good, except where the hell was Mitch?
She thought of calling Peter’s room. But what would she say? Mitch probably wasn’t there anyway. More than likely he was sitting in Darren Colker’s penthouse getting the interview of a lifetime. So much for partnerships.
No, that wasn’t fair. She’d have done the same thing
if the opportunity arose. Despite what had happened this week between them, there was still the competition. That’s what made it fun, and she wouldn’t want it to disappear. Well, not completely.
She went to the minibar and got another candy bar. It was her second today, which wasn’t like her. She was pretty careful about what she ate, unless she was nervous.
And Mitch sure did make her nervous.
She hadn’t been able to keep her gaze away from the bed. She was glad that they hadn’t made love last night, but she didn’t want to get carried away. Friends were good and all that, but frankly, she wanted to get to know Mitch better. Aw heck, who was she kidding? She was ready to jump the boy’s bones. Ready, willing and able.
She’d decided, while sitting in the stairwell, that whatever happened, she was prepared to take the plunge. If there wasn’t going to be more than a friendship, fine. She was a big girl. Sex wasn’t necessarily tied to permanence. If he wanted to leave it at that, she’d smile, salute and carry on.
Although, and this she’d realized in the elevator, if he honestly did just want to be pals, she wasn’t at all sure she was going to be okay. The thought of never having this—this crazy, mixed-up adventure— saddened her beyond reason.
She was having the best time of her life. There, she’d admitted the truth. And more than anything, she wanted it to continue back in Los Angeles and for as long as she was able to keep up the pace. Mitch had shown her what was important. The money didn’t have to run her life. She could be in control and continue to be the kind of person she wanted to be. Not just what her mother expected.
The door opened, surprising the heck out of her. She hadn’t heard his key. He walked in, all smiles, and plopped himself down on the bed. Casually linking his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles, he looked like the picture of pleased-withhimself.
“You got to him, didn’t you?” she asked, rising from the couch.
