by Lila Monroe
“Ah,” Will says with a modest grin, “you know, I actually wish I hadn’t missed so much. But you’ve got to make some sacrifices when you’re chasing a dream.”
Maggie catches my eye and flicks her finger across her throat with an emphatically unimpressed expression. Kill me now. I smother a giggle, grateful for the reminder that romanticism and Will are not an ideal pairing. White wine and a Ruby who shouldn’t be thinking about that guy anyway, on the other hand? Pour me a little more of that.
I’m on my third glass and have managed not to glance Will’s way more than twice—okay, maybe it was three times—when Brooke pushes back her chair.
“Ladies room,” she says in explanation, and it occurs to me that my wine may be catching up with me too.
“I’ll go with you,” I said. Maggie and Lulu stand up with me. Okay, I guess we’re making this a party.
“What is it with women and group washroom trips?” Brad says, sounding bemused. “Is it like a lemur thing or something?”
Everyone else looks puzzled. “You mean lemmings?” Trevor says. “You’re not planning on jumping off any cliffs, are you?” he asks Brooke.
“No, honey, I promise.” She grins back and kisses him on the cheek before we go.
“Someone has to say it,” Maggie says as she leads the way past the washroom door. “You two are disgustingly cute.”
“It is kind of stomach-churning, isn’t it?” I say, and wink at Brooke.
When we’re finished our main business and adding a few dabs of lipstick in front of the mirror, Lulu turns to me.
“What’s up with you and that friend of Trevor’s—Will?”
My heart skips a beat. “Um, what?” I say, eloquent as always. Have I been so over the top in my attempts to avoid him that even Lulu has picked up on it?
“He’s been looking at you all evening,” Lulu says instead, with a huff that gives me the impression she’s been trying to direct those looks her way.
Behind her back, Brooke raises her eyebrows at me. I pull a confused face. It’s probably just the product of Lulu’s man-crazy imagination.
“I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything,” I say, and ignore the tiny voice inside of me that wants to mull over whether it actually might.
We’re just finishing dessert—the creamiest crème brûlée I’ve ever had the honor of sticking in my mouth—when my phone vibrates in my purse. I grab it and hit ignore, but Brooke has already noticed.
“You’re not going to answer that?” she says.
“It’s your wedding,” I say, pointing my spoon at her. “No work allowed!”
She laughs. “Don’t be silly. We’re here a whole week—I know better than to expect you to relax the entire time.”
I hesitate, and she taps me with her foot under the table. “Go on. If someone’s calling you while you’re here, it’s got to be important. The world doesn’t stop just because I’m getting married.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll try to make it quick.”
I hustle out of the restaurant and lean against the wall as I check my messages.
“Hello, Ms. Walters-san,” the woman on the voicemail says with a clipped Japanese accent. My heart leaps as she identifies herself. “We are so pleased to hear of your Miss Jackson’s interest in showcasing Sasumae soft drinks on her channel,” she goes on. “I look forward to discussing the matter further with you.”
One of the things you learn in the PR business is that there’s no telling how—or where—a bit is going to take off. My client Dionne Jackson, for example, has been struggling to get attention here in the US for her cosmetics videos even though her mastery of blending and contouring at twelve puts my makeup skills to shame. In Japan? They can’t get enough of her. She even changed her screen name to Kawaii Dionne after her fans coined the nickname.
I’ve been trying to leverage that popularity into a sponsorship deal for the last two months since I signed her. Looks like that work has paid off.
I give myself a brief moment to do a mostly internal happy dance, and then I call her back and get down to business.
“I’d be happy to discuss possible partnerships for Dionne,” I tell her, after we’ve done the chit-chat small-talk. “Did you have a compensation package in mind?”
Within a half an hour, I’ve scored Dionne a deal that’ll pay for college and a whole lot of makeup besides. Let no one say Ruby Walters is a pushover in a negotiation. When I get off the phone with her and her dad, my ear is still ringing from her shriek of excitement, but I’m grinning. I stride back into the restaurant, ready to offer Brooke another round of apologies and share my good news … and find it empty.
No, not quite empty. As I stall just inside the main doorway, Will walks out of the kitchen, discussing something with one of the servers.
He catches sight of me and makes one last comment to the guy before ambling over. “Everything okay?” he says.
“Yep,” I grin, still elated. “Major victory for Walters PR.”
He smiles, his eyes so intent on me that for a second I forget all about the mega-bucks deal I just struck. “You know, I never got around to telling you how good you’re looking tonight.”
The magic of the teal halter dress. I feel myself blush. “Pretty much anything is a step up from drenched rat, wouldn’t you say?”
Will chuckles. “I’m sure you have never remotely resembled a rat, Ruby Walters.”
Is he … flirting with me? Oh fuck, beam me out of here, Scotty, I’m too giddy to keep my head on straight right now. I take a step back. “So, uh, where is everyone?”
“Oh, they all headed into town to check out one of the bars there.”
I blink, thinking of the wilderness I drove through to get here. “There’s a town?”
“Just down the beach,” Will says, motioning past me. “The road isn’t the best, but we could walk it in twenty minutes.” He pauses. “Or the two of us could have a drink here. We never did get around to very much of that catching up. We can celebrate your victory, you can tell me all the details …”
I do want to celebrate. A twenty-minute walk through the dark jungle before I get to doesn’t sound super appealing. And whatever else Will has done, he was always a good person to celebrate with. He had a competitive streak a mile wide, for sure, but he never got insecure or weirded out by anything I accomplished. Unlike a lot of guys whose dicks seem to shrivel the second they find out you’ve ever cashed a paycheck bigger than theirs, Will’s dick always seemed …
Wait, where was I?
I try to drag my thoughts out of the gutter—or above the belt—and rethink having that drink with him. Maybe it’s safer not talking to him at all. Safer not thinking about his good … points.
Before I can fumble out an excuse, Will adds, “The former would be more of an adventure, I’ll give you that. But the hotel bar stocks better alcohol. We might even have that whiskey you liked so much.”
I waver, looking back at him. Looking at his expression, which right now shows nothing but good humor and what looks like a very authentic desire to have a conversation with me.
I don’t know what to do with that. So maybe because I’m already slightly tipsy, or maybe because I did really enjoy that whiskey—definitely there are no other factors coming into play—my mind makes itself up for me.
“Scrounge that up and you’ve got yourself a deal,” I hear myself saying. Too late to back out now.
Chapter Five
“Wait,” Will says more than an hour later, “was this the actor or the director?”
“Oh, he wanted to be both.” I swing my legs beside the bar stool, feeling slightly giddy—which I’d like to think is mainly because I’m on my second very smooth whiskey sour, and not because of my drinking partner’s rapt attention. “It very quickly became clear he thought he was the second coming of Orson Welles. So he invites me to visit him ‘on set’ for what’s sort of our fifth date, and when I get to the place it’s literally someone’s backyard. In West Hills,
but still. There was barely room for the crew and all the patio furniture they’d shoved over by the fence.”
Will chuckles, leaning his arm against the marble bar counter. “I suppose a masterpiece could be filmed in a backyard.”
“Oh, sure,” I say. “I thought it was weird that he’d invite me for that particular shoot, but okay. That was before I nearly got eaten alive by the owner’s Doberman as I was coming around back. And before the owner—who I guess was also a ‘producer’?—ran over and shoved some pages into my hands, and asked me how fast I could memorize lines. Apparently the lead actress hadn’t been able to swap out her waitressing shift after all.”
“It can happen,” Will says with a twinkle in his eye. “So you’re a movie star now? You should have mentioned that earlier.”
His knee grazes mine as he shifts on the neighboring stool. I don’t think the contact is deliberate, but it sends a flare of heat up my leg all the same.
I’m playing with fire here, but right now I’m having too much fun to dwell on the risks.
I guffaw. “Ah, no, I had to turn down that offer. But the best part was when a weather helicopter made a couple passes overhead, and I guess the noise just did not fit with Christof’s vision for the scene—never mind they hadn’t even been able to start shooting yet—because he got up on a stepladder and started hollering at it to take a hike, as if the pilot would hear him all the way up there … or care.”
I drop my head against my hand and shake it. “So, you know, that was also our last date. I can still see him shaking his fist and shouting, ‘Damn you, you robotic sky beast!’ ”
Will cracks up, like people always do when I get to that line. He’s got a better laugh than most, though—a deep baritone one that makes you feel like you’ve made his day.
I always loved that laugh.
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d go for the Hollywood type,” he teases. “Seems like you should have learned your lesson after the first few guys.”
“Hey,” I protest, “I live in LA. I take what I can get. With my crazy schedule, it’s hard to do normal. Anyway, I do get good stories out of the experiences, even if I don’t have much else to show for them.”
Not to mention there’s something reassuring about dating guys I know from the start are in the habit of putting on an act.
“But not much romance,” Will remarks. “Or is that not your thing?”
I shrug. “I guess it depends on what kind. A lot of guys think ‘romance’ means some epic public display, like proposing on a Jumbotron or arranging a big flash mob in the hopes it’ll go viral.” I shudder at the thought.
Will grins. “No flash mobs, huh. You don’t think taking the internet by storm with the power of love is romantic?”
“Maybe, in very select situations. But most of the time they’re only thinking about how they’re going to look. You’ve got to wonder what they’re trying to prove.” I shift on my stool. Enough about my romantic preferences. “What about you? All that travel, you must have a girl in every port.”
I say it lightly, but those gray-green eyes flick away from mine for a second, in a way that makes me suspect there’s a little truth to that suggestion.
Will shrugs. “Ah, like you said about crazy schedules—I haven’t been able to pay attention to much other than the business. So, a little fling here and there, nothing serious. It’s easier keeping things casual.”
I find I’m weirdly jealous and glad at the same time—jealous of the girls who got at least a fling, glad no one’s amounted to more—and neither reaction is appropriate to our history. I throw back the last gulp of my drink and eye the whiskey bottle. It was already mostly empty when the bartender set it on the counter; now there’s not a drop left. Pity.
“You know,” Will says, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial tone, “I believe there’s a whole case of that stuff in the back.”
“Oh, really?”
“Come on.”
We slink around the bar as if there’s any real need to be stealthy—I mean, everything here belongs to Will, technically—and duck through a door in the back. I find myself in a cool dim room lined with shelves. I crane my neck searching for the logo from the whiskey bottle, and Will touches my bare shoulder. The feel of his firm hand sets off another flush through my body as he points to a box a few feet down, just over my head.
I step away from him and stretch to grab it. Unfortunately, I’ve underestimated the weight of a dozen liters of very good whiskey, or else overestimated my balance while severely tipsy. I heave and the box slides off the shelf—and nearly bowls me over.
Will catches the box before it and I crash on the floor. He hefts it, chuckling as I steady myself. “Let the upper arm strength go, have you? Better not let Brad find out or you’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I’ll have you know,” I say, waving my finger at him, “that hauling boxes of liquor rarely comes up in my line of work.”
He leans close enough that my pulse skips a beat. “No one likes a weakling.” His smile removes any sting the words could have had. I stick out my tongue at him like I would have in college, and he laughs again.
It’s addictive, this old dynamic. And so damned easy to fall back into, at least with the proper lubrication. Speaking of which …
I tug the top of the box open and snatch up one of the bottles. “This is all I need.” Then I hightail it out of there before I start considering other uses of lubrication.
Back on our stools, as the bartender pours my new whiskey sour, I feel Will’s eyes on me and decide maybe it’s time to douse a few of those flames before they burn all my good intentions down. I grope for a more serious line of conversation.
“So, this place,” I say. “You’re setting up your own business apart from your family?”
Will rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he says. “I, well—my older brother is in the process of taking over the Cassidy Resort chain. I’d only ever be secondary there. And the family properties are all about the standard holiday fare—entertainment, pampering …”
“The horror!” I say.
“Don’t get me wrong, I want to include those elements too,” he says. “But, it was important to me to start investigating eco-friendly options. It’s even more satisfying knowing I can offer a dream vacation while respecting the land the property is on, the country hosting it … With everything that’s been going on in the world, I like to know I’m doing some small part on the side of good.”
He toys with his glass as if he’s a bit embarrassed to have laid all that out there. My natural inclination to tease him softens. “I don’t remember you being focused on that sort of thing before.”
“No,” he agrees. “I wasn’t always paying enough attention. You could say it’s something I’ve grown into. No one stays the same as they were in college, right?”
“No,” I murmur, and damn if my heart isn’t thumping headily away. So much for dousing flames. Is it possible the guy in front of me has gotten more likeable than the one I thought I knew—and fell hopelessly in love with—before?
He sets his hand on the counter next to mine and draws his thumb across my knuckles in a way that seems totally natural even as it sends a hot shiver down my spine.
Will’s eyes are hot on mine, and dammit if I don’t almost melt into a pool of desire right there beside the bar.
Danger, high voltage. Heartache ahead!
I tug my hand back to grasp my glass and chug my last drink. And it definitely needs to be my last drink. “You know, I think I should call it a night.”
He gets up as I do. “May I escort you to your room?”
I cock my head at him. “Are you implying I’m too far gone to make it there on my own?” I don’t want to consider he might be implying anything else.
“Maybe I just want an excuse to enjoy your company a little longer,” he says in that usual teasing tone, which doesn’t really answer anything.
He sets his hand on the small of
my back, just for second, as we’re walking out, but that’s enough to set any nerve that wasn’t already glowing alight. My whole body is humming with the awareness of him, right there, a warmth that shifts in the air as he presses the button to close the elevator door, the woodsy smell of his cologne. Maybe it’s the buzz of the alcohol, too. I’ve lost my tongue. I have the horrible feeling I’m going to say something stupid.
“This really is a beautiful resort,” I manage. There, that’s all right.
“I’m glad you think so,” Will says.
The elevator dings, and we get off. “I mean, the carpets, the baseboards, the doors …” Okay, now I’m getting inane. What number am I again? Oh, right. “Here. This is me. My door.”
Maybe I should just swallow my tongue. That sounds like the wisest course of action at this point.
I pull my keycard out of my purse, but then I just stand there. Will rests his hand against the doorframe. “Should I say good night, then?” he asks, too casual to be an outright proposition, but not exactly not one either.
“That is the thing normal-type people generally do, isn’t it?” I say. What are words? I wouldn’t know. Especially not when Will is tapping his finger against my sternum the way he always used to, sparking heat all the way down through the rest of my body.
“You are never going to cut me any slack, are you, Ruby Walters?” he says.
“Nope,” I say, a little breathless. “I am definitely not that kind of girl.”
I am exactly the kind of girl who wants to grab the front of his shirt, plant a kiss on those perfectly formed lips, and pull him through this doorway to the bed.
My fingers twitch. And then, thank the Lord, the image sends me careening back to another memory. Another hall, a lot narrower and dimmer than this one and smelling like beer and boys rather than tropical florals, where I crouched down to slide the most heartfelt letter I’ve ever written in my life under this guy’s door.
This is Will. Will who not just broke my heart but shredded it like confetti for his frat bros’ amusement.
I flinch to the side, my elbow jarring against the doorknob. “Good night!” I say, way too brightly, and jab my card into the slot.
