"That's good, I guess," I said dubiously, and Andrea threw an arm over my shoulders.
"Do you want to get in good with Donovan Fox, sweetie? Maybe if you sing him a pretty song, he'll make you famous, huh?"
"Oh god, no." I pushed her away. “Like the man would give a damn about my voice.”
Andrea smirked. “Fair enough. His physical appetites are legendary. So maybe your sexy throat instead … I bet he could make you sing …”
"Hey, we need another eighty silverware rolls before dinner!" Gus yelled from inside.
All three of us made a face at our boss’ summons and we got up to file back into the restaurant.
As I went back to work, I found myself thinking again about Donovan Fox. The phrase handsome as the devil drifted across my mind, and the shiver that ran down my spine startled me. My mind drifted to what he was very likely doing with the two gorgeous women right now, and then I forced myself to go back to the task at hand.
I had absolutely no business with Donovan Fox. He didn’t know me; he never would. End of story.
*
"Gus, I don't do room service, I'm a waitress!" I protested, but the restaurant manager was obviously not listening.
"And I'm not a cook, but here I am," he growled, finishing off the plates he was prepping. He might not have been a cook, but it looked good to me, sausage and eggs and toast with a small bowl of carefully cut fruit. The silver cover clanged down over all of it, and I jumped a little.
"This isn't my job," I repeated, and Gus shook his head.
"This is a special case. Just get the food up to the penthouse, and that's it. The house staff got hit by the flu, and there's no one else. Go upstairs, hand off the tray, and come back. Not difficult, so drop the tantrum already."
I scowled, but took the tray from him and stalked out.
If I were honest, I was sort of scared of room service. I had heard way too many stories of girls who got harassed by terrible male guests, and that didn't even cover some of the weird things room service workers saw. Some time last year, a room service worker had gotten bitten by an actual pet cheetah that some guest had smuggled in. I could deal with the crowds in the restaurant, but something about possibly being trapped in a room with an unpleasant guest gave me the creeps.
Just this once won't hurt, I told myself. Get in, get out, and you're done. That's all.
The order slip told me that I was delivering to a penthouse, and despite my anxiety, I enjoyed the swift ride to the top in the elegant wood paneled elevator. One full side was hazy glass, letting me look out over the sea close by.
The doors whooshed open at the top and there were two women waiting for the elevator as I got off of it. They were chatting companionably, well-dressed and obviously freshly-showered, and I wouldn't have given it a second thought if I hadn't recognized them. They were the redhead and the brunette from the day before, and they paid me not a single bit of attention as the elevator door closed behind me.
I swallowed hard. All right. I hadn't expected to deliver breakfast to the owner of the hotel this morning, but this didn't have to be weird. Go in, drop off, get out, and get back to my comfort zone downstairs.
There was only one door at the end of the short hallway, and summoning up my nerve, I knocked on it.
"Come in," came a rough voice, and telling myself that I would be quick, I let myself in.
CHAPTER TWO
Donovan
I couldn't help breathing a slight sigh of relief when Lisle and Ana kissed me goodbye.
"Did we wear you out?" Ana teased, and I grinned.
"Of course you did," I lied. "You need to give me some time to gather up my strength again."
Lisle pouted a little, kissing my other cheek.
"Don’t take too long," she ordered. "My shoot is only going to keep me in Florida for another day."
I smiled, because as lovely as she was, as they both were, I didn't have any real interest in seeing either of them again.
I ushered them both to the door, and then feeling slightly at a loss, sat at the breakfast table at the window.
I should have felt at the top of the world. Hell, it certainly looked that way when I looked out the window. The penthouse rose twenty stories above the beach, and the blue waters of the gulf stretched out before me. I had taken over the hotel properties when I was in my twenties, and I had grown them to a world-spanning enterprise that catered to the rich and the powerful.
I should have been proud of that, and I was, but right now, all I felt was bored. Bored with the hotels, bored with the beautiful women I had just spent a good night with, bored with it all.
A hesitant knock on the door made me look up, frowning reflexively from the window. I only dimly remembered ordering room service, though the food had been more for the women than for myself.
"Come in."
The door opened and at first, I just saw the silver tray cover. The girl holding it wasn't tall, and she made herself look shorter still by keeping her head ducked down and her shoulders hitched up.
"Where would you like me to put this, sir?" she asked softly, and there was something about her voice that made me turn around to look at her more closely. There was a rich, controlled quality to it that seemed out of place somehow on her slight frame.
"Over here on the breakfast table, please."
She crossed the room to where I waited at the table, never meeting my eyes, and her gaze skittered over my form, taking in the loose linen pants that were the only garment I wore. I smiled a little when she lingered over my bare chest and shoulders.
She was dressed in the waitstaff’s demure olive green sarong top and skirt, but it was hard to imagine her dealing with a sudden rush of guests at dinner time. She set the tray down, gently, and pulled off the cover. I didn't look at the food; instead I looked at her, examining her with a sudden curiosity.
"Um, is there anything else you need?" she asked, swallowing a little, and I smiled.
"Are you afraid of me?"
Whatever she had been expecting to hear, it wasn't that. Her eyes flew up to meet mine, and for the first time, I could clearly see her face.
She had a delicate kind of beauty with full lips and a faint and natural blush to her cheeks. Her eyes were an almost shockingly bright blue, fringed with long lashes, and it was too easy to imagine those eyes widening with sudden arousal or fluttering closed when she was kissed.
"What kind of question is that?" she exclaimed, holding up the tray cover as if it was some kind of shield.
"An honest one," I answered, lounging back in my chair. "You stepped in here as if it was the wolf's lair, and you were expecting to get eaten alive."
“I work in the restaurant,” she hedged, looking away, “and we really aren't meant to be doing room service."
"Is room service work really so awful?" I asked curiously, and she flushed.
"Well, you hear things. Bad guests, every now and then a girl gets trapped in a room, that one girl got bitten by a cheetah..."
I blinked, because whatever she was going to say, I really wasn't expecting that.
"What? A cheetah? Girls getting trapped?”
She lifted one slender shoulder in a shrug. "There’s a reason I’m nervous. Room service is sort of risky.”
I scowled, because I certainly hadn't heard anything of the sort.
"Well, thank you for telling me about that. I'm sorry it's a terror. And I assure you that I don’t bite." Even as I spoke, my mind wandered to how very supple her soft skin looked. Eminently bitable, frankly.
She must have heard something in my voice that alarmed her, because she looked suddenly worried.
"It's... not as bad as all that. Please, I really like my job..."
I rolled my eyes at how terrified she looked suddenly.
"Stop that, I'm not going to fire you for telling me the damn truth," I said, and she nodded, still looking unconvinced. I sighed, glancing at her name tag.
"Gwen, right? Gwen, I need to
know when things like that are happening so I can make sure that they stop. I'm glad you told me."
She nodded, unconvinced. It was probably the best I could do, and the most merciful thing would be to send her back to the kitchen. For some reason, I didn't want to do that, however. Instead, I slouched back in my chair, looking her over.
Slender and small, she wasn’t my usual type; I generally preferred my women to be curvy. Still there was something about her that drew my attention, that made me want to reach out and see if I could wipe that scared look out of her eyes.
"Do you work her full time, Gwen?"
"I do, sir."
"Call me Donovan," I commanded. "When I want you to call me sir, I'll let you know."
The blush that seemed permanent on her cheeks deepened even further, and something in me roused. I wondered for a moment what it would be like to have her calling me sir, waiting for my next order and looking at me with pleasure in her eyes instead of fear.
"Donovan," she said, as if she were trying the name out in her mouth, and there was that strange husky quality in her voice again.
"You may work full time here, but that's not what you want to do, is it?" I asked, my voice soft. "What is it you want to do, Gwen?"
She swallowed, and I couldn't help standing up, getting close to her. She smelled like apple shampoo and salt; I wondered if she’d swum in the sea in the morning.
"I want to sing," she said, and I chuckled.
"Like a siren, bringing men to their doom on the rocks..."
"I'm not a siren," she said quietly. "I always think more of birds, who sing for the joy of it."
"A songbird and not a siren. That suits you, I think..."
She started to say something, but she gasped as I brought my hand up to cup her cheek. Her wide eyes got even wider and I somehow couldn't stand staying away any longer. Cupping one hand at the small of her back, pulling her closer to me, I leaned down to kiss her. I did it slowly, giving her the chance to escape if she so chose. But she didn’t.
The first touch of our lips was electric, and I knew that she felt it too. She went from being stiff and nervous to melting against me, one small hand coming up to rest against my chest. She was soft and sweet under the kiss, but when I felt her tongue come out to swipe over my lower lip, I could sense the passion in her.
"Perfect little songbird, I could make you sing," I murmured, and pulled her closer to me. She tasted like pure heaven, and I felt as if I could have kissed her forever.
Then a brisk chime broke through the sensual haze, my phone going off, and with a gasp, Gwen drew back, a wine-like redness to her lips. She looked startled and wary and needy all at once, and if she hadn't stumbled back towards the door, I would have ignored the phone and started to kiss her again.
"I... I should go back to the restaurant," she stuttered. "You should get that."
I toyed with the idea of telling her to stay right where she was, but realized that might be pushing her too hard, too fast. So I nodded, atypically going against my desires. And instincts.
"The restaurant lets you customize your outfit somewhat," I said, pointing at her drab uniform. "Put some color into that. Dull and plain doesn't suit you, little songbird."
I turned away, listening to her breath stutter. Then her light steps receded, the door clicked open, then closed, and she was gone, leaving me to deal with a morning of reviews and meetings. But something about her lingered, and I determined right there and then that I would be seeing Gwen again.
CHAPTER THREE
Gwen
When I stumbled down from the penthouse, I told myself that I wouldn't think about Donovan anymore. I wouldn't think about how I’d felt when he touched me, how he had kissed me in a way that made my knees weak, what I might have done with him if that phone hadn't rung.
I knew that Carly would say it was one more asshole guest doing what he wanted, while Andrea would speculate on whether I could get money or jewelry out of it. So I didn't tell either of them what had happened in the penthouse with Donovan Fox, but it wasn't just because I didn't want to hear what they had to say.
There was also a part of me that, for some strange reason, wanted to keep the incident to myself. It wasn't just because it was private, and it wasn't because I was ashamed. The kiss had been demanding, but not forced upon me. If I hadn’t wanted it, I sensed that he would have stopped. Donovan Fox didn’t strike me as a man who was interested in women who didn’t find him appealing.
Instead, there had been something about that encounter that had left a strange glow in me, a flickering flame that I could only keep lit if I protected it. It warmed me as I went about my busy day, even though I knew Mr. Fox—Donovan—would leave and that kiss would be likely the one and only thing we ever shared. It was enough for me.
A few days later, as I was waiting for the bus that would take me from my apartment complex to the hotel, an older man wheeled a cart of flowers down the street. They were bright splashy blooms, pinks and purples and blues, and on impulse I stopped him. He smiled when I shyly took a violet-blue bloom and tucked it behind my ear before paying for it.
"Very pretty," he told me, and I smiled.
When I got to the hotel, everyone was buzzing about the changes in room service and hospitality. Some of the management had been fired, and now there was a rule that room service was always going to be two people doing runs, never one.
I flashed back to the conversation I had had with Donovan. Had he confronted management with the cheetah story? Maybe my random encounter with Donovan had done some good after all.
I mostly managed to avoid thinking of him. Several waiters had come down with the flu that the house staff had spread, so I was too busy to do more than tend to customers, especially when there was unexpected rush after a furiously powerful squall hit the beach. Heading into the dining room with more menus and a bright smile, to compensate for customers who were irate at having their beach day truncated, I froze when I saw the man who had also come in with the rain.
Donovan lounged alone at a table, a sprinkle of water darkening his pale blue silk shirt. He gazed at me as I approached him. It was my job, after all. Nevertheless, it felt like I was somehow being pulled into his trajectory as his dark eyes watched me.
"You took my advice," he observed when I arrived at his table, and my hand came up to touch the flower nervously.
"Andrea and Carly said that it was cute," I said shyly. "I was afraid it made me look like a twelve year old..."
"Andrea and Carly are right, and no, you look nothing at all like a child."
His eyes roamed up and down my figure as if we were perfectly alone, and I clutched the menus a little closer, swallowing hard.
"I should tell you about the specials," I said softly, and he nodded, a slight amused smile on his face.
"You should," he said, and I felt as if a spell had been broken.
After he ordered, I scuttled back to the kitchen. All I could think of were the two women who had been leaving his room when we’d first met, how glamorous and beautiful they had been. It sent a strange pang of envy through me, and a self-pity that I shook off with a hard scowl.
What the heck was I even thinking?
Marshaling my mood, I moved through the dining room, taking other orders, commiserating with unhappy beachgoers, and bringing out the food as fast as the overwhelmed kitchen staff could come up with it. I didn’t have time to dawdle, and Donovan’s courtesy surprised me. After our initial interaction, he didn’t try to distract me further. I brought him his meal, he thanked me, and I hurried away, still feeling his eyes on me.
I didn't even realize what he had done until it was time to cash out. Chuy's eyes widened when he was totaling up my tips, and then I gasped when he handed me what must have been more than 300 dollars, more than half from Donovan, and I swallowed hard. Everyone in the hotel talked about how generous he was, but I had the feeling that there was something more to this. A mixture of excitement and worry filled me.
A man so wealthy could easily be implying he was buying me, had it not been for his impeccable manners thus far. Even the kiss—the.kiss.—he’d given me ample space to make a decision about whether or not I’d wanted it. And I had. So very badly.
Just as I was headed for my locker, Gus stopped me.
"Delivery to the penthouse," he said, pointing at a cart, and I frowned.
"Aren't we supposed to be going in pairs now?"
"That's for official room service, and you aren't. Quick run, in and out, and then you can head home.”
I wasn't surprised at all when I saw on the order ticket that it was Donovan's penthouse suite, and as I went up the elevator, I felt a dozen butterflies in my stomach. I took a deep breath, and at his crisp "come in," I ventured into the room warily.
"Is your last name really Love?" he asked as soon as I entered his apartment.
He was sprawled on the leather couch in the sunken living room, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his muscled chest, watching me with hungry curiosity that made me think less of cheetahs than it did a lion lying in wait.
"It is," I said, proud of the fact that my voice didn't shake at all. "Believe me, I've heard all of the jokes, so unless you think you have a new one..."
The answer popped out of my mouth before I could stop it, and I swallowed a startled groan. Since when did I run my mouth with anybody, much less the man who paid my salary?
But instead of being irritated, Donovan laughed.
"No, all of the ones that I could think of were terrible, so I let it go. You wear it well?"
"The flower?"
"No, the name. It suits you."
"If you say so," I said dubiously. "Where would you like the food?"
"On the coffee table is fine. Are you hungry?"
I shook my head as I set down his tray of cheese, fruit and sliced sausage. Then my stomach rumbled, and Donovan laughed.
"Liar … Your shift is over. Come sit here with me and have some of this.”
I hadn't eaten since noon, but refusing him anything wasn’t something I thought would be easy.
Hacked For Love & The Dom's Songbird: A Billionaire Romance Collection Page 9
