Rick pulled a folder from his briefcase, opening it and flipping through disinterestedly. “This is a compilation of the brainstorming session,” he said. “Let me just read you a quick summary. Old Vegas—I think that was you, Mary. Marble floors throughout—Mary again. Purple lights—Charlie, I think? Tranquil. Spa like. Uh…this just says, ‘some kind of theme.’” He set the folder down, looking around at us all. “No offense, but that’s not a whole lot to go on. It feels like we’re a bit all over the place, in fact.”
“Which is understandable,” Jim cut in, perhaps guessing that Rick was sounding too dismissive. “We have so many people offering input, and of course, we can’t all know the architecture terms.” He nudges Rick jovially with his elbow in a self-deprecating kind of way. “It would just help for us to see the things you all like before we come up with our design.”
“I think it’s a great idea,” Mary said, no doubt excited by the prospect of spending the day outside of the office. “I’m in.”
“Good.” Jim beamed at her. “I really do think it will help.”
Emma shot me a quick glance, as if wondering if I wanted her to fight them just for the sake of fighting them. This was never going to work if she had that mentality about it. These guys couldn’t be our enemies, just because of something that had happened years ago. “I think you’re right,” I said firmly. Rick’s head shot up in my direction, as if surprised by my support, before he quickly turned his attention back to the file in his hand. “We really need to nail down what we’re going for before we go any farther.”
“Do you have any of our clubs in there?” Liz asked, peeking over Jim’s shoulder. “Because we have some really nice properties, and I think you’ll get a sense for our style if—”
“We’re sticking to hotels,” Rick interrupted.
When Liz looked annoyed at being cut off, Jim quickly stepped in. I wondered how much of his day he spent doing that—smoothing over Rick’s prickliness. “We already know you guys can design a great club,” he said, smiling around at us all. “But a hotel is whole different ball game.”
“Well,” Emma said, standing. “Let’s get this show on the road then, shall we?”
We filed out of the room, me making sure to let several people get between Rick and myself before entering the hall. As I passed the doorway, I saw Lucy hovering there, looking hopefully down the hall where the others were heading out. “Do you, um, need any help?” she asked me. “Taking notes or anything?”
Etta appeared at her side, a cross look on her face—maybe from being passed over on the muffin front earlier. “Or I could go,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“I need you to get that file ready for me,” Emma called over her shoulder. “Sorry, Etta.”
Etta grimaced, and I felt a little bad for her. “I guess it’s you then, Lucy,” I said. “Why don’t you bring your tablet—then you can take notes and pictures if we need you to.”
“Okay!” she practically squealed, running off to her desk. “Don’t leave without me!” she called over her shoulder.
“You can come next time,” I assured Etta, who looked ready to cry. She gave me a weak smile and walked back to her desk, much less enthusiastically than her friend.
I found the others in the lobby, Mary giggling about something while Jim looked rather proud of himself. “Look, Annabelle!” she said, pointing through the glass windows. “They booked us a limo!”
“Our treat,” Jim assured me, rocking back and forth on his heels.
I saw Emma rolling her eyes behind him—she had been driving around in limos since before she could talk.
“We’re just waiting for Lucy,” I explained seconds before she arrived behind me, panting with exertion, the tablet clutched in her hands.
“Did you run all the way down?” Mary asked, making a face.
“I didn’t want you to forget me,” Lucy gasped.
“As if we ever could,” Rick said, grinning at her. He held out an arm, and she took it, looking up at him as if he were a god on earth. Charlie and Mary nudged each other, smiling, and it took everything in me not to slam the limo door behind me when I finally climbed in, last.
“We’re going to start at the Kingswood,” Jim explained once the limo had moved away from the curb. “They have a Michelin star restaurant there serving breakfast, so we can eat before we tour the rest of the property.”
I tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but my attention kept sweeping down the bench seat to where Lucy was sitting next to Rick. She was telling him something in an undertone, her hands waving around to make her point. And he was smiling at her. The man who had done little more than grimace since he arrived in our office had a grin the size of the Hoover Dam on his face as he listened to her. I was pretty sure I even saw him chuckle at something she said.
“Have you been to the Kingswood, Miss Elliot?” Jim asked beside me. As I turned toward him, I thought I saw Rick’s gaze flick up to my face. I plastered the biggest smile I could possibly manage on my face as I looked up at Jim. His eyes widened a bit—probably thinking I was a little crazy.
“I have. Just drinks at the bar, though.”
“It’s really quite spectacular,” he said, nodding. “It was the first resort I ever stayed in here in Vegas.”
“When was that?”
“Oh, years ago. My twenty-first birthday, actually. My buddies and I all came down for the weekend. I got so wasted, I woke up in the lobby of a hotel I had no memory of ever setting foot in.”
I laughed. “That sounds like the right way to do a twenty-first.”
We spent the rest of the short ride chatting about all thing Vegas—favorite resorts, best casinos, best places to eat. I found it nice to talk to Jim—so many of the men I had been near lately had been the one-upper type; no matter what I had to say, they had done it first, better, faster. Jim, on the other hand, seemed eager to hear about my opinions on the town, even making a point to pull out his phone and type in a memo to remind himself of the name of my favorite restaurant. I was enjoying the conversation so much, I very nearly forgot about Rick and Lucy’s giggling at the other end of the vehicle.
“Here we are,” Jim said, peering out the window. We were pulling up in the valet drive in front of the glass and marble facade. Jim hopped out of the limo before the driver could come around, holding the door for us all himself. I made sure to keep a good distance between myself and Rick, this time smart enough to walk in front of him, so I didn’t have to see the way Lucy was looking up at him.
Not that I cared. Not at all. If Lucy wanted to have a ridiculous crush on a giant douche, that was her prerogative.
As soon as the food was brought out, I decided the day was worth it, giggling Lucy or no. The chef did an Eggs Benedict that was so delicious, I actually whimpered when it touched my tongue.
“Mary, are you seriously just going to eat that fruit?” Charlie was asking, sounding outraged. “Look at all this food!”
“Do you have any idea how much fat is in Eggs Benedict?” Mary answered, her eyes going straight to my plate. I took another bite, much bigger this time, and she winced before turning away.
“You’re insane, woman,” Charlie muttered. “An absolute nut job.”
“It’s probably a good reminder,” Jim pointed out. “That we need to be conscious of the health minded in the food choices.”
Mary gave Charlie a smug look, and he grabbed three pieces of bacon, shoving them in his mouth without breaking eye contact with her. With a long-suffering sigh, she turned to Liz, who was joining her in the fruit-only breakfast.
“I like the feel in here,” Emma said, looking around the room. “Very high end.”
I struggled not to sigh. Of course it was high end—had she even looked at the prices on the menu? It was also generic. It looked exactly how you would imagine a Michelin two-star restaurant in an expensive resort to look, all marble and white velvet. There was little to no personality in this room, certainly nothi
ng to stand out. Rick’s eyes met mine across the table and I knew, somehow, that he was thinking exactly the same thing.
After breakfast, we began our tour of the hotel. We visited the bar, the expansive lobby, the spa, and even had the concierge show us several guest rooms. Everything was nice—clearly high end, with top-of-the line finishes. But nothing about it screamed special to me. It looked, for the most part, like a typical Vegas hotel.
We made the same rounds at the next site, minus the extravagant breakfast. This hotel was one of the Strip resorts, very themed. Cheesy, in my opinion, but Charlie seemed really into it. The third hotel was a small boutique, and the first place where I felt excited. The color palette inside was bright, and the design features eclectic, from the art on the walls to the water feature in the lobby. I knew from the moment we stepped inside that Mary and Liz would hate it, but it was my favorite.
By the fourth hotel, my injured ankle was killing me. It throbbed even when standing still and shot sharp pains up my shin with every step. The resort didn’t offer up much in the way of distraction—one of the more popular hotels on the Strip, I’d been here dozens of times. As far as I was concerned, a quick walk through was all that was required.
Liz had different ideas. “We have to walk through the shops,” she said. “That’s what makes this place unique!” Indeed, the resort was well known for its shopping, more like a mall than anything else. You could find designers of every taste level here—which was, I was sure, the only reason Liz was so set on visiting. Why not combine work and shopping when given the chance?
“We should be looking at the pool,” Emma said. “That’s what this place is known for.”
“I am so not dressed for a pool deck,” Mary said, visibly pulling in her nonexistent stomach. Apparently, her fruit-only breakfast had been too big to allow her to feel comfortable walking amongst the pretty young things in their bikinis.
“How about the three of us go into the shops,” Jim said diplomatically. “And the rest of you can walk around the pool deck. That way, we cover all of our bases.”
Unable to face walking through the entire resort to reach the pool, or wander aimlessly through the shops, I fell back as the groups separated. Emma alone noticed and walked back to me. “What’s up?”
“My damn ankle,” I muttered. “All this walking is killing me.”
She made a sympathetic face. “We should call you a cab.”
I waved away her suggestion. “It’s fine. I’m just going to sit for a minute. Besides, it’s not like I need to take a freaking tour of the Hard Rock, you know? How many times have we been here?”
She grinned. “True.” She scanned the lobby area, then grabbed my arm and pulled me over to a low-cushioned bench. “Sit. Chill. We’ll be back in a few.”
I gave her a wave as she set off again in the direction the pool group had gone. I eased my leg out slightly, grateful to get the pressure off of it. I wondered if I needed to see a doctor—when in the hell would I have time for that? Already, I was feeling antsy just sitting. There were so many things I could be doing right now, so much that needed—
“Ooh, Rick, did you see this sculpture?”
I froze, looking around. I had thought that Rick and Lucy had gone off with the pool group, but that definitely sounded like—
“This was done by a famous sculptor,” Rick’s unmistakable voice replied, and I cursed under my breath. I was sitting along a marble wall in the massive lobby, but a potted plant did a good job of keeping me secluded from the area around the bend. And sure enough, a quick peek revealed Lucy and Rick only feet away, apparently examining the fountain.
“This is a waste of time,” he muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets. Lucy touched his arm sympathetically. “Our specs have very little shopping space. Why in the hell did they need to tour the damn mall?”
“That’s Mary for you,” Lucy said, her voice sour. “She always has to get her way. You have no idea what it’s like at family functions. She even bosses around my mother.”
“You’re related?” he asked. Was that a note of disappointment behind the surprise in his voice? That his precious Lucy might be connected to someone like Mary?
“Charlie is my brother,” she explained, sounding almost hurt. “I thought I mentioned that.”
“You might have,” he said quickly. “It’s been a lot to remember, meeting so many new people.”
She seemed satisfied by the answer. “She’s pretty much a nightmare. She thinks she’s just the queen of everything, you know? I don’t know why Emma and Annabelle put up with her.”
“Has she always worked for R&E?”
Lucy must have nodded. “Since they first started. That’s how she met Charlie—an office romance.” She made a scathing noise in the back of her throat. “Of course, he dated Annabelle first. And we all wished they would have ended up together but—”
“He dated Annabelle?” Even from here, I could hear the edge in his voice.
“Oh yeah, for a few months. He was head over heels.” Lucy sighed. “I wish she would have liked him as much. I would much rather have her for a sister than Mary.”
“Were they serious?”
“Not as serious as Charlie wanted. But then, Annabelle is never serious about any of her boyfriends.”
“Really.”
“She’s just so busy all the time with work. It’s sad, really, how hard she pushes herself. I’ve never seen a girl so tired all the time.”
I felt my breath coming in shallow gasps. I could not believe that Lucy was telling him all of this about me. I was tired all the time? I was never serious about my boyfriends? She was making me sound like some work-obsessed shrew.
“It’s easy to get caught up in work like that,” Rick said, and I couldn’t read his tone. “But I think you miss out, in the end. Because what’s the point if you’re alone?”
Lucy’s next words were so soft I was practically leaning around the corner to hear them. “I agree. I mean, I want to be successful, of course. But I think it’s so much more important to develop relationships. Find the people that will really be there for you, no matter what.”
The little liar. Two weeks ago, she talked about Emma and me like our lives were the end all be all. By all accounts, she aspired to be just like us, constantly remarking on our positions, our apartments, our clothes.
“Do you really?” Rick asked, his voice low and throaty. In spite of myself, it sent little shivers down my arms. I could see easily remember the way that voice sounded right against my ear—
“I do,” Lucy said. “I know that when I fall in love, that’s going to be the priority for me. No matter what. Making a life with the person I love.”
“Even if it gets in the way of your plans?” he asked, his voice tight. “Even if your friends don’t approve?”
She laughed. “I would never let my friends dictate who I love. Not ever.”
“That’s commendable, Lucy. It really is.”
Suddenly, I didn’t want to hear anymore. The nauseous feeling in my stomach was far worse than the pain in my ankle. I stood shakily and made my way as quickly as I could across the lobby.
Outside, I leaned into the building, taking deep breaths of the heavy, hot air. So that’s what he thought—that I had chosen my plans and the opinions of my friends over our relationship. I wiped angry tears from my eyes, determined not to be red faced when the others came out. I had been twenty-one for God’s sake! I was about to graduate college. He was the one who left. He was the one who put his plans to travel over me. Put his prejudices about my friends and their money over his feelings for me.
And what was that edge in his voice when he asked about me dating Charlie? What, did he want me to pine for him for years? Did he expect me to never get over him after he left? Did he have any idea what those months had been like for me?
I buried my head in my hands, taking deep breaths. “Get it together,” I whispered. If I started thinking about that pain right now,
I would lose it. The way it had felt like a physical wound in my chest. How hard it had been to breathe. How I would wake up panicked so many nights, feeling like I had lost something, that something precious had been ripped from me, never to return. How I had finally agreed to a date with a classmate four months later and had ended up leaving the restaurant half way through dinner in a flood of tears when the poor, unsuspecting chem major had mentioned his summer study abroad in Barcelona.
It had taken me years to be able to trust a man again. Years to stop comparing everyone I met to Rick Wentworth. Years of wondering if something had been broken irreversibly inside of me, something that would keep me from ever forming a real attachment again.
“Annabelle?” I jumped, nearly twisting my other ankle. “Sorry,” Jim said quickly. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay,” I replied, placing a hand over my thudding heart. Behind him stood Mary, Charlie, Lucy, and Rick—who was eyeing my ankle with suspicion. I attempted to put full weight on it, not wanting him to think I couldn’t handle a little hiking tumble, but winced as the pain shot up my leg.
“We’re just waiting for the others,” Jim said.
“The pool’s a little far back,” I explained.
“Well, we’re just about finished, anyhow. We have one more place I’d like to see, the spa over at the Mirage.” He squinted across the street. “We could probably walk.”
“I have a two-thirty,” Charlie interjected. “Tax advisors are coming in. I’ll be needing to get back to the office.”
“Well, why don’t you take the limo,” Jim suggested. “And send it back for us when you’re finished.”
“No sense in that,” Charlie said, spotting a bellhop nearby. He motioned at the man. “I’ll just catch a cab.”
As the bellhop approached, I saw Rick mutter something inaudible to Charlie, whose gaze quickly traveled my way.
“Why don’t you come back with me, Annabelle. I could use your input on these numbers.”
“I… I don’t—” I felt flustered. Had Rick said something to Charlie about me leaving? Was the sight of me really that upsetting to him? The taxi was coming around, and Charlie was looking at me expectantly, Rick beside him. Rick’s eyes flicked again to my leg, and I realized he was thinking of my injury. The thought that he might have acted out of concern was somehow even more disconcerting. But then Charlie was climbing into the cab, the door open in front of me. Before I could even manage a complete sentence, Rick’s hand was on my elbow, depositing me gently into the taxi before closing the door behind me.
Persuaded Page 13
