Authors: Locklyn Marx
“Refining some notes for a meeting.”
“What kind of meeting?”
“A meeting with a client.”
“Has anyone ever told you that talking to you is like pul ing teeth?”
“Yes.” He continued to work, sliding his eyes over his paper, his pen making scratching noises as he wrote.
The plane’s engines roared to life.
“So what kind of client are you going to meet?” Alexis asked.
“A woman’s clothing company.”
“Nice.” She shifted on her seat as the plane started speeding down the runway.
“Do you have many women working on the campaign?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why not what?”
She sighed. “Why don’t you have many women working on the campaign?”
“We don’t have many women in our office.”
“Oh.” She shifted again on her seat. The plane was ascending now, and she was gripping the armrests so hard her knuckles were turning white.
“You okay?” Reid asked.
“Yes.”
“You seem nervous.”
“I don’t like take offs and landings,” she admitted.
“It’l be over before you know it.”
The plane began to level off, and she let out the breath she’d been holding.
“See?” he said. “Al done.”
“You don’t get bothered by flying?”
He grinned and glanced at her out of the corner of her eye.
“Guess I’m not that much of a control freak after al .”
***
By the time they touched down in Tampa and Alexis’s stomach had stopped flipping around from the landing, she was excited to be in a new place. She was going to think of her time in Florida as a chance to recharge her batteries, to take a little time for herself before she got to work on rebuilding her life.
They took a taxi from the airport to the hotel.
“Wow,” Alexis said as they walked into the lobby. “Your company likes to travel in style.”
“In order to be successful, one must portray success at every turn,” Reid recited.
Alexis rol ed her eyes. “That’s such bul shit.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. If you’re truly successful, you don’t give a shit about what other people think, because you’re too busy working and being successful.”
He tilted his head, thinking about it. “Huh,” he said. “Not a bad point.”
As they made their way through the marble-tiled lobby, Alexis began to feel more and more out of place. The girls here al looked like they’d walked out of a fashion magazine or a music video. It wasn’t even that they were good-looking, although al of them were. It was something else. A sense of style, or maybe the way they carried themselves.
They al had expensive bags slung over their shoulders, long hair that hung in perfect tousled curls, and impeccable tans that didn’t make them look orange or aging.
Even the two women she saw coming from the pool wore elegant cover-ups and trendy high heels, with huge oversized sunglasses perched on their noses.
Alexis was wearing the new jeans she’d bought yesterday, along with a long-sleeved white t-shirt. She was probably going to have to at least buy a bathing suit while she was here. She’d taken three hundred dol ars out of the ATM
before they’d left New York this morning. It was the most the bank would al ow her to take out at one time.
She didn’t want to have to use her ATM card in Florida if it could be avoided.
“I got us adjoining rooms,” Reid said, coming back from the check-in desk. He held up the key cards.
“Are you sure it’s okay that we’re doing this?” she asked, taking one of the keys from him. “I mean, I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“For getting you a room and putting it on the company’s tab? Nah, they don’t care.” He leaned in close to her and whispered in her ear, “If you want to know the truth, I’m kind of a big deal.” His breath tickled her skin, sending warmth and desire sliding al the way down to her toes.
Stop. Just
because he’s gorgeous doesn’t mean
your hormones
have to get all crazy.
“Oh, real y?” she asked, stepping away from him and walking toward the elevator.
“Yeah.” He stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor.
“And so they want to keep me happy.”
“By letting you book hotel rooms for random women?”
“Yup. Even though I don’t need hotel rooms to get random women.” He grinned and she rol ed her eyes.
They stepped off the elevator and made their way down to rooms 304 and 306.
“Here they are,” Reid said. “Right next to each other, as promised.”
“Thanks.”
“So I have a meeting in a couple of hours,” he said, and she saw the look of worry that passed over his face. He was probably concerned about leaving her alone.
“I’m fine,” she said, rol ing her eyes. “You do your work. I’m going to take a nap and then maybe relax by the pool.”
“I don’t know if you should be sitting in the sun,” Reid said.
“What if your head starts acting up?”
“The sun is good for you. And besides, there are probably a mil ion people down there. I’l be safer down there than I would in my room.”
He hesitated. “Fine. But I don’t think you should go swimming.”
“I won’t swim.”
“Okay.” But he stil hesitated.
“I’m
fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
She slid her keycard into the door to her room, and then pushed it open. “I’l cal you if I need anything.”
Reid glanced at his watch. As he did, the arm of his suit slid up and revealed a muscular forearm. Her pulse quickened.
She shook her head and pushed the feeling of attraction away.
It’s just because he’s being nice to you. That’s the
only reason you’re
getting all hot and bothered.
But Reid was being more than just nice to her. He’d let her stay in his apartment.
He’d brought her to Florida with him. He hadn’t pushed her to talk about what had happened last night. She watched as he slid his key card into the slot and then disappeared into his room.
He didn’t seem like he was a particularly nice guy. So why was he being so kind to her? She shook her head and told herself to stop thinking about it. He probably had some kind of weird thing about rescuing women.
And besides, she was definitely not in any shape to be thinking about a man, romantic or otherwise.
***
She’d never stayed in a place like this, ever. Most of the hotels she’d been in were Super Eights or Holiday Inns.
They didn’t leave mints on your pil ow or have a stocked mini bar. Not that she was going to take anything out of the mini bar. The bag of M&M’s alone cost eight dol ars. Eight dol ars! And it wasn’t even a ful bag -- it was one of those snack-sized ones.
But she did need food. So when she woke up at around two o’clock, she took a shower, dried her hair, and slicked on some lip gloss. She pawed through her bag until she found a hot pink t-shirt that wasn’t too wrinkled.
She headed downstairs and poked around in the little hotel store, browsing through the sandwiches and flipping through the rack of bathing suits. But everything was ridiculously overpriced, and so after a few minutes, she walked outside.
A few blocks down there was a string of little boutiques and shops, and Alexis started looking through stores until she found a reasonably priced bathing suit that was semi-flattering.
“You should definitely get that,” the clerk said when Alexis emerged from the dressing room to look at herself in the three-way mirror. “It looks fabulous on you.”
“I don’t know.” She pul ed at the straps on the top of the red bikini. “I usual y only wear a one piece.”
The clerk laughed. “Honey, nobody wears a one-piece in this town. Not even my grandmother.”
Alexis checked the price tag again. Forty-nine ninety-nine, but it was on a seventy-percent off rack, probably because no one else in Tampa was a size eight. From what Alexis had observed so far, if you weren’t a zero or a two, you were practical y plus-size.
She paid for her bathing suit and a pair of flip-flops, then stopped at the deli next door and bought a cobb salad and a lemonade. She sat outside on a little wrought-iron table, watching people pass by as she ate.
When she returned to the hotel, she headed back up to her room, changed into her bathing suit, and then pul ed on an oversized t-shirt to use a makeshift wrap. She slipped into the beaded purple flip-flops she’d picked up at the swimsuit store for three dol ars.
Something told her that beaded and purple weren’t going to exactly be the footwear of choice at a place like this, but it was the best she could do on a budget.
When she got to the pool, she picked a chair down by the end. The sun was bright, with just the perfect amount of warmth, and she turned her face to the sky and sighed contentedly. Luckily, whoever had been there before her had left a huge stack of trashy magazines – Cosmo, US, InStyle, and Star
Alexis was happily ensconced in an article about Kourtney Kardashian and al her fashion problems, when a waiter in white shorts and a hunter-green polo shirt came by and offered her a drink.
“Would you like a cocktail, ma’am?” he asked.
Of course she would have liked a cocktail. The air was warm, and the drinks looked delicious – al bright-colored and icy, with little umbrel as poking out of the top.
“Oh,” Alexis said. “Um… “ She was pretty sure the drinks weren’t complimentary. The hotel couldn’t just go around giving away alcohol, could they?
“You can charge it to your room if you didn’t bring cash with you,” the waiter offered helpful y. He had a perfect smile and longish brown hair. Probably some kind of aspiring model or actor.
Alexis sighed. The last thing she wanted to do was run up some big tab on Reid’s company. It wouldn’t be right.
“No, thanks,” she said.
“Go ahead,” a voice said behind her. “Get a drink if you want.”
She turned around, and when she did, her breath caught in her chest. Reid was standing there, wearing a pair of black board shorts and no shirt. Damn. She knew he had broad shoulders and that he ran every morning, but this – this was more beautiful than she could have imagined.
Every muscle of his upper body was cut and defined. He was lean and strong-looking, with the perfect amount of bulk. His stomach was tan and flat, with more than a hint of a six-pack. A thin line of hair started at his bel y button and disappeared into his shorts.
Alexis swal owed hard
“I thought you had a meeting,” she said weakly.
He dropped a bottle of suntan lotion and a book onto the chair next to hers.
“Meeting was cancel ed.” He turned to her and grinned. “So I’m al yours.”
***
The whole time he’d been in his room, he hadn’t been able to concentrate. He just kept thinking about the way she’d looked last night when he’d gotten that buzz on the intercom. Obviously she was afraid that someone was going to find her. And obviously it had something to do with the panic attack she’d had. She’d said it was an ex-boyfriend. But what was the story? Why was she so afraid of him?
After a couple hours of driving himself crazy, Reid had gotten the cal from Richard Muel er that the meeting with Vista Col ection had been cancel ed. Someone at Vista had apparently decided to cal the agency phone, and the receptionist had cal ed Richard. At least, that was Richard’s story. Reid had suspected that Richard had given Vista his own personal cel number and told them to cal him if anything came up.
God, the guy was such a tool.
Once he was done talking to Richard, Reid had felt restless. He needed to get out of the room. He needed to check on Alexis. He’d knocked on her door, but she didn’t answer. So he’d headed down to the pool in the hope that he’d find her.
And he had.
She’d been sitting there, lounging on a pool chair, looking longingly at the tray of drinks the waiter was holding. When Reid had taken his first steps into the pool area, the waiter’s back had been to him, and al he’d been able to see was Alexis staring up at the dude with a big smile on her face.
Jealousy shot threw him like a sharp arrow, along with a raging desire to protect her. He was halfway across the pool area, on a mission to punch the guy out, when he realized it was a waiter.
“Are you sure it’s okay?” Alexis was asking now. “To get a drink, I mean?”
“It’s fine.” It was true. His company didn’t give a shit about a couple of drinks.
Hel , they’d love it if they knew he was wining and dining women on this trip. If word got around, The Lawson Agency would be able to steal away whatever advertising executives they wanted. Everyone wanted to work at a company that encouraged its employees to play as hard as they worked.
Reid surveyed the tray. “What would you like, Alexis?” he asked. “Pina colada?”
“Perfect.”
Reid grabbed two and charged them to his room. Pina coladas weren’t usual y his thing – they were a little girly –
but al the waiter had on his tray was fruity drinks, and Reid didn’t want to order something different, because then the water was going to come back. Reid didn’t like the way the guy was looking at Alexis, like a shark who couldn’t wait to just sink his teeth into her.
He gave the dude a good tip anyway. It wasn’t the waiter’s fault that Alexis was hot, even covered up in that ridiculous t-shirt.
Once they were alone, Reid sat down in the chair next to her.
Alexis’s legs were stretched out in front of her, long and tan and gorgeous. She was wearing sandals with purple and white beads on them, and her toenails were painted a hot pink. Reid wasn’t real y into feet – he didn’t understand the al ure when there were so many other, more interesting parts of a woman’s body to spend time on – but Alexis’s feet were sexy.