It was mercenary of him, but Rob didn’t normally stop to think about other people’s feelings. Hell, if he did, he’d never have a show called Tits or GTFO. Actually, most of the programming on The Man Channel would be a bust.
And Rob liked money. He liked money a lot more than he liked most people.
The assistant—Cresson—returned with his drink. Rob tasted it, grimaced at the strength of the tequila, and drank it anyway. “We hear anything from Logan Hawkings yet?”
“No, sir,” Cresson said. “Shall I call down to the front desk and check on things again?”
“Do that.” Rob had mulled over his shitty run-in with Logan at the bar a few days ago and had come to the conclusion that only spitters were quitters, and he’d be a dumbass if he didn’t try to reach out to Logan again. They were both here, they both had a mutual interest in money, and Rob was sure that if he could just get Logan to see his point of view, they could make a lot of money together. He’d had his assistants order a massive gift basket and send it to Logan and his new bride-to-be, along with another request for a few minutes of Logan’s time. That was early this morning, and since it was nearing noon, he was bound to get an answer sooner or later.
Rob checked his phone but no more texts from cute Marjorie. Either she was busy or a shitty texter. He’d have to ask her about it tonight when he saw her. Speaking of . . .
We still on for tonight? he sent.
We are, she sent back a few minutes later. Meet you at five.
Well, if she wasn’t the most cheery texter, at least she used complete sentences. He could work with that.
The glass double door to the balcony opened, and Cresson came back, an unhappy expression on his face. That was never a good sign.
“What is it?” Rob asked.
“Mr. Hawkings left a message for you down at the desk,” Cresson said, holding out a tri-folded piece of paper.
Rob took it from him, flipped it open, and read.
Mr. Cannon,
I regret that I am too busy to entertain business consultations with you. Please be aware that I’ve taken the liberty of letting the front desk know that you will be leaving today and your suite will be paid in full as a thank-you for the thoughtful gift.
Sincerely,
Logan Hawkings
“Fuck!” Rob wadded up the piece of paper and threw it over the balcony. “That fucking cocksucking stuck-up asshole!”
“What is it?” Cresson asked, taking a step backward.
“We’ve been fucking tossed out of the hotel,” Rob sneered. “He’s booting us and disguising it as a favor to me.”
“So we’re leaving today?”
Rob drummed his fingers on his mouth furiously. There was no way he was leaving today. Not with his date scheduled for later tonight with Marjorie. Not when he hadn’t got what he came for. Clearly Logan wasn’t receptive to pleasant overtures. He’d just have to get vicious. “We’re not leaving,” he said after a long moment. “Go downstairs and check us out of this room. Then tell Gortham that when he gets back, I want him to get me another suite under a different name. I don’t care what name, just as long as Hawkings doesn’t realize I’m still here. And then get my other assistant.” He snapped his fingers, trying to think. “What’s her name—”
“Smith,” Cresson supplied helpfully.
He pointed at Cresson in thanks. “Smith. Yes. Get Smith to call the Tits or GTFO people and get them on the first flight out here.” His smile was cruel. “If Logan thinks my being here is fucking up his wedding, he hasn’t seen a thing yet.”
It was officially time to misbehave.
Chapter Thirteen
Still in a hazy, dreamlike state of contentment, Marjorie floated from breakfast the next morning to shuffleboard, to a late lunch scheduled with Brontë, the bride to be. Her body was present, but her mind was still on that moonlit beach last night, when Rob pressed his mouth to hers and told her that he desired her. Actually, he’d said it with a lot more f-bombs, but she didn’t care. He could use all the cuss-words he wanted, as long as he kissed her like that and made her feel so incredibly beautiful.
She’d never had a moment like that, ever.
And Rob still liked her, even after she’d thrown up on him, made a spectacle of herself on their first date, and acted strangely on the second date. He still wanted to see more of her. She’d done everything possible to mess the dates up and he’d still come after her.
Marjorie’s heart felt full to bursting at the thought. Rob said he wasn’t capable of love? That was too bad, because she was half in love with him already. He might not think of himself as a kind man, but his actions toward her had spoken differently. He might have a tough, cuss-laden outer shell, but there was a tender heart beating underneath.
She was still on cloud nine as she wandered in to the Green Dining Hall. Brontë had asked to meet there instead of the cute Seaturtle Cay cafe, and Marjorie scanned the empty room looking for her friend. Brontë was at a back table, a small figure hunched over a mountain of cream-colored envelopes.
“Bron?” Marjorie called, moving forward.
A head rose from behind the hill of envelopes. Brontë’s loose curls were pulled into a bun atop her head and dark rings smudged the skin under her eyes. She waved Marjorie over, a smile on her face. “Hey Marj! Thanks for meeting me here. I hope it’s not a problem if we have someone bring lunch to us instead of going to lunch?”
“No, that’s fine,” Marjorie said, curious as she sat across from Brontë at one of the round tables. Stack upon stack of thick parchment envelopes covered the table. At the other end, Brontë scribbled something on a card, then tucked it into an envelope and stamped it with a wax seal. “What’s all this?”
“Oh!” Brontë looked up from the envelope and tossed it into a small pile of sealed ones. She looked over the array. “That stack is for the hotel employees. Logan wants to bonus them as a thank-you for helping out with the wedding. That other stack is for guests who flew in for the wedding—thank-you cards.” She pointed at another stack. “That one is for vendors who sent wedding presents and need a thank-you card letting them know we received their gift. And that stack there is for those that will be attending and leaving a gift at the wedding even though we requested no gifts. And that stack,” she pointed at another, “is for people that were invited to the wedding but couldn’t make it and sent a gift.” She rubbed her forehead. “I’m drowning in thank-yous, and I’m not even sure I’ve got everything covered.”
Marjorie pulled up a chair next to Brontë. “Need some help? I can stuff and seal after you sign.”
The bride sent her a grateful look. “That’d be wonderful. As Aristotle said, ‘A friend is a second self.’ I could dearly use another pair of hands at the moment.”
They worked quietly for a few moments, Brontë signing cards with her married name and a brief note, and Marjorie carefully tucking them into envelopes, sealing them, and placing them in the appropriate piles. They were able to speed up Brontë’s production enough that the drawn, frazzled look disappeared from her face. “So,” Brontë said, as she wrote. “Tell me about your week. Have you been having fun?”
Immediately, Marjorie’s thoughts filled with Rob. A hot flush stained her cheeks. “I’m enjoying myself. Though I have to admit it still feels decadent to have all this time off of work as a paid holiday.” Since Logan owned the sock-hop diner and Brontë had invited most of the waitresses to come be part of her weeks-long wedding plans, her filthy-rich husband had arranged for the diner to be staffed with temps who could handle things while the others were gone and sunning themselves at the resort. It seemed a ridiculous expense to Marjorie, but then again, maybe that was just something billionaires did. “This place is wonderful. You look tired, though.”
Brontë’s mouth curved in a wry smile. “I never thought having a wedding would be so much work. I’ll be glad when I can get home and just curl up on the couch with Logan.”
Marjorie had a hard ti
me picturing the forbidding Logan Hawkings doing anything as normal as lounging on the sofa with his wife. But maybe Brontë saw a different side of him than Marjorie did. “Well, anything I can help you with, you just let me know. I can’t thank you enough for inviting me.”
“Of course you’re invited! You’re one of my closest friends.” Brontë put down the card she was holding and squeezed Marjorie’s hand. “And I’m so happy you’re here. I’m sorry if I’ve been so absent. There seems to be an endless parade of things to do before the wedding and I can’t keep up with all of them. Are you having a good time despite my neglect?”
“Oh, I don’t feel neglected at all,” Marjorie exclaimed. “I’m having a wonderful time.” That blush seemed to want to take up permanent residence on her cheeks. “I’ve been playing shuffleboard and went to bingo and have been working on my tan and just everything you can imagine.”
“Shuffleboard, huh?” Brontë giggled at that. “I’m picturing you lording it over the shuffleboard court, a bunch of gray-haired ladies shaking their fists at you.”
“Hey, I can’t help it if I’m good at shuffleboard. Long arms.”
“Rounding up all the people in the resort over the age of seventy-five and ensuring they’re having a good time?” Brontë’s smile was knowing.
Shyly, Marjorie sealed an envelope. Should she mention anything to Brontë? But the excitement of a budding relationship—after such a long, long dry spell—poured out of her. “I had a date.”
Brontë gasped and clutched at Marjorie’s arm. “Shut up. You did, Marj? No way! Who?”
“Just a guy,” she said. “I don’t want to say too much and jinx it. But I really like him.” She bit her lip, thinking of last night and how it had gone from a nightmare to an almost magical sort of quality. Rob had been so sweet, so forthright. Blunt, but she liked that . . . and she liked him.
She even had a phone full of silly little texts from him, reminding her about their date later tonight. As if she’d forget! She’d been receiving them hourly, as if he paused during his day to think about her. That was a great feeling.
Her friends—Edna, Agnes and Dewey—hadn’t been too thrilled to hear that she was going out with him again. They’d seen her tear-filled escape from the bingo hall and it had taken a lot of soothing over breakfast to calm her friends down.
It was sweet that they were worried, but they hadn’t been there when the evening had changed from nightmarish to magical. They didn’t know how Marjorie had been pretending to be someone she wasn’t . . . and Rob had been doing the same.
“A date? Really?” Brontë squealed, her hands fluttering in girlish enthusiasm for her friend. “I’m so happy for you! You’ll have to give me all the details when you’re comfortable. Do you think you’ll see him when you go home, too? Or is this just an island fling? That’s how Logan and I met, you know. Right here at this resort.”
“I don’t know if we’ll see each other afterward,” Marjorie said, running her fingers along the thick edges of an envelope. “We’re taking it a day at a time.”
“That’s the best way to do things,” Brontë proclaimed. “Epicurus said, ‘Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.’”
Marj grinned. Brontë had an incredible brain for memorization, and always had a few words of wisdom from a philosopher at the ready. “I’ve missed your quotes.”
“Logan wanted to get my favorites engraved on charms for the guests, but I couldn’t pick just one quote, so we decided to go with something more traditional instead.” She rolled her eyes.
“How is Logan?” Marjorie asked as Brontë slid a stack of cards toward her. She’d met Brontë’s soon-to-be husband a few times, and he rarely smiled at anyone. He intimidated Marjorie, but the way he looked at Brontë—possessive and hungry—made her yearn for someone to look at her like that. Then she thought of Rob again, and the blush returned. Rob had looked at her like that. Like she was covered in his favorite ice cream and he wanted to lick it off of her. Which was a mental image that made her blush all over again.
“Logan’s stressed, like me. Or rather, he’s stressed because I’m stressed. If it were up to him, we’d get in a helicopter and fly to the nearest justice of the peace and get married there, but there’s too many people involved at this point.” She grimaced as she scribbled a note on another thank-you card. “And there’s some jerk here at the resort that’s driving him crazy.”
“Oh?”
She shook her head absently, not looking up from the card she was working on. “Something about some shady business guy wanting to get Logan’s attention so he’s lurking around at the hotel. It’s pissing Logan off because he wants everything to be perfect for me this week, and that guy’s like a burr under his skin.”
“He showed up here just to get Logan’s attention? That seems crazy.” Marjorie shook her head. “Crashing a wedding is pretty rude.”
“Yeah, Logan’s kicking the guy out before the tabloids get here. Apparently he’s major fodder. One of those party-boy types that never met a hooker or a drug he didn’t like.”
Marjorie blanched. “That sounds awful.”
“Doesn’t it?” She shuddered and handed another card to Marj. “But enough about that. Tell me how things are back at the restaurant. Is Sharon still being a diva?”
“And then some.” She shook her head, stamping the seal on the back of the newest envelope. The pile was moving quickly, and the stack of completed envelopes was starting to take form. With help, Brontë would be able to get through these faster, and Marjorie was glad to be of assistance. “We’ve had to redo the schedule over and over again because Sharon either calls in sick, comes in late, or wants a particular day off because she’s ‘busy.’”
Brontë made an irritated noise in her throat. “God, she’s so awful. Want me to have Logan fire her?”
“Oh, no,” Marj said hastily. “She needs the job. And she’s really not that bad. She’s just . . . high maintenance. But let me tell you about the new guy Angie is dating—he rides a Harley! With the handlebars so tall that they’re over his head.”
Brontë’s eyes widened. “What? No! Another guy? What happened to Bob?”
“Bob was last month.” Marj began to tell Brontë all the gossip of the job and the people they’d both worked with. She tried to pick out funny tidbits that would amuse Brontë without calling too much attention to anyone—the mention of Sharon was a reminder that Brontë was marrying the boss, and Marjorie didn’t want to cost anyone their job.
By the time they finished discussing the personal lives of coworkers and favorite customers, the stacks of envelopes were down to almost nothing, and they’d forgotten lunch entirely.
Brontë picked up the last envelope in her stack and signed it with a flourish. “Last one! I can’t believe how quickly this went. You’re so good to help me, Marj. You have no idea how much time this has saved me.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Marjorie said with a smile. “It’s the least I can do.”
“You know,” Brontë said, tapping the card thoughtfully on the table. “I’ve been thinking. How tied to Kansas City are you?”
That was an odd question. Marjorie shrugged. “It’s always been home because that’s where family was. And now that it’s just me, there hasn’t been a reason to move.” Her throat knotted at the thought of her beloved Grandma and Grandpa. She still missed them daily. And she was lonely, if she admitted things to herself. Brontë had been her closest friend at the restaurant, and now that she was gone, she felt like more of an outcast than ever. She spent most nights at the nursing home, reading and playing games with the tenants there, trying to make a difference in someone’s life. Trying to feel wanted.
“Would you ever consider relocating to New York?”
“New York?” Marjorie’s eyes went wide. She’d never considered it. She’d always thought if she relocated, she’d move south to Dallas or Oklahoma City. Never something at the level of New York City. “Really?”
/>
“I’ve started up a foundation,” Brontë said, enthusiasm in her tired face. “We’re sharing classics of literature with those that want to read. Some of our groups are schools, but a lot of them are the elderly. We have discussion groups weekly and organize outside events and get-togethers. It’s really wonderful and I’m so excited to do it. Logan helped me set it up.” She beamed with pride.
“That sounds wonderful, Brontë. And it sounds perfect for you.”
“The problem is that I’m doing that in between getting married.” She grimaced. “So I’m running on empty. Logan told me to hire an assistant, but I just haven’t had time. And you’re so good with people. Especially the elderly. I really need someone like you.”
“You want me to be your assistant?” Oh, wow. “But I’m just a waitress.”
“So am I,” Brontë said, grinning. “But you’re smart and dedicated and we work well together.” She gestured at the stacks of now-finished envelopes. “And I’d pay you well. It’d be a big change, but we’d get to hang out more, and, well, it’s New York. There’s always something going on there.”
“I never dreamed . . .” Marjorie murmured. New York. Wow.
“Say you’ll think about it. I need to run things past Logan, but he won’t care. He—”
“Run what past Logan?” A masculine voice broke into the conversation. Both women looked up as a man in a starchy business suit entered the Green Dining Hall, dodging the sea of tables anointed with upside-down chairs. He carried a large tray with several dishes and two drinks.