Rusty Nailed (Cocktail, #2)(19)

“As you recall, I tend to lose all control when bubbles are involved,” I said, thinking back to the first time we hot tubbed in Tahoe.

“True. Will there be skinny-dipping?”

“You bet your sweet bippy.”

“Mmm, you’re killing me.” He groaned, but this time in a very different way.

“Anyway, as busy as I’m going to be, it’ll be nice to have a change of pace. It’ll feel a little like a vacation just across the bridge. I’m barely going to be able to come up for air in the next few months.”

“Speaking of vacation, I just booked a job in Bora Bora. Wanna go?”

“What?”

“Yep, after the wedding. What do you say? Thatched hut over the water? Coconut bikinis? Actual sex on the beach?”

I clenched my hands in frustration.

“Have you been listening to anything I’ve said? I’m swamped, and about to get even swampier. I can’t go to Bora Bora. I couldn’t even go to Napa if I wanted—” I stopped myself from going on a full tirade and took a deep breath. “Simon, that’s very sweet of you, and you know there’s nothing I’d like more than to run off to the South Pacific with you. But I just can’t. I literally can’t even think about that right now, okay?”

He was silent for a minute. The line was a bit crackly, and I imagined how far he truly was from me that night. How far that phone connection was, stretching halfway around the world to reach me. I sighed into my half of that connection.

“You’re right, babe, I wasn’t thinking. I do know how important this is to you. You know that.”

“I do know that.”

“Maybe this isn’t a good year for Rio?” he asked, his voice quiet, but with an underlying tone.

“Don’t you dare—I’m looking forward to that trip more than I can say! Things will have settled down by then. But in the meantime, I just can’t drop everything and island hop.”

He was silent.

“I love you,” I whispered, wishing he was here to hug and hold.

“I love you too. I’m glad I’ll be home soon.” His voice had mellowed some.

“We’ll have fun at the wedding,” I said, changing the subject. “You gonna dance with me?”

“You bet your sweet bippy. I’ll even get them to play us some Glen Miller.”

“That always works.” I giggled.

“Caroline?”

“Yes, Simon?”

“I know it works.” He chuckled.

We said good night, then I went across the hall and let myself into his apartment. Putting the phonograph needle down, I slipped back to my apartment and into bed. Glen Miller played me to sleep through the walls, and I dreamed I was dancing on a beach in Brazil with my photographer.

? ? ?

Three nights before the wedding, I was still at work at eight thirty and I’d just canceled dinner with Sophia and Mimi.

Bring a grown-up sucked sometimes.

I’d been in meetings all day with Camden’s people, finalizing details on the construction that was beginning next week. We weren’t doing a complete teardown, just a gut rehab, using the existing lines of the hotel but reworking the layout of nearly everything.

Monica, the new intern, was enjoying a first week of trial by fire. She’d been thrown into the deep end headfirst, but she was swimming. She’d run errands, she’d delivered paperwork, she’d filed for permits; she’d really taken a lot off my plate. And speaking of plate . . .

My tummy was grumbling. I padded into the kitchenette, pretty sure I had a burrito stashed somewhere in the freezer, when my phone rang. Sophia.

“Still can’t believe you ditched us, Reynolds,” she sniped in my ear, and I bit back a snipe of my own. Seriously, did no one understand how busy I was?

“You’ll get over it, I promise. Where’d you guys end up going?”

“Your favorite restaurant in Chinatown. You missed out, sister. We got that shrimp thingie with the noodles, what’s it called? The one you love more than anything?”

My stomach rumbled even louder, and I gritted my teeth. “Mei Fun.”

“We did have fun, thanks for asking!” She laughed in my ear. “Now let us in the front door—it’s freezing out here.”

“I’m still at work; I told you I was working late. Why are you at my apartment?”

“We’re not at your apartment, you idiot, we’re outside your work. Let us in,” she said. I could hear Mimi grumbling in the background.

“You’re outside my—oh, for God’s sake.” I walked down the stairs to the front door, and there on the other side of the glass were Mimi and Sophia. With Chinese take-out containers.

“I’m hanging up on you now.” I grinned into the phone, unlocking the door and throwing it wide. “What in the world are you two up to?”

“It’s dinner, silly, and we promise we’ll only stay a little while,” Mimi answered, walking inside and heading straight up for my office. With arms full of the most heavenly scented food on earth.

Sophia posed in the doorway, a vision. No more sad sacking for her, she was dressed to the nines and looking lethal. Red hair piled high on her head, makeup flawless, just the barest hint of leg peeking out from under her trench coat. “You’re not gonna, like, flash me, are you?” I asked.