Chapter 14
VAL
Asound like an enormous soda can bursting ricocheted in the hall, and I jolted awake, lurching out of bed and falling on the floor in a heap. Before I had time to process what was going on, Frankie exploded into my room.
“What is it?” I asked, swiping hair out of my mouth.
“It’s like fucking Niagara Falls out here!” said Frankie. “The pipes on our floor burst and water is pouring into the hallway.”
“Shit, what do we do?”
“Hugh went to find someone to turn off the water, but it’s three in the morning, Bobby is asleep, and Ryan is probably fucking off somewhere. It’ll take Bobby years to wake up and get moving, meanwhile all of our shit is getting flooded!”
“Can we get—a bucket?”
“A bucket, Val? Are you fucking serious?”
“I don’t know, Frank! I just woke up, I can’t even think—” Then I saw it.
The glossy black business card on my nightstand, winking at me in the light from the hall.
It had been a week since our cooking lesson with Rocco, and Nolan had ditched me since then.
It was a lapse of judgment on my part. I hated how his words sliced through my frustratingly fragile heart. I don’t even know why I cared.
Rankled as I was, I scrambled for my phone and dialed his number before I could stop myself.
He answered on the first ring, his voice coarse with sleep. “Val? What’s wrong?”
The words poured out of me like the water in the pipes. “The pipes burst and water is flooding in and it’s three in the morning and everything’s getting ruined and we don’t know what to do—”
“I’m coming.” A click as the line disconnected.
“Who was that?” Frankie asked.
“I called Nolan.”
Her eyes widened. “You—? Never mind. If there’s anyone who can fix this quickly, it’s your man.”
“He’s not my man,” I protested. But he’d answered the phone right away… My past had taught me not to rely on anyone but myself and Diego, but somehow, I’d known he would answer. And that was a level of trust he didn’t deserve. But I didn’t have time to think more about it.
Frankie and I gathered our important belongings, joining the crowd of employees flowing into the lobby. At the amount of water, more than one of the ancient pipes must have burst.
As we huddled with the rest of the crowd, Austin and Hugh sidled up to us. “Bobby and Ryan are on it with Mr. Keller,” Hugh said, rubbing Frankie’s shoulders. “Thanks for waking my ass up and saving my stuff.”
Frankie pinched his side. “Can’t have the water ruining your extensive collection of flannels.”
“Pretty crazy shit, huh?” Austin said, his curly hair adorably sleep-rumpled. “One pipe was right outside my room. Most of my stuff is trashed.”
I gave his arm a squeeze. “Hopefully the insurance payout will help, but I know some things are irreplaceable.” As we waited for the cavalry to show up, I scanned the room, telling myself I wasn’t looking for him, but when I turned, there he was.
Jesus. My heart rate kicked into overdrive.
Nolan looked more casual than I’d ever seen him in a long-sleeved Henley clinging to every dip of his muscles and a pair of dark gray joggers that showed off his powerful legs.
The man clearly knew his way around the gym, and as he ran a hand through his already mussed hair, my stomach dropped into my toes.
But he wasn’t looking at me—no, his gaze took on a sharp edge as he noticed Austin beside me, and I stopped myself from taking a step away.
It was just Austin and I could stand beside whoever I wanted.
“Thanks for coming,” I said to Nolan.
“It’s in my best interest to minimize the property damage,” he said in a chilly tone.
“Of course,” I said with a flinty spark of annoyance.
I didn’t want him to be interested in me, but he also didn’t have to be an ass.
He was the one who came onto me and then rejected me, and yet he was still behaving like a jealous baboon?
The man was driving me insane. “I knew you’d be concerned about the property, so that’s why I called at such an ungodly hour. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered.”
Nolan opened his mouth to retort but was interrupted by the the water shutting off, the deluge turning to a slow trickle. We stood in about an inch of water, and more would probably join it as everything leaked down to the lower level.
A short man with a growing bald spot appeared at Nolan’s elbow.
“All shut off, boss.” Ever practical, Bobby, the long-time maintenance man at Hale’s Peak, launched into his professional assessment.
“Everyone will have to vacate while we suss out the damage and make repairs. Could take the rest of the season. There’s probably enough space in the other hotel down the road to house everyone in the short term, and some folks in town will put us up, but we’ll have to double up. ”
A tall man around my age with brown hair, a dusting of freckles, and broad shoulders sauntered into the conversation, tossing a wink at Frankie, who rolled her eyes. “I can talk to ’em,” said Ryan. “I know the Medfords will pitch in, and they can reach out to the wider community.”
“Val and I can share,” said Austin, casually tossing an arm across my shoulders.
Nolan looked at Austin like he was something undesirable stuck to the bottom of his priceless Italian loafers.
“That won’t be necessary. Bobby, work with Tess and get everyone set up in the main lodge with breakfast and coffee.
Let them know there will be arrangements for new accommodations by noon today.
Ryan, go speak to the Medfords and anyone else willing to help.
” Without another glance, Nolan stormed off through the crowd.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep that had me indulging my impulses, but before my anxiety could freeze me in place, I lunged after him.
Dodging a few people, I finally caught up and latched on to his arm.
He whipped toward me, nostrils flaring. The snippy words I had planned to say stopped at the edge of my tongue because something about the troubled frown darkening his brow made me change course.
“Thank you,” I said. “For answering the phone.”
As his eyes searched my face, the anger leached out of him, leaving a raw tenderness in its wake.
Bringing a hand to my face, his thumb feathered across my cheek, so fast I thought I’d imagined it, and a whole new legion of butterflies swarmed into existence inside me.
In a husky voice only for me, he said, “Thank you for calling me.”
Then he disappeared into the throng of people before I could formulate a coherent response.
As promised, by noon—somehow—Nolan had managed to reallocate all of the displaced employees. The new housing assignments were posted on the internal employee website, so I logged on from the rental shop computer to check mine. But I didn’t see my name.
My phone pinged.
Nolan: Meet me in the lobby.
There he goes, summoning me again. I didn’t want him to think I was waiting by my phone, so played a quick game of Minesweeper before responding.
Now?
Nolan: Now.
When I entered the lobby, I saw Nolan sprawled on the couch by the fireplace.
He’d changed into a dark gray suit, but he’d left off the tie, his top shirt button open.
Even sleep deprived, he looked powerful and in control.
His piercing blue eyes tracked me as I walked toward him.
When I sat beside him, I made sure to keep a careful distance between us.
“I noticed my name was left out of the employee housing list,” I said.
“Am I to be sleeping in the snowdrifts with the elk and bears?” I wouldn’t put it past him for the way he’d been freezing me out the past week.
I thought we’d made a breakthrough with our conversation after Rocco’s cooking class.
Then all of a sudden, a switch flipped and the asshole billionaire was back in place where it had remained since.
But when I chased him down this morning, I caught the barest glimpse of the real Nolan.
I liked him a lot better than this icy bastard.
Nolan’s answer snapped me out of my musings. “You’ll be staying with me,” he said.
My jaw unhinged, anxiety gripping my windpipe. “I’ll be doing no such thing.”
Dark authority stirred in his gaze. “I wasn’t asking.”
“I don’t care. I’m not living with you and your fiancée. How do you think that will look?”
“I don’t care how it looks,” he growled, gripping the armrest of the couch until the tendons in his hand stood out.
“But it wasn’t my choice either. It was Arthur’s idea, and Cressida supports it.
She’s already headed off the media with an official story about the flood, our living arrangement, and how you’re my personal assistant or something.
So you don’t have to worry about any paparazzi or awkwardness. ”
“Oh yes, that eliminates all awkwardness.”
“I’ll have your stuff moved in by this afternoon,” he said, placing a silver key on the couch cushion between us, then standing.
“So that’s it? You pass down your edict and I’m just expected to obey?”
He looked down at me, eyes blazing. “Is the idea of living with me so terrible, Val? Or is it the thought of obeying?”
I gulped as the vision of him, shirtless and glistening in the massage room, flashed before my eyes.
No, even after everything, I didn’t think he was terrible at all.
And god, what does that say about me? I studied his face as he watched me, waiting for my response, his cheekbones standing out as his mouth tightened.
Then, hand trembling, I picked up the key.
Something wild and unknown passed across his face and speared me straight in my core. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, then left me sitting there to unfurl my tangle of emotions.
“You can’t be serious.” Frankie set aside her gin martini, practically bouncing with glee. “Are you going to do it?”
I wiped my palms on my jeans, then took a sip of my hefeweizen. “With Christmas two weeks away, all the nearby hotels are booked, and we’re already stretching the townsfolk thin. I don’t want to wear out their kindness and beg them to take me in.”
“So you’re doing it. You’re moving in with Nolan and his fiancée.”
“Shh!” I hissed. “We don’t want it to be front-page news.”
Frankie gave me a dry look over the rim of her glass. “People are going to notice when they see you going in and out of his house.”
“According to Cressida’s press release, I’m his ‘personal assistant’ now, if any opportunistic journalists try to sniff out a story.”
Frankie lifted a beautifully arched eyebrow. “Is there a story?”
“Absolutely not,” I said, taking another gulp of beer to avoid elaborating. My stomach was already in a twist and adding extra carbonation wouldn’t help, but man, did I need a beer after today.
“So the only reason Nolan told you to live with him is because his grandfather made him do it,” Frankie said with a flat stare, bulldozing through my attempts to dodge her. “Does Nolan seem like the kind of man to allow anyone to tell him what to do?”
“He’s definitely not doing it because he wants me there. This past week, he’s made it perfectly clear that he wants nothing to do with me. You’re barking up the wrong tree, Frank. Need I remind you—and myself—he’s engaged.”
“Yeah, like that’s real,” Frankie scoffed, throwing back the rest of her drink. “Rich people have relationship publicity stunts all the time, and the man’s eyes practically fall out of his head every time you walk into a room.”
“They do not,” I said around the mouth of my beer bottle.
But maybe she did have a point about the publicity thing.
I’d thought Nolan’s quip the other night about his ‘carefully cultivated image’ had been a throwaway comment, but…
could his engagement be just another part of his billionaire mask? Was it even real?
It’s real enough that she has a ring on her finger, and that’s good enough for me. Moving on, I changed the subject before Frankie could latch on to my lengthy silence. “Anyway, where are you staying while they do the repairs?”
“Hugh and I got paired with the Medfords. You can sleep over whenever you need to escape from your horrible boss—if you even want to escape.” Frankie waggled her eyebrows and I elbowed her, but a nervous thrill went through me at the thought of knocking on Nolan’s door in just a few hours.
I could almost mistake the feeling for excitement.
Which was insane.
Remember, you’re pissed off, Val. Because anger is safer than whatever else this man has you feeling…