Chapter 33
LIAM
Arriving in Orlando, I could already tell that it was a very different city than Miami. I’d never been here before, but it seemed a lot more relaxed and family friendly, the vibe a lot less cosmopolitan than our new home.
Our hotel turned out to be situated on a sprawling estate, a resort with manicured gardens and several different conference facilities, complete with a water park and a variety of restaurants, bars, and even nightclubs.
My jaw dropped open as I dropped my keys into the palm of a waiting valet. Sliding my sunglasses to the bridge of my nose, I lowered my chin and legitimately gaped at our accommodations for the weekend.
“Are you sure we’re here to work? I was expecting a stuffy place downtown.”
“Same.” London stood next to me, close to my side, her hair in a thick golden braid hanging over her shoulder. “We’ll have to find some time to make use of the facilities. This is incredible.”
“Good thing we got here so early. What time is dinner again?”
“Seven.” She turned to me slowly, a smile spreading on her lips before she jerked her head toward the reception desk. “Want to go get checked in so we can hit the water park before we have to get changed?”
“It’s like you can read my mind.” We’d be spending all day tomorrow at the client’s factory. If we could work in an afternoon at the water park before our fancy dinner this evening, then wild horses couldn’t keep me away.
But a naked London could, and that was the possibility I was faced with when we checked in and found out there was only one room reserved for us. She turned to me, eyes wide with exasperation and maybe just a touch of suspicion.
“You were in charge of getting the room.”
I shrugged. “I did. I got a room, didn’t I?”
“Well, were you planning on sleeping in the lobby?”
A slow, suggestive smile curved on my lips before I could stop it. “Oh, hush up. Don’t pretend like you weren’t going to end up in my room anyway.”
I caught movement in my periphery, glancing down just in time to see her fingers rolling into that tiny fist by her side. It came flying at my arm but I dodged it, relieved to have escaped that sharp jab of almost pain.
She rolled her eyes when her hand dropped to her side. “Thanks for pretending it hurts.”
“I do what I can.” I winked at her and spun around, making my way across the opulent, sun-washed lobby to the elevators.
London was right on my heels, catching up just as the doors slid open in front of me. Once we were in the car, she glanced up into my eyes, a curious furrow between hers. “Did you really do this on purpose? Get us only one room?”
I mimed zipping my lips, not minding if she believed it, but I hadn’t actually planned on this.
I’d asked Nina to make the booking and she’d reached out to an agent she’d apparently used before for corporate travel.
While I wasn’t sure where the miscommunication had happened, I wasn’t annoyed about it.
Especially not when London and I walked into a stunning suite with a bed the size of an island. Our front wall was a wide window with a view over the colorful slides of the water park, and a lazy river snaked around massive, sparkling blue swimming pools.
“A girl could get used to these views,” she sighed happily as she put her arms out to her sides and dropped straight down on the mattress. “The beds are pretty freakin’ awesome too.”
“Want to try that one out?” I joked, but I also wasn’t joking.
Really, that depended on her answer, but she giggled and rolled onto her stomach facing the windows, propping her chin in her palms as she stared out at what awaited us outside. “That would mean missing out on an afternoon of adventure, adrenaline, and relaxation. It’s a no from me.”
“Testing out the bed could do all that for you too.”
She smirked at me over her shoulder. “Wow, and he’s so modest too.”
I chuckled but took the hit I’d known was probably coming. Grabbing a pair of swimming trunks out of my bag that had been delivered to the room while we’d been checking in, I changed quickly and then put London on a ten-minute clock to do the same.
We headed out, and once we were flying down our very first water slide for the day, I decided that she’d been right. We’d needed this—and there was always later for the other stuff.
After milking every last second out of the water park, we went back to our room with precisely ninety minutes to spare before dinner. I waved her into our en-suite ahead of me. “You need more time than I do. Go ahead. I’ll shower while you’re woolgathering.”
“You love it when I gather wool.” She strode into the bathroom with a deliberate sway to her hips and sent me a teasing grin—right before she shut the door in my face.
Groaning as I doubled back to our closet, I laid out my suit for the evening and did what I could to keep busy so I wouldn’t go barging in there to join her. Surprisingly, it didn’t take her four score and seven years to finish up in the shower.
I had no idea how she’d done whatever she did in there so fast, but I hadn’t even drunk half a beer before she walked out, hair wrapped in a towel and another hanging around her chest. Knowing that only a tug of that towel would have her stark naked threatened to make me derail our plans, but instead, I simply arched both my eyebrows at her.
“Now I know that you can hustle when you need to. Prepare for your life to change.”
She smiled at me, her skin glowing after the shower and those eyes bright because of our afternoon of innocent, playful fun. “Good luck with that. Of course, I can hustle when I need to. I just don’t often really need to.”
I felt my face contort into a confused frown, but we didn’t have time to argue about it right now. Instead, I took my turn in the shower. By the time I was done, her hair was dry, but she was still styling it—and still wearing only a towel.
I swallowed hard, averting my gaze and heading for the bed. My suit, underwear, and socks were waiting on it, and I was ready at about the same time that London was finally satisfied with her hair.
I was actually pretty curious about what usually took her so long, though. Instead of heading out on our balcony or downstairs to the lobby bar to wait like I usually would, I flopped down on our bed and watched her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, flicking her gaze up to mine in the reflection of the mirror. “Are you… staring at me?”
“Yep. I’m learning. Like Jane Goodall when she studied the gorillas in the mist.”
London snorted as she tried to hold back laughter, then proceeded to yank her makeup bag closer.
I spent the next age watching her paint her face in more kinds of products that I’d realized the human race had even invented.
When she was finally done with that, we were running dangerously low on time, but I could have watched her for hours.
“You have fifteen minutes max before we have to be in the car.” I’d checked how long we needed to get to the restaurant, and if she didn’t stick to that timetable, we’d be late for sure. An awful first impression to make.
“Turn around then,” she insisted as she strode to a garment bag she’d hung against the closet earlier. “I need to change and I can’t do that if you’re staring at me.”
“Why not? I’ve seen everything a couple times by now anyway.”
“Boy, if you don’t turn around right now, you won’t ever be seeing it again.”
I stared back at her, feeling the corners of my lips twitching upward. “Hmm-mm, sure. You can’t resist this.”
Even so, I turned dutifully, but I could still sort of see her in the reflection of the windows and the standing mirror.
Frankly, I was the one who couldn’t resist. I was hooked on London Walker and seeing her get ready felt like a different type of intimacy, and it was one I’d evidently been craving more than I’d realized.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
As I turned back to her, she was sliding her feet into a pair of silver heels, already clutching a tiny purse in her hands, but as my gaze swept across her, I was speechless.
It turned out that the reflections hadn’t quite prepared me for the overall effect of her navy glue cocktail dress, the golden lace trim accentuating her curves.
My mouth dried up, but she planted her fists on her hips and cocked her head at me. “What? What are you staring at?”
“You’re stunning,” I practically breathed, my voice still not having been returned to my body. “Seriously, London. You are so damn beautiful.”
“Okay, stop,” she protested, but her cheeks had a rosy hue to them now that had nothing to do with all those different makeup products. I could see her trying to fight a smile. “Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not. It’s called a compliment. Accepting them gracefully is a real skill.”
She rolled her eyes but took my arm when I offered it. Mercifully, we arrived at dinner right on time. The clients, a couple, weren’t that much older than we were, maybe around Charlie’s age, so forty-ish, and it was clear from the get-go that they were completely in love.
“We founded the company based on our shared love for all things dessert,” Dominic explained, his arm around his wife’s shoulders and his deep blue eyes trained on the side of her head. “Especially ice cream. That’s why we chose to make it our life’s work. It’s our passion.”
“That kind of passion always shines through.” A genuine smile spread on London’s lips as she watched them, sitting next to me but keeping a deliberate couple inches of space between us. “You guys are a beautiful couple. How did you meet?”
Jenny chuckled, glancing at Dominic and flushing when she saw the way he was looking at her. “It’s a funny story, actually. We were best friends all through high school and college. I used to think he was such a player, but it turned out he was just waiting for the right girl.”
“Little did I know she’d been right in front of me all along,” he said.
“Although that’s not entirely true. I always had this little thing for her.
She was my friend, so I knew I had to stay away, but I never really wanted to.
There were always days when I couldn’t keep my eyes off her and things were always so much more fun when she was there. ”
As he said the words, they resonated with me in ways I definitely hadn’t been expecting at a client dinner. Yeah… I’m definitely getting in a little too deep with London.
The more Dominic spoke about his feelings for Jenny before they got together, the more I realized that I really did have to tread lightly. These two had clearly been made for each other, but if I took a shot like he did and things went south?
It would cost me everything, and I wasn’t sure that was a gamble I’d ever be ready or willing to take.