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Barnaby took a deep breath as he looked out at the crowd. It wasn’t huge, somewhere around a hundred people, but it was still a lot for him.
“So, welcome everyone. I guess we’ll all be getting to know one another over the next couple of days.” He refused to let his voice waver, though his heart was pounding. He wouldn’t be a coward. “In the meantime, since I’m the first presenter, I wanted to say ‘Hello’ and introduce myself. I’m Barnaby Garrison. Some people call me Barney, and that’s fine, too. Today I’m here to talk about what it’s like working in one of the most prestigious hotel chains, in one of the biggest cities in the world. On behalf of Marietta International, I want to welcome you to our Las Vegas Marietta, and to our second annual conference.”
He surveyed the crowd and tried to find a connection. If he could focus on one or two faces instead of the sea of them, it would go a long way to making this easier. He caught the eye of a beautiful woman in the second row. She was young, with toffee-colored skin and a heart-shaped face. She blinked at him for a second. When he didn’t look away, she smiled, her full lips opening slightly. Her smile lit up her face, and she casually flicked long braids over her right shoulder.
“I am held to a high standard. Higher than at a lot of places. And I hold my coworkers and staff to the same level. It’s not easy, what we do. We all do it for a myriad of reasons, but our end goals are always the same: the best experience to our guests that we can offer.” His gaze stayed glued to hers as he said the words. Ah, was he flirting? That wasn’t like him at all.
But he totally was. He could tell he was busted by the way her eyes widened just a little bit, and her nostrils flared. Look somewhere else! Look somewhere else!
Finally, he blinked, adjusted his glasses again and spun to face the other side of the room. He clicked the button in his hand and the slide behind him changed over to the first page of duties he provided to his staff most mornings. It outlined the day’s VIP guests, any issues overnight from the night crew, and the main focus for the day. He cleared his throat, and took a small sip of water, then smiled, trying to exude a confidence he didn’t feel. But he was used to faking it, at least sometimes. He might love his job, but even he had trouble swallowing the bullshit from irate guests some days.
“So, this is what I do for the first hour I’m in the hotel’s office, every day, unless something so major comes up that it must be addressed the moment I arrive.” He went through the daily setup with the crowd, fielding a couple of questions, all the while trying so hard not to stare at the beauty in the second row.
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If she didn’t know any better, Dawn would think Barnaby was super nervous. Though he spoke with ease and confidence, there was something about the way he moved, or the way he kept adjusting the black glasses framing his brown eyes that indicated nerves. He was the manager at the hotel she’d always dreamed of working at, so perhaps it was the envy making her think he was nervous. As she watched him reach a dark brown hand up to his glasses again, she couldn’t stop herself from admiring the way his gray suit pulled taut against his arm.
He was fine, in a rather nerdy kind of way that she found attractive. Eloquent, smart, and fine. He was definitely her type. Not that she had been dating anytime recently, but she still knew what kind of man appealed to her. And Barnaby Garrison was a Man with a capital M. Even though he was shorter than her usual type, something below that nervous energy he exuded as he walked up and down the little stage caught her attention.
When he paused and looked at her, those chocolate brown eyes made her shiver. He stared at her a beat, then a second, and third. She took a deep breath. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at her with this level of intensity, and they were in a room full of people!
Finally, he turned and focused on the other side of the crowd. She sighed, glad to be away from that alluring gaze. She worked hard to pay attention to what he was saying, but it was like every time he moved, he purposefully avoided looking back at her. It was so obvious she was almost insulted. That zing of connection she’d felt with him still burned within her. She did her best to ignore it.
Glancing at the notebook on her lap, she tried to ignore him as best she could without looking rude. If she studiously took notes, she wouldn’t have to watch his every movement like a tourist stalking the last rainbow bagel on the shelf after waiting an hour in line. She could listen, and write down notes, and stop fantasizing about those decadent lips of his.
She could totally imagine him giving her an easy smile and nervously adjusting his glasses as he gazed at her over a dinner-date table. Or after a post-desert desert back in her room. Her cheeks burned and she shifted in her seat, trying to dispel the sudden ache between her thighs. Damn girl, has it really been that long?
Yes, it had. She licked her suddenly dry lips. She could not stop her mind from taking the sound of his deep voice and turning it dirty, the baritone whispering hot words to her about cool sheets and warm bodies. Would his hands be rough or smooth? Would they be hesitant and reverent along her skin or sure and demanding?
“So then comes the hard part,” Barnaby said.
She almost dropped her pen. Focus, damn it. She glanced up and regretted it instantly. Those brown eyes were watching her again, and she couldn’t look away. She swallowed and tried to rein in her hormones. It seemed useless, though. Her libido had been quiet too long and now it was in hyper drive. She would have to redirect it later, but for the moment, she would try to ignore it as best she could.
“So, the hard part, of course, isn’t the guests and their arrivals for the day, it’s keeping the staff motivated. It can be challenging, to say the least.” He chuckled, and the sound skittered down her spine with a sweet caress.
He finally turned from her and she clenched the pen harder in her left hand and wrote daily task planner for staff. The paper was blank save for that one phrase. She hadn’t written down anything else he said. She’d been too busy letting the sultry sound of his voice wrap around her senses and fill her mind with erotic daydreams.
She wanted to learn everything there was to know about running the Marietta Times Square, straight from the source. She had applied for a manager job there years ago, when she hadn’t quite been qualified, but she’d figured it couldn’t hurt to try. She hadn’t even gotten an interview. I wonder how long he’s been there.
Maybe he’d beat her out for the position. Mmm, position. Oh, great, now not only was her libido in hyper drive, but it had somehow made her regress to some pathetic hormonal late-teenage version of herself that wanted to giggle whenever someone said things like position and hard. You’d think a mother would be over that phase by now. She thought she had been. Maybe because this was the first time she’d ever truly been away from Hailey since giving birth to her, her truer nature was coming out. She had, after all, still been in her teens when she’d gotten pregnant. She’d grown up real quick at nineteen, and this was the first time in forever she hadn’t felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders.
Perhaps it was being in Sin City. Or maybe it was just Barnaby. Or some combination thereof. Whatever it was, she certainly needed to keep a handle on it. She wasn’t going back to her wild ways. One night had changed her entire life. She wasn’t going to let her impulsive nature overtake her good sense again. No matter how fucking delectable their current speaker was.