Arielle didn’t see Mitchell at the hotel the next morning.
Just as he’d told her, a town car was waiting for her outside the hotel at eight-thirty to take her back to the private terminal at LAX, and a different small jet with a different crew flew her back to Phoenix.
By Sunday at lunchtime, Arielle was firmly deposited back in her old life with her old problems.
At the Match Play office, Carlyn had evidently been designated as the official gossip monger because she practically pounced on Arielle as soon as she walked in. “Did you see him this weekend?”
“Him, who?” Arielle stalled.
Carlyn rolled her eyes. “The owner. Saltonstall. The one who had his tongue halfway down your throat at the press conference last week.”
And Saturday evening. “He did not. It was just a closed-mouth kiss. It didn’t get French at all.” She was obviously talking about the kiss in front of the reporters during the press conference.
Carlyn nodded. “Yeah, him. You said you were going to see him on Friday.”
And here, Arielle had to tread a thin line between denying that they were an item, telling the office people so much that word would get back to her father, and outright lying that would make her feel like a slimeball. “I saw him. We had supper. We talked a lot. He seems like a nice guy sometimes, but I still can’t get over what he did to my dad when he bought Match Play.”
Carlyn nodded again but slower this time. “It’s weird that he wants to date you. It’s almost like he not only had to take your dad’s company, but now he’s coming after his daughter, too. What do they call that, a Genghis Khan complex? Where you have to conquer everything you see?”
The thought troubled Arielle, but Mitchell hadn’t known who she was when he pulled her out of the crowd and offered her fifteen grand to kiss him for the cameras.
She decided on a version of the truth she could tell Carlyn. “I don’t think that’s it with him. When we first met, he had no idea who I was.”
“Mitchell Saltonstall seems like the kind of guy who could be devious.”
But when she’d told Mitchell her name in the break room, he’d obviously been shocked. “I am pretty sure there was no way he knew who I was.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
Over the week, Arielle determinedly settled back into her routine at Match Play, working on paperwork for the HR department and assuring people there would absolutely not be layoffs until at least June first.
Between work and trying to help her parents cope with the uncertainty of their future, Arielle had her hands full until a text appeared on her phone Thursday afternoon. Your flight will leave from the private terminal at Sky Harbor at three o’clock Friday afternoon. The golf convention in Las Vegas will take place on both Saturday and Sunday. Plan to leave the hotel Saturday morning at nine.
So informative, so sterile, so nothing after he hadn’t texted or called or contacted her since he’d left her hotel room Saturday night after kissing the stuffing out of her, the jerk.
Part of her wanted to tell him to go to Hell, but she’d seen the pile of bills stuffed into her mother’s secretary desk.
Instead, Arielle texted back, Thank you for letting me know. I’ll see you Saturday morning.
The jet that Mitchell had sent flew her to Las Vegas the next evening, and she checked into the hotel around six. With no communication from Mitchell, she ordered a light supper from room service and tucked herself into bed with a book.
At eight, her phone buzzed. The text from Mitchell read, Did you arrive and check into the hotel all right?
Yes. Thank you, was all she texted back.
Really, this guy had shafted her father in a business deal, came dang close to stepping over the sexual harassment line, and then ignored her so much for a week that it came dang close to ghosting on her.
And then he wanted to just pick up as if nothing was wrong and banter?
Oh, hell, no. She might be obliged to kiss him for the cameras, but that contract did not specify that she had to sweet talk him over text messages.
Fifteen minutes later, he texted, Is everything all right?
Yes, thank you, she texted back. Did you not get my other text?
Yes, but it seemed short or something. I’m just making sure that you checked into the hotel all right, and the hotel room is okay.
The hotel room was a mini-suite with a separate bedroom and a living room with a couch and a wet bar area. It was as big as her apartment.
She wrote, The hotel room is very nice. Thank you. Am I supposed to update you as to my whereabouts all the time?
When we are traveling, perhaps it would be best.
She could practically hear the growl in his text.
And are you going to do the same? she asked.
If you wanted me to, I would.
Memories of that kiss, the way he walked out afterward, and how he hadn’t contacted her since then assailed Arielle. This conversation was becoming too intimate. They were not boyfriend and girlfriend. They were not together. Mitchell Saltonstall was her boss, and this was business.
Time to get things back on track.
She texted, You don’t need to send a private jet for me if it’s too expensive. I can fly Southwest. I like Southwest Airlines.
It was several more minutes before he texted back. Your time is valuable, as calculated from the amount I am paying you for eight months of working weekends.
That was an interesting thought. Arielle did the mental math and came out with a truly insane hourly rate, but it was pretty funny to think about.
But she didn’t text back. She wasn’t contractually obligated to, and she shouldn’t want to.
Mitchell texted, Besides, I don’t want you crowded into steerage. I’ll see you tomorrow.
After that exchange, Arielle couldn’t keep her mind on reading her book, and then she couldn’t settle down to sleep, knowing she would have to face him the next day and every weekend for the next eight months.