CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“I’ll always come back to you.”
Seven months later...
“OKAY, I’M GOING FOR good this time,” I say as I skip down the front steps of the B&B. “Be back in about an hour or so.”
It is quiet and peaceful, yet alive.
The weather is perfect. Life is perfect.
While it took roughly three months of strategic marketing for BAREFOOT RUNAWAY to get a pulse, we are now alive and kicking. And dare I say booming? Well, as “booming” as a B&B can be.
I stop abruptly, rethinking my leave. “Are you sure you can handle the Tony Manson check-in?”
Monica rolls her eyes at me. “Things won’t fall apart if you aren’t here, Lexi. You have cultivated a very efficient and capable staff. Trust us. Besides, I think everyone in there is too afraid of you to mess up.”
Of course she’s capable and of course I trust her—she wouldn’t be assistant general manager if I didn’t. However, I’ve never, ever left the premises when there’s supposed to be a celebrity check-in.
With the path I’m trying to direct the business on right now, it is crucial that we’re nothing short of exceptional. And when I am around the staff doesn’t mess around.
Since I began operating BAREFOOT RUNAWAY, I have learned a lot about myself, and one of those things is that I’m a tough boss. Not mean, but exacting.
It stemmed from the severe case of impostor syndrome I suffered when I first started. I’d felt like I didn’t deserve to be here, didn’t deserve this place. I felt like a fraud, a cheat with no experience.
Consequently, I came down hard on myself, pushed myself, determined to turn this place into something, determined to make myself deserve it. Determined to make him proud of me and not regret his decision.
Out of that tight fist of determination bloomed a fair but fastidious boss.
I won’t apologize for it, though; for not being nice and delicate and too friendly with my staff. I am who I am now, and we are where we are because of it. Growing successful in less than a year, with a woman with no college degree or business education or prior experience at the helm.
The first thing I’d done was hire a top-notch marketing team and told them what I wanted to achieve. With their advice and Maggie’s help, I closed off the entire upper floor, built a separate entrance, and added some extra touches of luxury and amenities to those rooms. A floor designed for the famous.
From the back of the property, behind the gardens, I created a “secret” entrance and check-in for privacy protection. So no one would know they’re guests here unless they choose to be seen.
Then, I let the marketing team do their job.
There was quite a bit of comping in the beginning, with socialites and social climbers. No profits, which had made me anxious, but the team assured me it was the best route to getting the word out fast.
They were right.
Within a few months, word permeated the elite circles, and the bookings started to roll in.
Suffice to say, things have been going pretty darn well. And now Tony Manson, mega Oscar-winning movie star, our biggest A-lister so far, is checking in for five nights!
Of course, I should be here to micromanage this. I really should. But...well, there’s somewhere more important I need to be.
“Okay, okay,” I say with my hands up in surrender. “Just make sure Soraya is the one that greets him. Men always seem to respond, um, appreciatively, toward her.”
Monica laughs out loud. “I think you mean she makes men turn stupid.”
Yup. That’s exactly it. “And also make sure to—”
“Lexi,” Monica says slowly, patiently, and with a smidge of frustration, “I’ve got it. This is why you hired me, remember?”
Exhaling a deep sigh, I turn and face my second mother, remembering how her eyes had lit up with excitement and hope when I asked her to come run this place with me.
I love her. Had been worried about her and didn’t like that she was spending her nights crying on her living room floor, bathing in memories long gone.
Hiring her was one of the best decisions I’ve made. Not just because it completely revived her. But her nurturing, gentle, and rational methods evened out my stringent and often chaotic ones. The staff fear me, but they love her.
I’ve also convinced her to move into the attached condo with Tillie, as it not only makes sense for work, but also brings her closer to her boys.
“You’re right,” I mumble. “I need to chill.”
Monica laughs again and offers me her bottled water. “Here. Drink some of this.”
As I take the bottle and guzzle water down, she gives me a knowing smile. “Are you sure Tony Manson is all you’re worked up about?”
I bite my lip and thrust the near-empty bottle back to her. “Yes, Madame Know-It-All.”
Her laugh follows me as I spin around and head for my car.
~
I ARRIVE BY the skin of my teeth. They’ve just finished loading up the jeep with their badass paraphernalia, about to go off and do badass things.
Sunlight reflecting off their mirrored aviators, the hot, all-black wearing twins stop and glance in my direction as I careen into Red Cage’s parking lot like a bat out of hell and exit my car.
One twin nudges the other with his elbow, flashing a white grin, before jumping into the jeep.
The other swaggers toward me.
Heart cartwheeling in my chest, I lean back against the passenger door of my car and wait.
We’d had a hearty breakfast together this morning after a round of toe-curling shower sex. We’d listened to current events on the radio as we crawled through lazy morning traffic. Then we’d kissed goodbye outside BAREFOOT RUNAWAY as he dropped me off with dinner plans for later.
But just over an hour ago, he called to tell me I wouldn’t be seeing him tonight—and who knows for however many other nights—because of an urgent job.
This isn’t unusual, but rather something that I’ve had to get used to. It’s his job. We could be having a normal, mundane routine, and then without warning or preparation, he would have to up and leave. Gone, for anywhere between two days up to two weeks.
I’ve no idea where he’s going this time, seeing as he’s prohibited from sharing that info outside of Red Cage—because I’m just a girlfriend, not a wife. All I know is that it’s “R&R,” which I’ve been told means ransom and rescue.
The last time he’d left so abruptly, I didn’t even get a chance to hug him goodbye. That job had kept him away for over two weeks and it damn near killed me. So when he called me earlier, I was determined not to let him leave this time without seeing him, kissing him, smelling him, touching him.... Which is why I left the B&B even with a major A-lister about to check-in, and drove here like a mad woman.
He stops in front of me, a ghost of a smile on his lips, and the butterflies go mad in my belly. Even after all this time, they still flap about wildly for him. He’s the socket to my plug. I come alive when he’s near, my whole body zapping with electricity.
“Hellcat,” is all he says.
“I couldn’t not kiss you goodbye this time.”
One corner of his mouth curves up. “I love how needy you are for me.”
No shame to my game. “Always.”
He closes in on me, pinning me to the car with his hips. “Glad you came.”
“Let me see you,” I beg softly.
As he never fails to do, he gives me what I want—he removes his aviators. Those beautiful dark eyes burn for me, confirming all that I already feel in my heart.
He belongs to me.
“How long will you be gone for this time?”
He shrugs. “For as long as it takes to get the job done.”
I press my palms to his hard, formidable chest and groan miserably. “Sometimes I hate your job.”
His teeth tug on his bottom lip and the act sends a shiver through me. “I’d quit, but my girlfriend is a little high maintenance. Burns holes right through my pockets.”
I punch his chest. “Shut up.”
He leans down and captures my mouth with his, slipping his tongue inside. I suck on it before rubbing mine against his, getting lost in him. I don’t want you to go.
Obnoxious honking from the jeep across the lot rips a jagged slash through our moment. And I grip his biceps to keep him to me, not ready to let him go.
“Gotta go, baby.”
No. “Okay. Wait…”
I turn and open the car door, lean inside and grab the small, black box wrapped with a white bow from the seat, then pop back out to face him.
“Since I doubt you’ll be back in time for your birthday, I might as well just give you your gift now.”
A grin splits his face as he takes it, and I grin in turn. I don’t know anyone who loves receiving gifts as much as this man does. He’s like a boy on Christmas morning. Want to make him grin? Wrap something, anything, in a gift box and hand it to him. Sure, he might punch you in face if he opens it and finds a rock inside, but it’ll be worth it just to see that rare, heart-stopping grin of his.
“No peeking until your birthday,” I tell him as he starts to tug on the bow.
He shoots me a look of protest and starts to object, but the jeep behind him honks again.
Ugh. Go to hell, True!
I fling myself at him, hugging him hard. “I love you. I’ll miss you. Call me every day. Please.”
His chuckle is deep and rumbling. “I’m not going off to war, babe.”
With this job, he might as well be. It’s not as safe and easy as he tries to make me believe.
Taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger, he tilts my face up until our eyes lock. “I’ll always come back to you.”
I nod. Even though I know that’s not a promise he truly can’t keep.
He kisses me swiftly. “Love you more than life, Hellcat.”
“Love you, too,” I whisper back, but he’s already jogging across the lot to the jeep.
I sag against the car and watch as their jeep speeds out of the lot before he is even properly inside.
I miss him already. But I know he will come back to me.
He always does.