Page 10 of Sing For Me

The question feels like she’s asking me something different. Like whether I care about her. But I consider the question itself. If Reese gave me an ultimatum, would I shut down the whole thing? Cassandra would blow her top. It took me a while to win her over on it—she was as furious as Reese that I’d invited the show here without consulting anyone at all. Her biggest concern was that the east wing of the hotel was still under renovation.

“We’re not ready for something like this, Eli!” she’d said to me. Cassandra is nearly as tall as me, with shoulder-length wavy blonde hair, and if she weren’t my sister I might be alarmed by the way her fists curled on her desk. But she is, and I wasn’t.

I’m just as hot-headed. “You’ll never be ready!” I shot back.

I’d worked on Cass for a full week, deluging her with approximately a thousand spreadsheets with financial forecasts related to viewership.

I also reminded her, pointedly, that she hadn’t consulted me when hiring the woman I’d had a fling with in the throes of my divorce to work in our hotel. A woman who couldn’t stand me, and who was looking at me expectantly right now.

“Yes,” I say.

Her eyes meet mine again.

I don’t break our locked gaze. “If you wanted to shut it down I would do it.”

Reese blinks, her lips parting. I have to look away so I don’t stare. I focus on a picture on the wall of her dog. He’s cute as hell. And even though I’ve only met him once, during an awkward run-in down on the Quince River trail, it was clear by the licks and jumps that he loves me, even if his owner doesn’t. Yes, I still care about Reese. More than I should. More than I was ever supposed to.

Reese clears her throat. “Thank you for saying that. But I won’t ask you to shut it down. You’re right, the show is going to be great publicity for the resort. And my staff are thrilled. Even Jacques.”

I smile, relief spreading through me. “I think the only time I saw Jacques thrilled was the day his ex-husband’s restaurant went up in flames.”

The corner of Reese’s mouth curls up, and for a moment, the breath catches in my lungs. I can’t remember the last time I made Reese smile. My mind flashes back to the first day we met, how I’d been in such a foul-ass mood, but she’d breezed over and introduced herself, that easy smile on her face. She’d looked so… free. I think that’s what had made me stay and talk to her instead of mumbling some excuse. That and those freckles and tousled hair. And maybe that sexy as fuck body she keeps tucked under her conservative restaurant manager attire these days.

When I look at Reese again now, her smile’s gone. “Well, the show’s here now, and we’re nearly all ready for them next month. So, what did Neil want?”

I grimace, all the warmth dropping away as I’m brought back to the reason I came in here.

But I’m interrupted by a sudden commotion behind me in the kitchen: loud voices and the clatter of someone dropping something.

I whirl around to see a cluster of people at the far end of the kitchen by the door. People wearing black, with cameras and cords slung over their arms.

Fuck me.

“Well, you’re about to find out.”

CHAPTER3

Eli

TRACK:Etta James, “I Got You Babe”

Reese is on her feet, coming around her desk and trying to peer around me. “Excuse me,” she says when I don’t move.

Kelly’s text plays across my mind like tickertape.

Hey—we’re in the area and Neil wants to drop by today for a walk-through. Sorry for the short notice.

When Neil had called right after, I’d tried to talk him out of it, but he’d been so insistent, so excited, my protests sounded nonsensical. And they were. It was my fault I hadn’t told Reese the truth.

“I’ll finally get to meet your lovely lady, eh?” Neil had said before hanging up.

I grip my hair with both hands, that spinning feeling I felt after getting the text coming back full force.

I shift so she can’t see what’s going on. “Reese, that call from Neil—” I begin.

Her eyes dart to mine, wide with alarm.

“They’re here to do a walk-through,” I say fast. “I’m sorry. They were already on their way when they called.”

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