Page 36 of Pipe Dreams
But the memory loomed large.
These were her thoughts as she stepped into the sleek lobby and marched toward the check-in desk. This place was top shelf. It had been designed to make guests feel as if they were at a nightclub. There were no wicker chairs or potted palms. This was moneyed Florida—the low pulse of house music played in the background, and long linen curtains billowed from the thirty foot ceilings. The trippy, oversized furniture was straight out ofAlice in Wonderland.
Lauren got her key as fast as she could and slunk off to the elevator bank without making eye contact with anyone except Nate. “You want to go over last week’s ticket revenue split later?” she asked him as they both waited for the elevator doors to open.
“Does it look okay to you?” he asked.
“At first glance,” Lauren hedged. “I want to add it up again before I decide that the box office got everything right.”
He grinned. “You take care of it, then. Just shoot me an e-mail with the results.”
“Anything else? I thought I’d spend the afternoon working on next week’s corporate sponsorship numbers.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Nate agreed, holding the elevator door open for her and then pushing his keycard into the slot so that the elevator would agree to open on the penthouse floor. They were both headed there. Wherever they traveled together around the globe, Nate always put Lauren in the room next to his, just to keep her handy. “I’m meeting up with Alex at six—an hour before the benefit. So I might need, uh, your services for a minute just before then.”
Lauren puzzled over that for a second and then smiled. “The bow tie, right?”
“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I hate black tie.”
“Then why did you let Alex talk you into it?”
“Some people are annoying when they don’t get their way.” He shrugged. “I’ll give her black tie, but I won’t give away the router division for less than it’s worth.”
“Oh, Nate,” Lauren laughed. “I love you.” She didn’t even know why she said it. It just slipped out. Must be the stress of working for the Bruisers and that unsettling conversation with Mike the other night.
He tilted his angular face in her direction and considered her with kind eyes. “You should say that to people more often, Lauren. It suits you.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she argued, trying to get back to the joking place they’d been in a minute ago. “I’m too crusty to go around telling people I love them.”
“You’re not, though. Not really.”
“Nate,” she warned under her breath.
“What?”
The elevator arrived on the penthouse floor and she followed Nate out. “I’ll make you a deal,” Lauren proposed. “I’ll tell more people I love them if you do the same.”
He paused mid-stride, and Lauren almost ran right intohim. She braced herself for the words:mind your own business. Nate was famously nosy and famously tight-lipped about his own life. But if you ran a multibillion-dollar company you could behave that way, she supposed.
But Nate didn’t say anything. He just kept walking like nothing had happened. They headed down a corridor with carpet so thick that their footsteps were noiseless. He went to the far end of the hall, where the plaque read Ambassador’s Suite. Hers said: Princess Suite. “Knock when you need your tie tied,” she called softly.
He gave her a wink and then disappeared into his room.
•••
The Princess Suite was too big for one lonely thirty-one-year-old.
This one had a giant whirlpool tub at one end of a bathroom the size of a regulation hockey rink. The bed in the ocean-front bedroom was enormous, and piled high with white pillows of every conceivable size. There was a row of fluffy terry bathrobes—leopard print no less. And a vanity table that sat four.
The living room had a table and chairs. This was where Lauren set herself up to work for the afternoon. But after a couple of hours she moved her laptop to a shapely leather sofa and sprawled on it.
It ought to have been the perfect working environment. But it was so quiet she began to feel twitchy. She missed her desk in Manhattan and the watercooler gossip there. At Nate’s software company she wasn’t Lauren-who-Mike-ditched. She was just the efficient woman Nate trusted with his calendar, with his whole goddamn life really.
She got up and did a lap around the hotel suite, taking time to give each of the dresses she’d unpacked a shake to eliminate wrinkles. There hadn’t been time to snap pictures and e-mail them to Ari, so she’d just brought an armful.
Now she had an idea.
Lauren went back to her laptop and e-mailed Ari and Georgia, asking them if they wanted to swing by the suite for snacks and primping later. “I’ve got some dress choices for Ari. But I’ve also got practically an entire salon up here, including good lighting and those magnifying mirrors that make everyone’s pores look like lunar craters.”
