Page 8 of My Lucky Star
His earlier words rang in my ears. Was he famous or something? It made sense, with him being so blindingly gorgeous.
“Are you travelling solo?” I asked, glancing around the empty hallway. It was a big place for one person.
“My brother will join me soon.” He followed my gaze. “We don’t usually book the entire hotel, but I guess it worked out that way.”
“You guess?”
He shrugged. “My brother made the booking. He’s my manager.”
Manager? Okay, the guy was definitely someone famous. I looked at my hands, noting the remnants of pale pink polish I’d tried a few days ago to stop myself from biting my nails. I shuffled the brochure so that it covered my hands. “Must be nice, not to worry about that stuff. Hotel bookings, I mean.”
He huffed, raking his fingers through his hair. “Except when he sends me into the middle of nowhere. There are no staff. I have no luggage. My phone doesn’t work here...” He leaned in, his brown eyes widening. “Honestly, it’s a little creepy. I thought I saw a ghost.”
He was deadly serious, but I couldn’t help the wayward laugh that bubbled out of me. “I’m sorry. Did you say a ghost?”
He pouted. “I mean it’s a bit... spooky. Like in a horror film, you know?”
I looked around me, baffled. Sunlight streamed in through a small window, making everything glow in golden tones. “Horror? This would be a perfect location for historical romance. Look at that carpet!” I pointed at the intricate geometrical pattern.
“It’s very old,” he said matter-of-factly, staring at me like I’d lost my mind.
He wasn’t wrong. The high-traffic areas sported several bald patches, but a good director of photography would choose the best angles and shoot around them.
“Where did we land on the photos?” I fished my phone from my pocket and held it up with a pleading smile.
He rubbed his beard. “Your internet works? Let me use it and I’ll let you take pictures.”
“Deal.” I tapped on the phone to enable a hotspot as he strode to his room to fetch his own phone.
After a moment of tapping and password-spelling, Cem was online. With his focus on the screen, eyebrows drawn into a look of deep concentration, I snuck off to take some photos. I peeked into one of the rooms, then covered the hallway and staircase. I also needed some pics of downstairs but going that far would have probably cut off Cem’s internet.
I returned to him, waving my phone. “I’m done with the upstairs. Are you... finished?”
He lifted his gaze from the screen. “No. I need more time. Can I buy your phone? I’ll pay a good price.”
My jaw dropped. “Buy? You mean like—”
“Pay money, change ownership.” He frowned. “I don’t have any cash on me... what is your currency?”
“New Zealand dollar,” I said helpfully, rolling my eyes a little less helpfully.
He huffed. “Of course. I need to get hold of my brother. I need internet. Wait...”
He slipped back to his room and returned with a gold watch. “You can have this. It’s worth twice as much, maybe more.”
I had no reason to doubt him, but I couldn’t hand over my phone. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you my phone. I need it for work and it has...” I gestured with my hand, not wanting to say ‘private stuff’, but hoping he’d figure that out if he only stopped to think what he was asking.
His mouth stretched into a cheeky smile, and he held out his hand. “Come on. I won’t read your emails or look at your cat photos. I only need the internet.”
Irritation coiled in my chest and I held tighter onto the device, which was three years old and probably worth as much as a regular alarm clock. “I don’t have a cat.”
He shrugged, unbothered. “Well, whatever you keep on there. Your secrets. I’m not interested.”
I arranged my expression to neutral, but the words ‘not interested’ felt like a tiny needle poking my gut. “It’s not that,” I argued. “I need those photos I took. I need to take more photos downstairs. And I need to call... people.”
“Okay, call them, and email the photos. Then we make the sale.” He gestured at my phone, which I held white-knuckled against my chest.
The way he spoke sounded magnanimous, as if he was being wonderfully accommodating and reasonable. He tried to rest his back against the door frame, but the bulky towel was in the way, so he flung it over his shoulder, then folded those muscled arms across his chest. The Calvin Klein underwear commercial only needed a tagline.
