Scandalous (28 page)

“It would be perfect for a honeymoon, wouldn’t it?” She gazed up at Jackson dreamily at the check-in desk, but he was all business.

“If this deal comes off, it’ll be one of our main competitors. That’s why we’re here. Hi, yes, we’re checking in.” Jackson flashed a smile at the receptionist. “The name’s Dupree.”

The girl scrolled down on her computer.

“Here we are. Mr. and Mrs. Dupree.”

Lottie started to protest but the girl ignored her. “We’ve held the Deluxe Mountain View Suite for the two of you for three nights.”

“You’ve made a mistake,” said Jackson tersely. “We booked two rooms. We’re not a couple, this is a business trip.”

“Oh.” The girl looked flustered. She clicked on her screen again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how that happened, but I definitely only have you down for one deluxe suite.”

Jackson was starting to get angry. The last thing he wanted was for Lottie to think he’d tried to pull a fast one. Not that he was above such tactics—far from it—but he respected Lottie far too much to try such a crass maneuver. Besides, he was going out for a late dinner tonight with an old friend from college, Piers Dellal. Piers had promised to bring some hot girls along. (“Ski bunnies, man, there’s nothing like ’em. All that mountain air makes ’em hornier than bitches in heat.”) Somehow Jackson doubted that wholesome Lottie Grainger was into threesomes.

“Listen. I don’t care what you have down. My office reserved two rooms. Two rooms is what we need. Close to the business center if possible.”

The girl frowned. “I am sorry, sir. But I’m afraid we’re totally fully booked. The suite does have a foldout sofa bed in the living room if you need it. And the master bath is stunning. It’s actually the nicest accommodation in the entire hotel,” she added helpfully.

“Which is what, code for the most expensive?” snapped Jackson. So much for his night of passion with one of Piers’s hotties. He turned to Lottie. “Sorry. Is that OK with you? I’ll take the foldout, of course. The alternative is that I try to check in somewhere else, but at this time of night…” He looked at his watch.

“It’s fine,” Lottie blurted. “Really. It’s totally fine.”

To Lottie’s disappointment, and Jackson’s relief, the suite was so huge that the makeshift bedrooms had an entire room between them, a sort of dressing-room-cum-study. “This is great.” Jackson brightened, disappearing into the bathroom and emerging five minutes later with a towel wrapped around his waist. Lottie blushed to the roots of her chestnut hair, trying not to stare at his six-pack stomach, but Jackson seemed completely unself-conscious, sauntering around the suite as if she weren’t there.

I’m invisible to him
, Lottie thought miserably.
Like his little sister or something.
She went into her own room and began to unpack.
I can’t give up. This is my chance. If he doesn’t see me as a sexual woman, it’s up to me to change his mind.
Pulling out a pair of sexy, sheer La Perla panties with a matching lace push-up bra, Lottie slipped them on, admiring herself in the mirror. She’d been so excited when Jackson had asked her on the trip earlier, she hadn’t eaten all day and her stomach looked wonderfully flat. The clock by her bed said 9:45 p.m. Late enough to change into the new champagne silk robe that just brushed the tops of her thighs and lounge around in the sitting room “working” before bed. Carefully tying the robe so that the lace from her bra peeked
tantalizingly out at the top, Lottie tousled her cropped hair and spritzed herself with Gucci Envy, emerging into the sitting room just in time to hear the front door of the suite slam shut.

“Jackson?”

He was gone. A note on the coffee table said,

“Dinner with friends. Don’t wait up. See you at breakfast, 7:30 a.m., J.”

After a fractured night, the first half of which was spent lying awake listening for Jackson’s return and the second half tossing and turning with sexual frustration so bad she could have wept, Lottie came down to breakfast with huge dark shadows under her eyes.

“Are you OK?” Clean-shaven and rested, in a dark suit and tie, Jackson looked fabulous. “You look awful. Like you caught the flu or something.”

“I didn’t sleep well,” grumbled Lottie, pouring herself a strong black coffee.

“Really? I slept like a baby. The service here is shit, but I must say that sofa bed was damn comfortable. Now look, the planning meeting’s been pushed back to ten a.m., so we’ve got an extra hour to polish our presentation.”

“I don’t need it,” said Lottie. “I’ve got it down.”

Jackson raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? I can run over things with you if you like; I have the time.”

“I’m sure.” If she couldn’t seduce him sexually, she was damn well going to impress him professionally. The planning committee would be eating out of her hand.

“That was amazing!” Jackson hugged Lottie as they left the meeting. “They loved you.”

Walking down Park Avenue toward the golf course in downtown Park City, beneath a blazing, bright winter sun, he
felt elated. The deal would go through now, no question. Lottie had dazzled the committee with figures and melted them with charm. Jack Brannigan, the chairman, a dour, fat, self-important little man, was notoriously difficult to please, but Lottie had joked and cajoled and—there was only one word for it—
flirted
with him until he rolled over like a puppy. It was a side to her Jackson had never really seen before. He’d always thought of her as so sweet, so pure. But she’d manipulated old man Brannigan like a pro.

“I’m serious, Lottie, you nailed it. I half expected Jack to propose marriage to you by the end of the meeting. He was drooling.”

Lottie blushed. “He was
not
.”

“He was too.
Man
, I’m on a high! Of course, you realize this means we’re going to have to extend our trip. Now that we have verbal approval, I want to do as many on-site meetings as we can. Talk to all the bidders, the primary contractors, the subs. Can you stay?”

Lottie thought about her desk in New York and the mountain of work waiting for her. Then she thought about Jackson last night and this morning, his utter sexual indifference. Did she really want to put herself through two, three, four more nights of mental and physical torture, lying awake, alone, while he ignored her?

“Of course I can stay,” she heard herself saying. “No problem.”

“Great. We’ll have dinner tonight and work out a schedule. In the meantime, I think we’ve both earned the afternoon off.”

Lottie beamed. “Fantastic! Maybe we could go for a hike up in the pine forest? I’ve heard that the area right above our hotel has some stunning trails.”

“Sounds great,” said Jackson. “You have fun. I’ll see you at dinner. Eight o’clock, Mastro’s.”

Before Lottie could say another word, he’d hailed a cab and disappeared.

Lottie tried to look on the bright side.
At least he wants to have dinner with me.
She looked at her watch. One o’clock. Seven hours in which to transform herself into a Jackson Dupree–worthy sex siren. Last night had been a washout, but that was no reason to abandon hope. Tonight. Tonight was the night.

Mastro’s was a bustling, modern steak-and-ribs joint attached to an achingly trendy bar.
The
place to see and be seen in the mountain resort, it was the sort of restaurant that Lottie Grainger usually avoided like the plague. Tonight, however, she felt confident and sexy and fierce.
I am one of the beautiful people. I belong here, just as much as the silicone-lipped twigs propping up the bar.

In one afternoon, she had succeeded in effecting a very dramatic transformation. Marching into an expensive salon, she’d demanded the ultra-flamboyant stylist cut her already short hair even shorter, into a spiky, boyish crop, then dye it from Lottie’s natural chestnut to a shocking, peroxide-white blonde.

“Take a deep breath,” said the stylist, proudly handing Lottie a mirror. “Ta da! What do you think?”

Lottie opened her eyes and burst into tears.

The poor stylist was horrified. “Oh, no!” he wailed. “Oh, please, don’t cry, sweetheart. It’s OK. We can soften the color if it’s too much for you. It’s not a big deal, honestly.”

“It’s OK,” laughed Lottie, wiping away the tears. “It’s a shock, that’s all. I love it. I look…I look…”

“Fucking gorgeous?” The stylist preened. “Yes you do, my angel. Yes you do.”

Next stop was the beauty salon, to get her nails painted the latest, hippest shade of gleaming, gothic black and to wax every hair on her body into oblivion. Finally, still smarting from the hot-wax torture, Lottie bought a tight-fitting pair of black hipster jeans from Chloe Lane on Main Street and a matching black
mink cropped fur jacket from Alaska Furs that cost more than her last three months’ salary, but that completed the glam-rock look perfectly. Dashing back to the hotel for makeup—smoky eyes were most definitely called for—and her highest pair of Louboutin spiky boots, Lottie finally arrived at Mastro’s twenty minutes late with her adrenaline pumping.

“I’m here for dinner,” she announced to the hostess confidently. “The table’s booked under Dupree.”

“Oh yes, of course. Most of your party are already here, if you’d like to follow me.”

Most of my party?
Lottie looked confused. Her confusion intensified as the hostess led her to a large, round table in the middle of the restaurant. A handsome man in a beanie hat was arguing loudly and pretentiously about art with two very young girls, both of whom looked like models and hung off his every word. Next to him, an older man in a crumpled suit looked up and smiled at Lottie. “I’m Francis. I’m a friend of Jackson’s. And you are?”

“Lottie. Lottie Grainger.” Lottie shook his hand and sat down, biting her lip hard to stop herself from crying. How could she have misread the situation so badly? Jackson didn’t want to take her out for a romantic dinner. He’d simply invited her along to join a group evening.
He probably felt sorry for me, stuck in the hotel on my own. He was being kind.
“Jackson and I are…” What were they? “…Colleagues.”

“Lucky Jackson.” Francis smiled wolfishly. “And unlucky you. It’s bad enough having to deal with his bullshit as a friend. If I worked with the arrogant son of a bitch, I’d shoot myself. What are you drinking?”

The table was already lavishly supplied with red and white wine, plus a jug of some sweet, fruity-looking cocktail. Lottie was about to say, “Nothing thanks, I’m fine,” but then suddenly changed her mind.
Fuck it. Why not?
Jackson might not want her, but she was looking drop-dead gorgeous tonight, she’d just won
Wrexall Dupree a vital piece of business, and someone else was paying. She deserved to celebrate.

“I’ll take one of those.” She pointed to the red jug. “A large one.”

Francis grinned. Pouring the drink, he handed it to Lottie. “That’s the spirit. Thank God you’ve arrived. If I had to listen to this idiot spout one more line of crap about Kandinsky’s genius, I swear to God I would have drunk the whole pitcher myself.” He looked at handsome beanie guy the same way he might look at a cockroach in his soup. “They’re all AA you know, this crowd, even the children. Nothing more boring than an ex-addict. I mean, really, who wears a fucking snow-cap indoors?”

Lottie giggled. She enjoyed talking to Francis. It turned out he was an architect, rather a famous one, but he had no airs and graces. Tall and thin with an angular, intelligent face and eyes ringed with fans of laughter lines, he was neither handsome nor ugly, but he was so animated it was impossible not to look at him and laugh with him. Francis had met Jackson five years ago, when he designed a chain of boutique hotels for Wrexall Dupree in Polynesia, and he was in Park City for business, hoping to be brought on board as part of the design team for the new resort, if it ever got off the ground.

“Oh, it’s off the ground,” said Lottie. “It’s flying.” She told him about her and Jackson’s triumphant meeting with the planning committee today.

“You star! You actually got Jack Brannigan excited about something other than his own nose hairs?” Francis poured her another drink, her fourth at least. Lottie was vaguely aware of things around her starting to sway. How late was it? Maybe someone should order some food?