The Reality of You (7 page)

Mr. Dario paused,
and I went in for the filet, my fork a fast moving spear. A second behind me,
Mr. Dario reached over me, his fork going in the direction of the filet.

Perhaps it was
hunger. Perhaps my competitive streak. I snapped forward— practically dove—for
that piece of steak. Tragically, there were three glasses of wine in front of
me. And more unfortunate, I spilled all three.

White and red
alcohol flew up in the air—like slow motion to my horrified vision—before
splatting all over the tablecloth, food, and people at the table.

Mr. Dario and Reese
jumped up, their faces a mixture of appalled and stunned.

I sat there
stupefied as wine dripped from the tip of my nose to plop on my nearly empty
plate until I peeked over at Mr. Dario. He was more drenched than I was. His
white linen suit was not only spotted with red wine, it had lakes of the stuff.
I grabbed my linen napkin—surprisingly quite clean—and began blotting the worst
of it.

“Ms. Porter!” Reese
snapped from across the table.

I kept blotting.

“Ms. Porter!” Reese
now yelled.

I glanced over at
him.

“Stop!” he said
loudly from clenched teeth.

Huh? I scanned at
where I was blotting. The worst of Mr. Dario’s stains spread across his
crotch—the place I was furiously patting with my napkin.

I dropped the napkin
as if it were on fire. “Sorry,” I mumbled from a burning face. I seemed to have
a red face
and
a crotch issue today.

“Well,” Mr. Dario
said, his eyes spitting animosity at me. “I believe this concludes our
meeting.” He tossed his own napkin on the table.

Reese cleared his
throat. “We could schedule another.”

Mr. Dario nodded.
“I’ll be in touch.” He stalked off past the pool.

Not wanting to deal
with my boss, I watched the burgundy-spotted linen suit disappear into the
hotel. I was quite sure that, if we were on the mainland, I’d be getting fired
right now. And I wasn’t sure that it still wouldn’t be happening.

Reese cleared his
throat again, and I forced myself to turn to him.

“Ms. –Ms. Porter,”
he sputtered angrily, crossing his arms. “First the fiasco during Pilates, then
striking me with a ball, and now this.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “Are you
purposely trying to ruin this business arrangement?”

“What?” I gasped.
“No. Of course not.”

He stared at me
across the ruined table with murder in his gaze. “Did you ever really play
soccer? Or was that a
résumé
lie?”

I flung down the
wadded napkins in my hand. “Why would I lie about that? It’s not like most
people are looking for a…a secretary that is athletic.”

His lips thinned.
“Well, if I were to guess after today, I’d say you’re fit to play soccer with
the clowns. At a circus.”

Okay. He was pissing
me off. I almost spit out that if he weren’t hogging all the food, this
wouldn’t have happened, but Kara’s little voice inside my head warned me
against arguing. Instead, I let out a huff and whipped up my iPad.

“This will verify
it,” I said typing in soccer, my alma mater, and my name in the search. Several
articles came up. I clicked on the first one and shoved the iPad across the
table. “Read that.”

Reese’s expression
stayed skeptical, but he took the iPad.

I stood motionless,
though the urge to tap my foot nearly overwhelmed me. As he read, I noticed the
speckles of wine across the arm of his shirt, one side of his tan pants, and a
few on his curved cheekbone. The speckles matched the welt on his neck.

Okay. I might have
earned the circus comment.

After a few minutes,
he passed the tablet back. “Impressive. However, apparently you’re only
graceful on the field.”

Taking the tablet, I
bit the inside of my cheek to keep from retorting in a negative, inappropriate
manner. My lack of grace had more to do with being around him, but admitting
that was not happening.

Sighing, Reese
shoved his chair in. “Tomorrow bright and early, Ms. Porter. Send your reports
prior to your arrival. After today, I expect them to be stunning.”
  

Servers appeared
like magic and began cleaning the table. Ignoring them, I watched him march
off. The servers kept glancing at me until I inspected myself. I too was
covered in red wine.

Fuck. All over
Avery’s dress, which must have cost a fortune.

Geesh. Had it been
three glasses? Or three damn bottles?

I gave the ogling
server a weak smile, grabbed my bag, and marched to my room.

Inside my room,
after burying my embarrassed face in a pillow and letting out a scream of
frustration, I scarfed down a can of peanuts, two protein bars, and one beer
then got to work.

Looked like I was
pulling an all-nighter.

Chapter 8

Outside
through the open patio door, the sun appeared as if it were mere feet above the
rolling ocean, ready to drown in the waves. Inside my room,
I
was drowning. In reports. In charts.
In data. In hell. Nearly every square inch of my room was covered in papers.
The main office at the resort had let me at their printer earlier, and after
pages and pages of crap, they probably wished they hadn’t because I had locked
that sucker up for over two hours. Not that Reese expected paper—I’d be sending
everything electronically—but all of the charts were easier to proof with a
hard copy.

And I had to proof
all of it.

I’d be getting about
four hours of sleep.

Again. Third night
in a row.

After a snorkeling
debacle the third day here, Reese had had enough. He’d decided that I needed to
stay away from activities and piled on the paperwork. I’d had lunch with him
once more. Other than that and our morning meetings, I’d stayed in my room
working. My. Ass. Off.

Sleep deprived and
going stir-crazy, I didn’t even want to see Reese. I simply wanted to escape
this room or sleep. Seeing as neither were going to happen, I opened a mini
bottle of Bailey’s—first of the day—poured it in my cup of coffee—fourth of the
day—and commenced on proofing a pile of sales charts while drinking spiked
coffee.

In the middle of
assessing a line graph, my phone rang with an annoying chirp—for years, my
ringtone had been “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes since I’d listened
to it pregame to pump me up, but now it was a simple ring preprogrammed in the
phone—into the silent room. I dropped the paper in my hand and started digging
in the mountains of documents for my phone.

I rescued the phone,
with the picture of Kara lifting a shot, from under a pile of old protein bar
wrappers—yeah, I ate like a queen.

“About time,” I said
as an answer. Though we’d talked the first night I got here, I’d tried to call
her each day, and I’d gotten her voicemail every time.

“Sorry,” she said in
a contrite tone. “I’ve been at work every day until ten. Things have been
crazy, crazy busy.”

I harrumphed into
the phone.

“I’m not lying. It’s
been mad busy. But how are things going in your tropical oasis? Enjoying the
sunshine? Reese?”

“No. And NO!”

“Ah-ha! Music to my
ears. So you’ve finally seen the ego?”

I inspected my
paper-strewn room, collecting my thoughts on Reese. “Ego. Slave driver. Rude.
Rich, cold asshole.”

A snicker sounded.
“Whoa. Things worked out better than I imagined.”

“Um…” I said slowly,
trying to think of a tactful way to explain my current predicament. Kara’s firm
had recommended me, which, with the way things were going, wasn’t too good for
her or her firm.

“Um, what?”

Explaining this was
going to be a major riot. Not. I took a fortifying sip of spiked coffee. “Yeah,
I’ve kind screwed things up as far as the secretary gig.”

Silence filled my
ear until Kara asked, “How? You have a computer degree. You do charts and
graphs like nobody’s business. You’re far more qualified than the average
secretary.”

 
I set my empty cup on the dresser. “It’s not
the secretary stuff I’ve bombed at.”

“Huh?”

Inwardly cringing, I
explained the first day from Pilates to golf to dinner.

Kara gasped and
giggled through each story, especially the golf incident.

“Then the next day,
I went snorkeling—”

“
You
went snorkeling?” Kara’s tone was
disbelieving, most likely thinking of spring break junior year in Fort
Lauderdale when I refused to put any more than my toes in the ocean. I’d seen
one too many Shark Weeks on the Discovery Channel over the years.

“Well, I wasn’t
about to admit I’m terrified of sharks, so yeah, I went with a group from the
resort while Reese went diving. Even had an instructor. It was actually pretty
amazing. Underwater pictures of the ocean don’t lie. The fish, the
plants—everything was beautiful. For about a whole twenty minutes.”

“Oh, no,” she said
in a short breath. “You freaked out?”

“Yup,” I said as I
stacked papers in neat little piles. “What would you do if you saw a shark?”

She gasped. “No way!
You seriously
saw
a shark?”

“Well, a tail and
fins amid a school of brightly colored fish before I swam to the surface
Olympic style and ran to shore yelling, ‘Shark,’ at the top of my lungs. They
blew the warning horn, and everyone from swimmers to snorkelers to sail surfers
evacuated the water.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow. We all
stood in the sand, breathing heavily after racing to the beach, watching the
water, and out jumped a trio of dolphins.”

A loud laugh escaped
her. “You mistook a dolphin for a shark!”

The paper in my hand
crinkled at the memory of
all
the beachgoers
giving me the stink eye. “Apparently, and Reese didn’t find it as funny when he
heard about it. He canceled all of my activities for the rest of the week. I
can guarantee he’s not happy with his secretarial choice.”

“Oh well, we didn’t
recommend your athleticism. We included people with athletic stuff on their
resumes. He can’t blame us for all that.” She let out another giggle, which
calmed me a bit since with each mess-up I became more worried about her
recommending me. “Other than the Pilates, which I get because of your leg, what
the heck is your problem?”

I groaned. “I don’t
know. Probably being around Reese. He makes me nervous. This whole thing makes
me nervous. It started with the guacamole incident and keeps getting worse.”

“He
still
makes you nervous?”

“Nope,” I said,
folding one of the papers lying on the bed into an airplane. “He just irritates
me now, but he doesn’t let me do anything other than mountains of paperwork.”

With the flick of a
wrist, my airplane landed on top of the bedside lamp. Of course, the paper
started smoking. I rushed over and yanked it off. A fire would be the icing on
the cake after everything else.
 

“You’re doing
paperwork for the next three days?” Kara asked.

“Yup.” My nose
wrinkled from the burnt smell in the air, and I rushed over to the balcony
doors and threw them open before the fire alarm went off.

“That has got to be
boring.”

“You should see my
room. It’s a sty filled with stacks of papers.” I reached in the minibar and
snagged a mini rum bottle. Explaining my week to Kara felt depressing. Plus, I
was on
vacation
. “I’m going need a
vacation from this crap vacation,” I said miserably, smashing the phone between
my shoulder and chin while twisting the cap off the little bottle of rum.
 

“The money you make
off this vacation could pay for a real one. Where do you want to go? Miami?
Canc
ú
n? Both have lots of
hotties.”

“Ugh,” I said,
snagging a Coke. “Nowhere tropical. How about skiing?” I sucked down half of
the rum and took a swig of Coke.

“At the rate you’re
going, you might break a leg.”

“You’re probably
right.”

Kara kept talking
about possible vacation spots, trying to cheer me up as I sipped on rum and
pop. Then she promised to be with Jules to pick me up at the airport and we
said goodbye.

Sinking onto the
floor, I tried not to notice the room. Paper piles littered almost each inch of
the bed, chair, and dresser. Strewn among the piles were wrappers and empty
Coke cans. A mound of dirty clothes escaped from the bottom of the open closet.
The small table next to the chair was covered with dirty room service dishes.
Stale-food smell mixed with the lingering burnt-paper smell.

As I stared at the
mess, my nose wrinkled. I wasn’t the neatest person, but the disaster of my
hotel room was rather disgusting. The curtains waved as a breeze blew in from
the open balcony doors. Beyond the balcony rail, the sun was setting amid a row
of palm trees.

I imagined wearing a
gauzy robe and lying on the beach in a wicker lounge chair. A waiter who looked
like Reese brought me a glass of champagne. He was dressed in all
leather—pants, an open vest, and large, heavy boots. I added a hefty chain-like
necklace around his neck for good measure and enjoyed watching the sweat roll
off of him and his muscles. Smiling slyly, I ordered another glass of champagne
and watched him trudge with his heavy boots in the sand back to the beach bar,
sipping the bubbly drink. When he got back, I requested a foot massage and
relished observing him work on the arch of my foot while the chain around his
neck clanked against his sweaty, slick chest.

My lips curled into
a smile at the short daydream, and though I had a boatload of stuff to do, I
went back to the mini fridge, jerked out a small bottle of champagne, went to
the balcony, kicked off my shoes, and crawled over the rail. Good thing I was
on the first floor.

After treading
through the cool grass, my feet sank into the warm sand as I passed under the
row of palm trees lining the edge of the beach. There weren’t any beach chairs
open—several people were out on the beach to watch nature’s show too—so I sank
into the sand a few feet from the tide rolling in. Once settled on the soft
sand, I popped the little cork on the bottle and took a hefty swig.

The waves rolled in,
the setting sun reflected bright orange in the water, palm leaves fluttered
above, and pale purple streaked the darkening blue sky. Live island music from
the band at the side of the pool floated toward me. The lively tune and the
sight of the setting sun paired with sips of the bubbly improved my mood
immensely.

Until I heard behind
me, “Done with all your charts, Ms. Porter?” in a dry, unbelieving tone.

Really?
He’d
have to be out on the beach too.
Beyond irritated and wishing I could toss my champagne in his face, I took a
long sip before I twisted around and cranked my head up.

“Just taking a
break,” I said, lifting the little bottle in my hand toward him.

Holding a glass of
wine in one hand, he was dressed casually swank again, perfectly pressed, and
totally hot—and not in the sweaty way of my daydream.

My irritation waned
into insensible as I smirked at him sardonically. “First one of the day,” I
added and took a swig. He studied me with his usual air of indifference. My jaw
clenched. “What brings you out here?”

He gestured toward
the setting sun. “The same as you—the view.”

“Well, don’t let
me
interrupt your pleasure.” I sounded
snotty yet didn’t care if it pissed him off. I was buzzed up
and
tired as shit. I turned around and
took another swig of bubbly. The sun had turned into a thin slice of orange
above the water but still looked pretty.

Lowering the bottle,
I almost dropped it when Reese took a step closer and crouched next to me,
elbows on his knees, close enough that the breeze caught his delicious scent.

“I suppose I’m
interrupting yours,” he said lightly. “Your one break of the day.”

“Suppose that’s
true,” I grumbled.

He took a sip of
wine then gestured toward my bottle with the glass in his hand. “You always
enjoy libations on your breaks?” His tone was low and slightly condescending.

Who the hell said
libations? I looked up at him, an innocent expression purposely on my face.
“No, but then I usually don’t pull three fifteen-hour days in a row.” My
expression turned level. I shoved the bottle of champagne in the sand. “I’m a
definite eight-hours-a-day type of girl.”

His mouth twisted as
if he were holding in a frown or maybe a smirk. “Can’t handle the workload?”

Though I tried to
stay calm—Kara’s voice in my head attempted to shut me up—my glare turned murderous.
“Oh, I’ll get done. Come Sunday morning, you’ll have all your charts, reports,
and whatever else you demanded.”

“Demanded?” he
repeated dryly.

I shrugged.
“Required?”

“Yes, fulfilling
requirements would be why you were employed.” He shifted his squat to stare
down at me. His hazel eyes were simply stunning in the setting sun. The brown
in them had turned to a lovely golden hue.

Bastard.
 

“Seriously?” I said
cynically, and Kara’s voice in my head echoed, screaming at me to shut up. I
ignored it and glared at him. “Had I known you were running a sweatshop, I
would have never taken this job.” Actually, I wouldn’t have taken this job at
all except for my three losing aces. My hands began to move furiously as I
spoke, cutting the air between us. “I mean, really, seriously?” My head reared
back. “I expected to work and work hard, but…but the last three days have been
ridiculous! I’ve averaged four hours a night of sleep. I’ve subsisted on room
service. My room is plastered with every chart imaginable. And other than this
short break, I haven’t left my room except to print massive amounts of useless
crap.”