From Ex to Eternity(18)
She wanted to know what love looked like—felt like—in a relationship. She wanted to know what love felt like in their relationship. True love, not the pale shadow of affection they’d held for each other before.
The kiss deepened and Keith drenched her senses with his hard masculine body and powerful, purposeful hands. She inhaled him. He shifted a knee between her legs, and the rough friction sparked at her core. Hot and thick desire billowed over her skin, scorching her from the inside out.
Keith’s phone beeped, startling her and effectively breaking the mood. How had she gotten so lost in him so fast? They were both in the middle of the biggest projects of their respective careers and all she could think about was exploring the depths of the man in charge.
Pulling back, she peered up at him. “Do you need to get that?”
“Wasn’t planning on it.” He made a noise of disgust. “Guess I will now.”
She smiled at his consternation. “We can pick this up again later.”
His wolfish smile put the exclamation point on it. “That was always going to happen. I was thinking we could pick it up again now and later.”
Clarity rushed in to fill the space where the saturation of Keith had been a moment ago.
She made a face. “Despite the logic in testing all aspects of the room, we both have a lot of work to do today. Besides, if we really wanted to do it right, we’d have to test the bed in every room.”
“Funny, I was thinking the same thing.” Keith glanced at his phone and spit out the filthiest curse in his vocabulary.
He uttered that word in her presence only when something really bad had happened. “What’s going on?”
Seven
Now that Cara had put the brakes on what would have surely turned into a naked free-for-all, Keith was having a hard time getting his body to understand playtime was over.
And over in a big way.
He glanced at the message on his phone again in a poor attempt to reorient. Instead of siphoning the blood from his lower half and returning it to his brain—where it needed to be—all his phone did was infuriate him further. The news hadn’t changed.
“Looks like we’re inspecting these rooms for no reason,” he explained and ungritted his teeth. “Tropical Storm Mark has shut down Providenciales Airport.”
As if this project needed another complication.
“What does that mean? The expo is canceled?” Worry crinkled the corners of Cara’s eyes.
He’d prefer it if her gaze was still full of come-hither. He blew out his frustration in a heavy sigh and tapped a quick message to Elena, the resort manager, on his phone. “No way. Well...I don’t know. But we have to assume the airport will be reopened in a few hours. And if it is, we have to be prepared for the expo to go on as scheduled.”
Which vastly increased his mile-long to-do list. Additional staff members should have arrived today, all of whom had critical roles in preparing for a wide range of expo elements.
Was it five o’clock yet? Hell, the rapid deterioration of Keith’s mood and the expo might call for tequila shots in the middle of the day regardless of his rules against drinking on the job.
The interruption and subsequent issues were both nasty reminders that he wasn’t on vacation with Cara, free to seduce her into having sex on the beach, skinny-dipping in the hot tub or taking a long shower together. The only water in their future was pouring down from the sky.
It was unsettling to realize he resented the gargantuan pile of tasks standing between him and what he wanted. Turning this resort into a premier wedding destination was his job, and the number of zeroes Regent had tacked on to the end of his paycheck made it well worth his while. But for the first time in his professional life, what he wanted had nothing to do with the job.
Frustrated beyond all belief, he sent another text to Alice, instructing her to call a meeting with the core management team. Everyone would look to him for leadership in the wake of the airport closures and imminent storm, and he couldn’t fail them.
“I’ve got to finish these rooms and then run to a meeting,” he said instead of laying Cara on the bed as he’d planned.
Cara picked up her tablet from the dresser where she’d dropped it earlier. “I take it we won’t be picking things up later?”
There was no way he’d have time for Cara later—she deserved more than a fifteen-minute quickie. He deserved more than that.
Well, there was one way. According to Cara’s philosophy, being the boss meant you could order your employees to do extra work. Perhaps it was time to delegate a few things.
“If I can plow through the most critical issues, I’ll text you, maybe around nine. Come to my room and have a drink. Don’t be late,” he advised.
“Or what?” she shot back.
“Or I’ll come looking for you and you will lose one article of clothing for every minute it takes me to find you.”
She laughed throatily. “Are you trying to get me there on time or convince me I’d rather be tardy?”
“Go.” He pushed her gently in the direction of the door. “Finish the rooms on your side, and for God’s sake, let me do mine without you entering any more of your air-conditioner grievances onto the record.”
They parted and he didn’t stop checking off items on the inspection list until Alice texted him that everyone was in the staff meeting room in the main building. He dashed through the rain, and spent the afternoon having terse conversations about fun concepts like contingency plans, insurance claims and flood preparation.
It took a supreme act of will to remain focused, especially when he’d rather be drowning his sorrows in Cara. Elena ordered food to be brought in at some point and Keith ate without tasting it, one ear on Mary as she talked through ideas for how to move the expo indoors. The remainder of his attention stayed fixed to his computer screen, where a constantly refreshing radar image tracked Mark.
The good news: the tropical storm hadn’t been upgraded to a hurricane.
The bad news: it was still a tropical storm and the airport hadn’t been reopened.
Alice typed up notes and split the tasks amongst the senior management. Keith’s list contained exactly the same number as everyone else’s because at the end of the day, he didn’t have the heart to foist more work on his staff just because he had a selfish desire to get an old flame between the sheets.
No one left the little meeting room and Keith didn’t look up until nearly ten o’clock. Wind howled outside, occasionally gripping solid objects and flinging them against the side of the building. The storm had slowed the moment it hit land and battered the island for hours.
The airport remained closed indefinitely and Keith’s doubled workload had decreased by two items in two hours. The long evening loomed, promising to be lonely and stressful, but only because he’d hoped to have other plans. Most days, stress couldn’t touch him because he lived and breathed his work and liked it that way.
Elena plopped into the next chair and put her head in her hands, groaning.
“Yeah,” Keith commiserated. “Tell me about it.”
“It’s that definition of insanity. You know, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? I look at the agenda for the expo, and every time I think I’m going to see a magic solution that will allow us to kick it off tomorrow as planned.”
“There’s no magic. Just hours upon hours of hard work for zero payoff.” Normally, he’d sugarcoat a comment like that at least a little bit, but he was out of both sugar and patience.
Elena frowned. “That’s unacceptable.”
And that was typically Keith’s line. An unwillingness to fail coupled with hard-core will got him through the day.
“You’re right. There will be a payoff. Eventually.” It was just hard to see it right this minute through the red haze of professional and personal roadblocks. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’ve been putting in twelve-and sixteen-hour days for weeks,” Elena said mildly. “Take a break. The storm is going to do what it’s going to do and no spreadsheet in existence will change that. Let’s reconvene in the morning, assuming any of the resort is left standing around us.”
His grin felt a little flat but it was genuine. That’s why he’d handpicked Elena Moore—she had a pragmatism he appreciated. Especially when all he really wanted to do was text Cara and see if she’d still meet him for a drink in his room.
“That’s a great idea.” Without hesitation, he grabbed his phone and typed a message.
He hit Send, stood and gathered his laptop and other stuff, which had somehow become strewn across the table.
If Cara wasn’t already asleep, he’d get a chance to blow off some of his personal frustration. The professional frustration would have to wait until dawn.
Like a teenager, he held his phone in his hand, screen up, so he’d see the return text from Cara the moment it arrived.
Nothing.
Maybe she was making a point, refusing to answer because it was way past nine o’clock and he’d made such a big deal about punctuality.
He dashed to his room without an umbrella. The wind nearly knocked him sideways, but he finally got a hand on the door and pushed his way inside, already soaking wet.