The Tycoon's Seductive Revenge(16)

“Isn’t this perfect?” She jumped up and down. “This is just what the hotel needs to attract the kind of patrons it used to back in the day.”

“Ellie, I think you’re missing the best feature.” Carter strode past her toward the far wall.

“What could be better than this room’s history?” she asked, still dazzled by the possibilities of how much tourism this could draw.

“Liquid gold, baby.” Using his flashlight he scanned the circle of light over stacks of wooden crates and barrels piled up to the ceiling.

Pulling one crate from a lower stack, Carter set it on the floor and pried off the weathered lid. The contents revealed tightly packed bottles.

His eyebrows shot up. “Now this is something.” He smeared caked-on grime from the bottle’s label. “Vintage, bootlegged rum.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe they left this here.”

“Do you think they were raided?” Ellie suggested.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “The fact is we’re sitting on dozens of cases of nearly century-old liquor and wine. That, sweetheart, will draw tourists with deep pockets from all over the world. You could sell the entire collection for a mint.”

With a grunt he popped the top off the bottle he held. “We should drink—to old times.”

Ellie smiled at his double-entendre. She slipped behind the bar and rummaged around until she knocked into a row of glasses. Holding one up, she wrinkled her nose. “I think I’ll take my rum extra-dry, without a twist of mildew.”

Carter nodded. “Let’s bring it topside.”

They hurried up the secret staircase, sharing grand visions of the speakeasy’s rehab and laughing about their find. Entering the Great Room, Carter went behind the empty hotel bar and helped himself to two glasses. Lifting the lid of the cooler, he scooped ice cubes into their cut-glass challises. Light golden liquid splashed over the ice.

“Drink it straight?” he asked.

She nodded. “Why ruin a good thing?”

Carter reached over the bar and pulled her lips to his, sucking and tasting her, nibbling on her lower lip. “You are more than any man could ask for.”

Ellie’s stomach flipped. She licked her lips then held up her glass. “To old times.”

“To old times,” he echoed. He sent her a sultry stare over the rim of his glass as he drank, draining the entire thing in one gulp.

Ellie didn’t fare so well. She managed two swigs before she choked and coughed. A trail of fire went from her throat to her gut. She made a horrible face and spat the remainder back into her glass. “I think I’ll take some cola with my rum,” she wheezed.

“Good call.” He picked up the beverage gun and splashed dark soda into her glass, adding a dash to his own. Then he came out from behind the bar and pulled a stool right next to hers. He set his foot on her stool’s bottom rung, enclosing her between his muscular leg and the gleaming oak bar. “So what do you plan to do with your new-found loot?”

She drew her lips to one side, considering the possibilities. “Well, it would be a great way to attract tourists, like you mentioned,” she said brightly.

He peered at her. “You can do a lot more than that.”

“Like what?”

“Sell it, would be my recommendation.”

“All of it?”

“Keep the hotel stocked with a six-month supply, to get people’s attention. But with a stash like that, you’re better off auctioning it to the highest bidder.”

Running a hand through her hair, she admitted, “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

Carter dug out his wallet. “I know this broker who might be able to help you. At least he’d be helping somebody,” he muttered like an afterthought.

Withdrawing a stack of cards that could rival a Fortune 500 CEO’s rolodex, he sifted through them. Ellie noted the discard pile contained plenty of high-profile people in the hotel industry. “Don’t you have someone to keep track of your communications?”

He continued sorting. “Sure, Mirella is great handling my day-to-day contacts and phone calls. But I’m a hands-on kind of guy.”

Mirella? How many women did he interact with on a daily basis? She watched him discard several other business cards that had phone numbers scribbled on them, undeniably in female handwriting. How many girls passed him their numbers every night? How many women was he dating?

Ellie exhaled, appalled with herself. What did it matter? She wasn’t his keeper. He could talk to any woman he wanted.

“Here we go.” Carter slid a business card across the bar, pocketing the rest. “Call Neville. He’ll get the connection to big-name auction houses like Sotheby’s or Christie’s.” He sipped his drink, while she accepted the broker’s business card. “Tell him you won’t accept less than one million.”