Page 20 of The Truth About De Campo

And if a man was crazy to walk away from her, then how had he just done it so easily?

Quinn, the queen of business, the queen of logic, suddenly had to swallow a very bitter pill. Last night might have been explosive. A once-in-a-lifetime chemistry. But she wasn’t worth a ten-million-dollar deal.

It was that simple.

She stood up with a squeal of her chair that made the couple at the next table stare. It’s not as if she should be surprised. When it came to Quinn Davis, there was always a reason to leave.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THINGS ALWAYS GOT worse before they got better.

Wasn’t that the saying?

Matteo sat at the lobby bar of Le Belle Bleu knocking back a local beer as the last of the contractors beat a hasty retreat before Quinn could catch them and ask for just one more thing to be done. They were wary of her perfectionism, working like dogs to get the last cosmetic fixes done to the restaurant and bar before the hotel was unveiled to everyone who mattered in five days. But at some point they had to sleep. Not that Quinn seemed to have noticed. Or needed to herself...

When the scale of the work to be done had become clear, he’d offered to stay and help manage the contractors. Quinn couldn’t do it all on her own and his familiarity with the contractors went a long way. He had to be back in New York right after the reopening for a board meeting and then in Chicago for the pitch, but at least he could help her get the doors open. Make the hotel shine for its debut.

He’d worked side by side, day and night with her and François to get the menus fixed and the human machinery of the bar and restaurant functioning as a five-star hotel should. Now it was just a question of execution. Could the chefs perfect the dishes? Could the bartenders master the complex cocktail list they’d created? Could the staff come together like the well-oiled machine they needed to be to impress a crowd that would be discerning to a fault?

He reached up and massaged the back of his neck. He was beat. Exhausted. But it was worth it. Daniel Williams had boarded a flight back to the outback looking utterly disgruntled at leaving the competition behind. Quinn was relying more on Matteo every day. It was exactly where he wanted to be. But funnily enough, this hadn’t been all about his endgame. Quinn was struggling. She’d taken on a task no human being could do by themselves and refused to admit she was in over her head. She’d plowed ahead against the odds with a mind so patently brilliant he could see why she’d gotten where she had at such a young age.

They might, just might, pull this off.

His mouth quirked. Her management style could use an overhaul. Her passion for what she did meant she came on a bit strong. But everyone, right down to the busboys and bartenders, respected her work ethic. Even Raymond Bernard, presently making his way across the lobby with Quinn, seemed to be catching the fever. He might even keep his job at this rate.

The pair pulled to a halt in front of him. Matteo studied the dark circles under Quinn’s eyes. She needed help. More than he could give her. She looked longingly at his beer. “Our sommelier’s flight was canceled. He’ll be here first thing in the morning instead.”

“So we come back then?”

“We have a big storm rolling in.” Raymond gestured toward the darkening sky. “I don’t advise you driving back to Paradis under those conditions, not on these roads.”

Quinn gave the sky an uncertain look. “It won’t be that bad, do you think?”

The manager lifted his shoulders. “It’s going to be a proper tropical storm. I wouldn’t chance it.”

Her brow furrowed. “Are they finished with the floors on any of the suites?”

“The Dolphin Suite, yes. I had them finish it in case you wanted to stay.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded. “Everything else is still being polished. That one has three bedrooms in it though.”

Quinn caught her lip between her teeth. Matteo could have saved them all the breath and suggested that, no, staying here in a suite with Quinn with the electricity that raged between them was a distinctly bad idea. However, even he, a lover of windy roads and tricky driving, didn’t relish the thought of traversing the narrow, hair-raising St. Lucian highways in a tropical downpour.

Quinn glanced at him. “Okay if we stay?”

“Of course.” He could make it through one night with a single wall between them. Couldn’t he? He’d managed to get through an entire week without putting his hands on her. Had kept things straight as a board between them. This was definitely doable.

“All right then, thank you,” Quinn accepted. “We’ll stay.”

They raided the hotel boutique for a change of clothes while Raymond got them a key. Quinn held up a tangerine-colored bikini. “I need a swim,” she said with a grimace. “Get yourself some trunks.”

He stared at the curtain of the changing room as it flapped shut behind her. Was she crazy? What planet was she on? Sharing a hotel suite was bad enough. Getting naked with her was insanity.

Not happening.

Except he was severely hot and tired. He needed to unwind from the pressure cooker that was Quinn, and a beer in the plunge pool or hot tub was an irresistible siren’s call. Mouth tightening, he grabbed a pair of trunks, an extra shirt and a pair of khakis. He could swim while she was working. God knew she did it 24/7.

* * *

Showered and changed into casual pants and a polo shirt, Matteo emerged from his bedroom into the main living area of the luxury oceanfront suite destined to house heads of state and rock stars, to find Quinn pacing the space, phone pressed to her ear, her gait agitated, voice sharp.

Not something he needed to be present for, he decided, walking out onto the terrace. He took in the forbiddingly dark sky, its ominous gray-black clouds that seemed to hang suspended over the island. Raymond had been right. It was going to be a proper tropical storm, hard and heavy, any minute now. There was nothing like an island rainstorm to relieve the tension and humidity in the air, and right now they both needed it. Badly.

He fought the urge to strip down and dive into the ocean and stay there. No swimming allowed until Quinn, in that sapphire-blue dress of hers, which made the most of her voluptuous figure, was safely immersed in work and the sweats he now knew she preferred to do it in.

Focus. Get the job done, Matteo.

Quinn’s voice floated out onto the terrace, hard, determined. “No, Warren, I do not need you to fly down here. It’s coming together.”

A pause. “You don’t trust me.”

Another pause. “I’m fine. Focus on the U.S. hotels. The reopening will go off without a hitch, I promise you.”

If everything fell into place. He winced as he thought about how much there was still left to do in five short days.

The rest of the conversation was short, abrupt. The ping-pong back-and-forth of two intensely driven, strong wills ended in a defiant silence. It was a good five minutes before Quinn joined him on the terrace, her green eyes glimmering with frustration, full mouth drooping with fatigue.

“Where is the wine?”

He poured her a glass of the sparkling white chilling in the ice bucket. “When,” he asked quietly, handing it to her, “are you going to admit you’re human like the rest of us?”

The tigerlike fierceness he’d come to know so well sparked in her eyes. “It’s not that,” she growled, taking the glass from him. “He never fully trusts me with anything. He says he does, then he undercuts me. He has to put his stamp on everything. Point out where I’m lacking...”

Matteo shrugged. “It sounded to me like he was offering help.”

Her mouth twisted. “He only offers it when he thinks you’re about to screw up.”

“Maybe you’re looking at it the wrong way,” he suggested. “The most successful people in the world don’t do it on their own. They surround themselves with good people.”

She lifted her chin as if she hadn’t even heard him. “Once, just once, I’d like to do it on my own. Prove that I am not successful just because I am Warren’s daughter, but because of my damned impressive abilities.”

“I don’t think anyone’s doubting that.”

“Yes, they do. All the time the other vice presidents take shots at me. I’ve heard them behind my back.”

He took a sip of his wine. “So you’re going to spend the rest of your career worrying about what everyone else thinks?”

She pointed her glass at him, antagonism darkening her eyes. “Do you know that after I made the top thirty under thirty list, Warren did not say a word of congratulations to me? Not a word. He said, and I quote, ‘It’s too bad you weren’t the first woman on it.’”

Matteo blinked. “Perhaps it’s not his thing to give compliments then, but I’m sure he was proud of you. He had to have been. That list is brutally hard to get on to.”

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