Page 9 of Breathe
Chapter 4
The fifteen-minute walk back to her office helped Ellen to calm down. On the third floor of the Rosette’s flagship nineteenth-century building, right above the conference rooms and event spaces she was in charge of, she truly did feel safe. She had set definite rules here, and after one or two false starts, the men she worked with followed them. She’d never had any trouble with her own boss, but some of the other men had asked her out when she’d first come to the hotel, and she’d had to make it abundantly clear that she was not on the menu.
She stopped briefly at her boss’s office. “How did it go?” Jon said.
Jon was officially safe. A small, intense man, with short brown hair and a well-trimmed beard, Jon had pulled himself up from valet to marketing director, and had nothing less than the chairmanship in his sights. Ellen had met his wife and their children, and Jon’s ambition was all for them. He was the only man she was really comfortable around.
“With Lucía? Okay.” She didn’t want to mention that her impending transfer had put a damper on Lucía’s enthusiasm. Since she’d just spent fifteen minutes telling herself to forget him, she also didn’t mention Kane Fielding. “She thought our numbers were a little high.”
“Only okay? What else does she want?”
“To meet the rest of the department. I’ll follow up with her.” It was true, even if it wasn’t the answer to his question.
“By the way, Claire Holland was looking for you.”
“Oh. Yippee.”
Claire was the HR manager for the hotel, and despite being English like Ellen, the two had never been friends. The hotel usually only kept its international employees in one place for two years. Jon had petitioned to keep Ellen on for another two, after she’d produced a Queen’s Ball more glamorous and sophisticated than he could ever have managed. Claire had taken the extra paperwork involved as a personal affront. “She wants to make sure I’m really going this time,” Ellen added with a wry smile.
“And are you?”
“Yes,” she said heartily, though she found it hard to meet Jon’s eye. “Onward and upward, as they say.”
Jon sighed. He’d suggested last month that when he went for a promotion, she should take over the marketing department. Ellen had clamped down on the leap in her heart at that idea and given him her excellent reasons for going.
Jon gave her a slightly more focused glance. “You all right? Did you get lunch yet?”
“Oh, no, not yet.” She didn’t want to think about what Jon was reading in her face. “I’ll get something now. Let me know if you think of anything else I need to do for the ball.”
Her afternoon was spent on the phone, working on the minutiae of the event. Every decision made and small crisis averted calmed her, helped her get back to her own reality. With so many details, and only one week to go, she was almost, almost, able to put Kane Fielding and his intense stare out of her mind.
Bill Cohen, the operations manager for the hotel, called to tell her his department had found forty chairs that needed repair or replacement, and that he was dealing with it. She thanked him in what she hoped was a repressive tone. Bill was older and more old-fashioned and loved to tease her about her lack of social life. He couldn’t be convinced that the subject made Ellen uncomfortable, if not downright mad.
Her tone didn’t even make a dent. “So does CinderEllen have a date for the ball?” he asked, in a jovial voice that had her gritting her teeth.
“CinderEllen’s going to be too busy to take anyone to the ball,” she said. Bill laughed and hung up. She made a mental note to put him as far from her table as possible on the night.
She was just thinking she would need one more cup of tea to get her through the last couple of hours of the day, when the phone rang. It was reception, which was bizarre. She didn’t know anyone who wouldn’t use the business entrance at the back of the hotel if they wanted to meet with her.
“Ms. Hunter?” came her best friend’s voice.
“Penny? What’s with the Ms.—?”
“I have a Mr. Fielding here to see you,” Penny interrupted. Ellen could hear the repressed scream of excitement in her voice. Penny knew full well who Kane Fielding was, spent most of her days defending him to Ellen—well, not defending, exactly, just implying that she herself would not throw him out of bed for eating crackers. If he stood in front of Penny much longer, he probably wouldn’t even make it up to the offices.
Much easier to think about Penny’s reaction than admitting that her own breathing had just shortened and the blood had—dammit—rushed back to her cheeks. What was he doing here? Had she left something at his office? No, that was ridiculous. He’d never come himself to return it. Did he have a question about the presentation? He could have picked up the phone. Could he possibly want to take her up on the invitation to meet the rest of the department? At four o’clock on a Friday with no appointment? He had to be out of his mind.
Or was he here... for her?
No. It couldn’t be that. Apart from a couple of vague innuendos, he’d been nothing but professional. And she wasn’t even his type. He preferred bubbly blondes with large chests who could gaze up at him with puppy-dog eyes. Kind of like Penny.
Yeah, like Kane Fielding would be interested in you.
She looked down at her own lack of assets, gave a snort of laughter, and remembered that Penny was waiting for an answer. “Well, I suppose you’d better send him up.”
“Certainly; I’ll do that!” came Penny’s voice, the epitome of enthusiastic American customer service. Knowing that Penny was going to grill her for every detail as soon as work was over, Ellen smoothed her skirt and made sure her jacket was firmly buttoned before going to the office lobby.
He came through the doors, all six-foot-whatever of him, in the same slightly rumpled suit that showed off those shoulders, and that white shirt that still looked so good against the skin of his neck. Whatever calm she’d gained from laughing at herself fled.
