Page 54 of Turn Up The Heat

Bellamy looked at Holly and laughed. “Wow. Hello just isn’t in your repertoire, is it?”

Holly looked back as if Bellamy had lost her mind. “Um, no. So?”

“So, to answer your question, I’m fine,” Bellamy said. She hugged Holly, then Jenna, before heading into the kitchenette with both of them hot on her heels.

Jenna fastened her with a wry smile. “Glad you’re back in one piece. There’s got to be at least a foot of snow on the ground out there.” She clucked her tongue and aimed her glance at the postcard-perfect view from the main room of the suite.

“Fifteen inches, but that’s the unofficial total.” At least, that’s what Jackson had said just before they’d left the garage, with Bellamy following slowly behind. The roads were still pretty slick, but the longer trip back gave her plenty of time to think about all that had happened in the last couple of days.

Some of the images were a lot more appealing than others.

Bellamy pressed her glorious post-sex smile between her lips in an effort to conceal it. “Do we have any food left? I’m starving.” Her stomach chose that exact moment to chime in with a loud gurgle, and for the first time in twenty-four hours, she realized how hungry she really was.

“Oh, God, honey. Of course you should eat.” Holly rushed forward to yank on random cupboard doors. “And if you should feel some burning urge to, I don’t know, tell us every gory detail of being stuck in a blizzard with the red-hot mechanic guy in between bites, we wouldn’t shush you. Pretzels?” She shook a half-empty bag at Bellamy, eyebrows lifted.

“That’ll work.” At this stage of the game, Bellamy wasn’t above instant gratification to keep her stomach from imploding, although what she really needed was an actual meal, complete with food groups. “But I’d give my left arm for a good omelet.”

Jenna snorted and slid onto a stool at the breakfast bar. “Then don’t order one from room service.”

“Right. I’ve got to get back to Joe’s. I think I can finagle flatbread pizzas out of that toaster oven if I play my cards right.” Bellamy canted her head at the oven where she’d successfully melted the Brie over thick slices of French bread a couple days earlier. The pretzels were kind of a disappointment after the thought of pizza, but she was too hungry to be picky.

“Why would you go grocery shopping when we’ll be back in the city by nightfall? Ooooh, we can hit up Pietro’s for dinner if you want a pizza,” Holly said, leaning against the counter opposite Jenna, who chimed in with bright eyes.

“Oh, hell yes. Pietro’s might make the fact that I have to get up at oh-dark-thirty for work tomorrow at least alittlemore bearable. We’re already a day behind getting back, what with Mother Nature’s arctic tantrum. Hey, speaking of which, did you get the thing with your car ironed out? I can run you back up here on Saturday if you want. For a nominal bribe, of course.” Jenna winked at her over the rim of her coffee mug before making a face at its contents.

Bellamy pressed her lips together for an altogether different reason than she had a moment before and shifted her weight back and forth in the doorframe of the kitchen.“Yeah. About that.” She hedged for just a second before realizing that it was better to just say what had tumbled around in her mind the whole way back from the garage. “I’m not going home with you guys today.”

“You’re whaaaaa?” Holly was nothing if not eloquent. She pushed off from the counter to gape at Bellamy.

But somewhere between mile marker 46 and the front gates of the resort, her mind had been made up, and backing down wasn’t part of the deal. “I’m not going home with you guys today. I’m going to stay here for the rest of the week until my car is done.” Despite the fact that her words scared the crap out of her, they felt deliciously good as they rolled off her tongue. Well, maybe deliciously good spiced with just a teensy hint of what-the-hell-am-I-doing, but still. At eighty/twenty, she’d take it.

Jenna’s eyebrows lifted so high they were in danger of merging with her hairline. “Are you serious?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I have a lot to think about. I need to figure out this career nightmare, and making another error in judgment isn’t something I can afford, literally or figuratively.” Bellamy winced, but continued. “Look, I know me. If I go back to the city to think it through, it’s bound to cloud my decision. I’ll get maybe two floors up on my way to clean out my desk before the guilt kills me. Then I’ll just end up in HR, groveling for my job back in less time than you can say ‘pretty please with sugar on top.’”

She held up a hand for emphasis. “I’m not saying it’s out of the question for me to stay at the bank on another team, or to go somewhere else as an analyst. But I have a lot of options, and they’re overwhelming as hell. I need to think about my next step in an impartial setting with no added pressure, that’s all.”

“But we already checked out,” Holly said, pausing to chew her lip.

The fact that her two best friends both had jobs to get back to wasn’t lost on Bellamy, even if it did sting a little. “I know, and I know you both need to go home. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine here. It’ll only be for four days, or maybe five, depending on how long my transmission takes.”

Jenna tilted her head, eyes narrowed. “This decision wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with a certain tall, dark and handsome car mechanic, would it?”

“Nope. Not at all.” Bellamy picked some microscopic lint off of her sweater and went across the room to dial down the thermostat. Spending twenty-four hours in that drafty garage must have thrown her system out of whack. The suite was hotter than hell.

“Not even a tiny bit?” Jenna asked, and Bellamy pursed her lips over a smile.

“Not even a tiny bit.”

“So, not evenonemolecule of you is staying in the hopes that you’ll see Shane again?” Jenna crossed her arms over her chest, firm with teasing disbelief.

“I’m not staying here to be with him on a molecular level or any other level, no.”

Bellamy’s mind flitted back to the backflip her stomach had done when he’d wrapped his arms around her and breathed goodnight into her hair. Okay, so maybe her molecules had had a weak moment. But it was just the one. And she sure as hell wasn’t stayingjust so she could see him again. She had a career to salvage.

No matter how warm and strong and downright perfect Shane had felt with his arms around her.

Holly sighed, breaking into Bellamy’s thoughts. “That’s it? Not one speck of gossip? Not one iotaof dishy goodness? Can you at least tell me if he’s still a good kisser?”

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