I point to my heart. “Ummm....”
“No.” He sighs. “I am absolutely not trivializing what you live with, day in and day out, but no. It’s not the same as loving someone who has it.”
I frown. Where’s he going with this?
“When we learned Elena was severely allergic we went to the best specialists. Took all the preventive measures. Trained the boys and had them tested. I took every damn precaution known to man, mitigated risk as much as possible, and—” He spreads his hands out in a gesture of supplication. “Look what happened.”
“You can’t live in a bubble,” I say, helpless.
“Do you understand,” he says through gritted teeth, “what it is like to live in constant, vigilant fear that the person you love can, through the simple, random accident of brushing up against a bee or a wasp, be taken from you? To twitch every spring and to sigh with relief every fall at the first frost? To live in that state incurs a kind of madness.”
I really don’t know what to say, so I finish my drink and eat more bread.
“Trust me,” he says, his eyes searching for and finding Andrew, who is polishing glasses at the bar. James returns his attention to me, his eyes red-rimmed, the loose skin of an old man making him seem even sadder. “That’s no way to live your life.”
“Neither is cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
Resentful eyes meet mine. “Ah, if only life were so simple.”
I stand, my appetite long gone, legs wobbly but mind very, very clear. “You make it more complex than it needs to be, and you are teaching your sons all the wrong things. What about love? You loved your wife, didn’t you?”
He leaps to his feet. We’re making a scene. So much for professional standards. At this point, the ruse that I’m mystery shopping anything other than my own freaking life is over.
“Of course I loved her. More than life itself.”
“People say that, but it’s not true.”
He just stares at me, red-faced and angry.
“If you love anything more than life itself, that means you’d rather be dead. And you’re not. You chose to live after her passing.”
“That wasn’t an easy decision.”
“And now you are emotionally crippling your sons!”
“I don’t need you to play armchair psychologist with me, Shannon,” he spits out.
“You need someone to play psychologist, Dad,” says Guido, who has mysteriously appeared behind us. One look at his face, then James’ angry eyes, and it all clicks.
“Terrance,” I whisper. “You’re not Guido.”
He gives a twisted smile. “And you’re not an executive here for a night.”
“What is this?” I demand. “Why are you both and Andrew and Declan all pretending to be hotel employees?”
“Amanda told us—” James starts.
“Really? This was set up by Amanda?”
“She suggested we each take two hours to learn more about the inner life of our property.”
“And have you?”
“I’ve learned quite a bit, Shannon,” James says over his shoulder as he leaves. “More than I ever wanted to know.”
I take a few shaky steps and stumble. Terrance/Guido grabs my elbow.
“How many drinks did you have?” he asks in that deep voice. My panties are wet, though that might be from the melting bar stools from before.
“Enough to tell your father off.”
“That many? I’m impressed.” He helps me walk toward the elevator and asks for my floor number. I type in 14 and step back.
“Terrance,” I say simply.
“Call me Terry. Impressive,” he says, his eyes combing over me.
“You’re going to hit on me, too? I’m kind of done with that, thanks,” I sigh. Between Declan’s kiss and Pete’s thigh comments I think I’ll become a nun.
“No, just...Declan’s spoken so highly of you. Plus you have a really interesting vibrator. I’ve never seen one before that can fly and stop traffic like that.” Those words come out of his mouth just as an older couple comes to the bank of elevators and starts to press the buttons for their floor. The man halts in mid air, finger an inch from the numbers.
Mercifully, my elevator arrives and Terry escorts me on to it. The older couple doesn’t join us. We ride in quiet, the enclosed space spinning just a bit, my body warming up to him. Of Declan’s brothers he looks the most like him, and for as angry as I am at Declan, I want him, too.
Terry gets me to my room and says, “Nice meeting you, finally.”
I snort. “Not that it matters. Declan dumped me. But nice meeting you, Guido.”
And with that, I key into my room, flop down on the bed and everything fades to black.
I took a chance on you.
* * *
Someone is knocking on my door. I sit up, disoriented. The wind’s blowing the curtains and moonlight streams into the dark room.
Darkness. Nighttime. When did that happen? I climbed onto the bed in the day time, and now...
A glance at the bedside clock tells me it’s 10:22 p.m.
What?
I sit up as the person outside the door knocks again, harder this time, like a man banging with the edge of his fist.
“Room service,” says a muffled man’s voice.
Room service? Did I order room service? I know I was supposed to as part of the mystery shop, but I don’t remember it.
I sit up, my mouth dry, and rub my eyes repeatedly. A deep inhale and I launch myself up. A gurgle, deep inside my belly, makes me realize I’m ravenous.
Maybe I did call and order dinner? If so, what the heck am I about to eat?
I open the door and there’s Declan, standing behind a room service cart loaded with covered dishes.
I close the door in his face.
Not that hungry.
Back pressed against the door, I fight my way to full wakefulness, heart slamming against my breastbone. I’m still mad at him, aren’t I? By all rights I should be. And yet as the details from my conversations earlier in the night come flooding in, a calm sense of equivocation fills me. I bite my lower lip, hard, trying to wake up. To shake some sense into me.
Tap tap tap.
“Shannon?” His voice is contrite. This is new. “Please? You need to eat. Andrew and Terry are worried about you.”
Worried?
“They said you were drinking quite a bit, something about a guy hitting on you in the bar, my dad being an ass**le and...” His voice winds down into a frustrated snarl. “Just let me in. Take the food. I want to make sure you’re well.”