Weekend in Vegas!: Saving Cinderella!

“I’m sorry. Did I do something wrong?”

Wyatt wanted to groan. “No, Jenna. And, yes, it’s a great idea. Alex has come up with another way to improve McKendrick’s.” What was he going to do when she had gone? he wondered, knowing he wasn’t thinking only of the hotel. He frowned again, then remembered Jenna. “So…you think it will work?” he asked her, trying to be encouraging. Jenna hadn’t been here very long. He didn’t want her to think he was crazy. The CEO of Champagne would certainly love that, wouldn’t he?

“Oh, I think it’d be great,” Jenna said. “I’d totally sign up if they were held here. What could be more convenient?”

The people in the group agreed, although some of them still looked as if they weren’t quite sure what had just happened.

Wyatt wasn’t sure, either, but it was probably a good thing that Jenna had interrupted. He was completely losing his selfcontrol where Alex was concerned.

He could still taste her. He wanted to go looking for her to finish what they’d started. Only two things stopped him. Alex had been hurt so badly in the past that she had walked away from men and love forever. And he was still the same man he’d been this morning. A loner. Incapable of maintaining a long-term relationship. If he couldn’t offer her more than the disappointing men she’d already suffered through, then he didn’t have the right to pursue her. He refused to be the next disappointing jerk in her life. He couldn’t be the man who finally broke her spirit.

He wanted to shore up Alex’s spirit. She’d had to handle a nasty situation. His contribution couldn’t have made her day less trying, either. And if he was part of the problem…well, who did she have to share her troubles with? No one, it seemed. She was cut off from the home she loved, without her lifeline. There was no one with whom to discuss the problems her life as his concierge had brought about.

Wyatt swore. In the past couple of weeks he’d begun to learn how Alex operated. She went all out to help people, and sometimes people—unscrupulous men—took advantage of her good nature. He had taken advantage today, and once she had time to think, she might beat herself up for letting him kiss her again.

In fact, too much had happened to Alex since he’d yanked her out of the life she loved. She’d been pushed too far, thrown into situations she never should have been forced to handle. Alex needed backup, maybe even comfort.

For half a second he thought again about spiriting her away to the Haven, his hideaway…a place he never showed anyone. But he immediately dismissed the idea.

That wasn’t the right place for her, and he wasn’t the right person for the job. At all. But he knew who might be. Just because he had no need for friends didn’t mean that he had missed the fact that Alex did need them.

CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_18ffae6c-364f-5bcf-b5a1-5ef020a8e44f)

ANTICIPATION built within Alex as the limo dropped her off in front of Tableau, a restaurant located in an atrium, surrounded by pools. She opened the door and went inside.

Immediately she heard a squeal. “Alex!”

Molly came running up to her and gave her a big hug. Jayne and Serena were only steps behind.

Alex’s throat clogged with happy tears. Somehow Wyatt had managed to fly Jayne and Molly out, and he’d located Serena and arranged this meeting.

She couldn’t help wondering why. Wyatt’s explanation had simply been that he knew she missed her friends. That seemed too simple, but she did miss them. And she needed to see them, to get her head on straight.

After Wyatt had kissed her crazy in the conference room the other day, she’d gone to her room, bent over to keep from fainting and prayed she would get a brain, get a clue, and stop longing to be held in Wyatt’s arms. There was zero payoff in getting involved with him. This time, unlike the other times in her life, she’d been warned.

“Alex, you look so far away,” Molly was saying.

Alex shook her head. “Sorry. You know me. It takes a few minutes to come down from the clouds and forget work.”

What was it that was different about Molly? she wondered, looking more closely at her friend. Something wasn’t right there. But when she voiced her concerns to Molly, her friend wrinkled her nose.

“Hey, I’m fine. Serena and Jayne and I are the ones who get to play mother duck to you today. Still, I can’t believe Wyatt flew us all out here to see you! A private luxury jet. Wow!”

“I know, and I’m still trying to figure out the underlying reason for this trip,” Jayne said.

“Wyatt said that you needed people who could help you relax,” Serena said. “Alex, what does that mean? What have you been up to that the emergency friend forces have been called in?”

“Emergency friend forces?”

“You better believe it,” Serena told her. “I’ve got the tattoo. Jayne and Molly, too. We’d show you, but then you’d want one, too, and we know you’re allergic to needles.”

Alex laughed. She relaxed.

“Okay, enough stalling. Spill,” Molly ordered.

“There’s not much to tell,” Alex said, and she related the story of the boy and the ruined papers, the events she had been planning, and eventually the last incident with the angry workmen in the ballroom. No need to mention the latest out-of-control kiss with Wyatt, since she still hadn’t wrapped her own mind around what had happened.

“So…what’s happening between you and Wyatt?” Serena asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Flying your friends in? That’s not one of the usual employee perks.”

Of course nothing had been “the usual” between her and Wyatt from the very start.

“He’s a very different kind of man,” she said carefully.

“Uh-oh,” Molly said, and Serena and Jayne nodded.

“Different as in interesting and exciting?” Serena asked.

“Different as in an employer who goes the extra mile for his employees,” she said, looking at her friends sternly. “Look, you don’t have to worry. I’ll be home soon. I called a real estate agent in San Diego, and she’s looking for a shop for me to rent.”

Because after ending up in Wyatt’s embrace the other day what else could she do? The best way to stay smart was to pretend her time here was almost done, plan ahead, get involved in making her dream of a shop a reality. No more dwelling on Wyatt.

“Alex, that’s so great—but tell us more about Wyatt,” Molly said.

Alex gave her a “stop right there” look. “Nice try, Molly, but I have to tell you I really don’t want to do this.”

“Do what?”

“Answer a lot of questions about Wyatt. I know you’re asking because you care, but I really just need to be with you guys today and have fun. Wyatt told me that I wasn’t even supposed to utter the word McKendrick’s today. I was supposed to be totally lazy and decadent, and that’s what I want to be.”

“Great! Total decadence works for me,” Serena said with a grin.

“Sounds fantastic. So where should we start?” Molly asked.

“Let’s start with chocolate, and then double chocolate—maybe triple chocolate—and go from there,” Alex said.

“Chocolate what?” Jayne asked.

“Does it matter? It’s chocolate, Jayne,” Serena said.

“Excellent point,” Jayne agreed.

So they ate chocolate, and other things a bit higher up the food pyramid. They drank, shopped, and talked nonstop. They tried on clothes they would never wear in public, shoes too high to walk in. And Alex indulged in her secret weakness—wild earrings she bought but could never find a place to wear. They reminisced about incidents in their past and shared private jokes. And if there were moments when the conversation slowed, when Serena looked sad, Molly appeared worried, Jayne seemed heartbroken or Alex drifted away to thoughts of Wyatt, none of them discussed those things. They had this one no-worries-allowed day, and they didn’t intend to waste it.

But eventually the day ended. Teary goodbyes were said. Five minutes after all her friends left, Alex got into the limo and turned toward McKendrick’s.