For a tortured second, I’m no better than my idiot brother, my eyes glued to a pair of ample tits I’d like to boss around with my tongue, my teeth, my—
Damn her to the moon.
With nothing else to say, I turn around and nearly slam into Nick.
“Whoa, where’s the fire?” He greets me with his usual lopsided grin.
“Nowhere, apparently.” I level a glare at him. “Shouldn’t you be in your office working?”
He holds a hand up. “Bro, if you’re jonesing that bad for coffee, I can run down to the bar downstairs and get you an espresso. My treat.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
I need to move it before my humiliation is complete, so I push past him, go to my office, and slam the door shut. Then I remember, I’ve only seen one completed project this morning.
Where’s the other?
I open the frosted glass door and stick my head out. “Where’s the Winthrope comp catalog?”
Miss Holly looks up, twirling her blond hair like spun gold. “I’m working on it now! I can send you what I have. The final should be ready before lunch.” She points to her computer.
My eyes narrow and I fold my arms.
“It was due at eight a.m.”
Nick watches us for a minute and huffs loudly. “Yo, Ward, give her a break. It’s still her first week.”
“No excuse to miss deadlines. She has the credentials and work ethic, when she applies them,” I say.
“Aw, c’mon, the last girl took at least a solid week to make those catalogs,” Nick fires back. “There’s so much crap in them—”
Miss Holly jumps in. “Most of it I’ve been able to copy and paste, which is why I’m done with the North American hotels for comparison. Since Mr. Winthrope is coming by for a check-in this week, I thought the slideshow was more important. I’ll be done with the catalog today, like I said.”
Nick’s eyes trace from Paige—Miss Holly—to me.
Get her the hell out of your head, I demand inwardly. Yes, she’s beautiful, but she’s a wine-sloshing trouble maker with a whip for a tongue. Stop feeding her.
“She made a slideshow for you, too?” Nick asks, looking over at her, seriously impressed. He lets out a low whistle. “Damn, girl. Beauty and brains. I like you already.”
“Not me. For the Winthrope bid,” I correct sharply.
“Ah. Sure.” He nods but his eyes are glued to one particularly annoying fallen angel.
“Leave her alone so she can finish up,” I bark right before I slam the door and stomp back to my desk.
It’s the only way to end this, leaving them to their own devices.
And as much as I may crap on him, Nick isn’t a total idiot. He knows not to fraternize with any pretty ladies in this office unless he wants Grandma coming down on him like a ton of bricks with me right behind her.
Miss Holly sends the Winthrope property catalog at eleven a.m., before her new noon deadline, and Winthrope comes in at two for his “check-in,” as he calls it.
For a man who’s loaded beyond belief and routinely shows up on the world’s Top 100 list of billionaires, Ross Winthrope is in a class of his own.
If someone uploaded Willy Wonka’s brain to a Victorian hotel mogul, you’d get something pretty close to the stuffy, demanding, and utterly eccentric man who’s come all the way here from London.
I try not to stare too hard at the royal purple suit he’s decked out in today, complete with an antique gold pocket watch sporting a chain that looks like it could leash a polar bear.
He loves Grandma’s designs, and that’s all that matters.
Fortunately for us, her rare aesthetic seems like one he wants to add to his portfolio of stunning properties around the world. If we can just close this out, he’ll pay more zeroes than any of us have ever seen.
I let Grandma do the talking.
They’ve been at it for over an hour when he looks at her and says, “Your concepts are always transcendent, Mrs. Brandt. Your office is clean, sleek, soulful, and modern, and you’re every bit as gracious and responsible as Godfrey was. God rest his soul.” He bows his head. “I’m glad to see you’re still running the place. If there’s one thing I loathe about newer firms, it’s the immature, money-grubbing bachelors who steer them. They’re always too high on dreams, low on discipline, and lack the dreams big enough to ground them.”