step out into the classy, well-appointed reception area. The hotel may be new, but it’s clear the staff is experienced, and soon we’re following the bellboy to our suite, our two overnight bags slung over his shoulder.
We take the elevator up to the seventh floor, where the bellboy guides us to our spacious park-view suite. “My big brother did well,” Damien says, looking around the beautifully appointed space, complete with a kitchen, media area, and three bedrooms.
“No kidding.”
He tips the bellboy, and when we’re alone, he pulls me toward the couch. “I’m guessing we have dinner plans.”
“We do,” I say. “But the reservation isn’t until eight. I thought we could check out the bar downstairs before that. Sylvia says it’s classy as hell. Dark and intimate.”
He sits, tumbling me down with him onto his lap. “I like intimate.”
“Yeah?” I laugh as I squirm a little. “Me, too.”
He grins. “So you have me at your mercy. Whatever will you do with me?”
“All sorts of naughty things, Mr. Stark—but you’ll have to wait until after dark.”
His brows rise. “Oh? What do you have planned now?”
I slide off his lap and take his hand, then tug him to the huge windows. They open inward, and we step onto the narrow balcony. “That,” I say, leaning back against him as he wraps me in his arms. “I thought we could go to the park.” I twist so that I can look back at him. “A romantic carriage ride, then a shower, then drinks downstairs before dinner.”
“And after dinner?”
I spin in his arms, then lean back so that I’m looking up at him. I think about the little package wrapped up in my purse, and my pulse kicks in as I imagine him opening it.
“Then, Mr. Stark, we celebrate.”
“Do we?” His lips curve into a teasing grin. “What’s the occasion?”
“We are.”
Whiskey-Charlie, the bar just off the lobby, is as wonderful as Sylvia promised. Dark and atmospheric, with a warm glow coming from a wall of muted light behind the glass shelves that hold an array of liquor bottles.
The bartender waves to us as we enter—a tall man in his mid-thirties with the kind of broad shoulders that makes me think of football. He has shocking red hair, and neither Damien nor I are surprised when he introduces himself as Red and tells us to take a seat anywhere.
The bar is open to the public, but it’s not crowded. In fact, there are only three other parties in the place. A couple sitting at a two-top, both sipping wine, but neither looking at the other. A first date, I think. And not one that’s going well. An older couple sits near the window, beaming at each other and talking softly as they sip martinis. Anniversary, I tell myself.
Near the front is the third group, a threesome. A man with hair as dark as Damien’s laughs with a woman dripping with jewelry that gleams like starlight in the dim lighting. Another woman, not quite as decked out, talks on her cell phone at his other side. A double-date, perhaps, and the fourth has yet to show?
I assume the paucity of customers is because of the newness of the hotel. “You’re right,” Red says when I ask him as much when he comes to our booth to take our order.
He’s got an easy manner about him, as if we’ve all been friends forever. “These first two weeks we haven’t advertised the bar at all. Reginald over there—Reginald Aubert,” he clarifies as he points to the lean man with the two women. “He’s the building’s owner. He asked my pop to do a few weeks of dry runs before we start advertising. The operation of the bar reflects on the hotel overall.”
“Not a bad plan,” Damien says as we both look in Aubert’s direction.
He’s shifted in his chair, and I can see more of the man now. His dark hair sits in tight curls close to his head, and he sports a mustache so thin it could have been drawn with eyeliner. The blonde bathed in jewels tosses back her head and laughs as the other woman continues to study her phone.
“Looks like a celebration,” I say.
“It is,” Red says. “Aubert’s a jeweler. Designer.”
“We know,” I say. “Not as famous as his father—”
“But trying to get there,” Red finishes for me. “And he’s just acquired a red beryl. It’s in the hotel safe.”
“The hotel safe?” Damien asks at the same time that I ask, “What’s a red beryl?”
Red answers