Cooped Up for Christmas - Sabrina York Page 0,4

coming here.” By her tone, one would assume this was some sort of religious experience for her.

“Dude! Farley is renting this place?” Jed asked.

“It’s not a rental,” I intoned the corporate line. “It’s a Visit with a capital V.”

Jed wrinkled up half his face at me. “Why is the V capitalized?”

“Because it’s important. A rental is impersonal and low-end. Eden offers a once in a lifetime experience. A Visit to an exquisite location with luxury service, one of a kind amenities, and personalized events.” Lord love a duck. Would these people ever make it to corporate? Did they even want to?

“Right. So it’s Farley who’s coming?” Jed persisted, having brushed off the mission statement of my marketing plan for the entire company like the dust that it was. “The Farley?”

“I know it’s a Farley.” I flipped through the bios. Ah. There she was. Farley Weaver. Some kind of one-named pop star. She was the daughter of an uber-famous old-timey country and western singer I’d never heard of because I don’t listen to that kind of music. I don’t listen to pop either, but apparently my young staff did. They were fangirling—and fanboying—all over the place. “Okay. People. Settle down. Settle—I said, settle down.”

It wasn’t lost on me that I was starting to sound like Foghorn Leghorn. I say, I say. Settle down, son. “Yes, we will have a celebrity with us for the holidays, but I want to make one thing clear. Everyone who walks through that door is a celebrity. Every one of them deserves five-star treatment. Am I heard?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“If they even think they may want a towel when coming out of the hot tub, you will be there to hand it to them. Before they even know they’re hungry, you’ll be discreetly setting a plate of fruit and cheese at their elbow, and ready to refill their champagne at any moment. And as for Farley? I’m sure she came here for a break from her crazy life. She probably just wants to be relaxed and anonymous. That means you may not ask for her autograph…” A groan rumbled through the ranks. “Or a selfie.” It rose. “Any questions?”

Jed’s hand shot up. “But if she offers?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“If she offers to give us her autograph. That’s okay, right?”

I forbore rolling my eyes. “You. May. Not. Ask.” Could I make it any clearer than that?

Apparently not.

Olivia’s hand shot up. “We can talk to her, right? Just not look her in the eyes?”

I furiously scanned Farley’s bio. Nope. Nothing there about a basilisk stare. “Yes, Olivia. You may talk to her. And you may look at her.” A sudden image of Olivia peering at poor Farley through a crack in the door as she was sleeping popped into my mind. “You may look at her the way you would look at a normal client. In normal circumstances. And talk to her normally too. The way you talk to a normal client. Is there anything I can get you? Can I top off your drink? What time would you like dinner? You know. Stuff like that. Get it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.” I stood there for a moment, reveling in the fact I might have actually gotten a point across to one of them. But then a sizzle walked up my spine. You know. The kind that makes you shiver, but you don’t know why.

A second after that registered, I realized that everyone was looking over my shoulder at the front door. The cold draft told me there was someone there. The heat that sizzled through my veins, as I got a whiff of his cologne, told me who it was.

My skin went cold and then, just as quickly, went hot. The prickles spread and I shuddered.

Slowly, I turned, hoping, praying, howling to the universe that it not be him.

I should have known better.

The universe has a perverse sense of humor.

And damn. His blue-eyed gaze was as sharp, as penetrating, as it had been way back then. It hit me like a punch in the gut. He seemed taller, or maybe that was because he was more filled out. His face was tan, still etched in the likeness of a Greek god, but there was a warm weathering there, especially the crinkle of his eyes as he smiled. And that smile. Holy God. It should be registered as a lethal weapon.

In that second, I had a weird out-of-body experience. Shock, perhaps?

Because here he was. The man I’d dreamed about for the last fifteen