stayed at the resort before but quickly saw why Amy had been so impressed by it: with luxurious décor, over six hundred rooms, gorgeous beach and fairway views, and a full-service spa, the property was indeed grand in every sense of the word. Even Jack, who’d said he would move her to a different hotel if he wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable with the security aspects of the resort, seemed to find it acceptable.
“It’ll do,” he said in response to her silent question as they walked through the white marble and cherrywood hallway.
Jack had spoken to the manager on the phone and had explained the situation in general terms, revealing no details. In the office, he requested a map of the hotel grounds, which he kept, and emphasized one basic point: no one outside the three of them was to know the location of Cameron’s room. He asked for a private conference room where he could meet with the hotel’s head of security, one that he and the two agents coming in from Detroit would also use as a working space throughout the weekend.
Then he asked the manager whether the wedding guests had been assigned a particular block of rooms.
“Yes, the bride reserved a block in the hotel itself,” the manager said. “The wedding guests will all be staying here.”
“Perfect. Delete Cameron’s reservation, and book us a new room under the name David Warner. Put us in the Tower,” Jack said, referring to the seventeen-story building located adjacent to the hotel.
“David Warner?” Cameron asked after the manager left to get their room keys.
“An old alias of mine,” Jack said.
“Ooh . . . an alias. Who does that make me?”
“For this weekend, I suppose it makes you Mrs. David Warner.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure I’m the type to take my husband’s name. I’m on the fence about it.”
“For the next two days, you can be the type.”
“Boy, Mr. David Warner sure seems a little bossy.”
The manager poked his head into the office. “Sorry—I forgot to mention: the Tower accommodations are all standard rooms, not suites. I’m guessing you would prefer two queen beds instead of one king?”
Cameron and Jack looked at each other. Neither spoke.
The manager shifted in the doorway. “I could always switch you back to the hotel, if you require larger accommodations.”
Jack shook his head. “No. I want to be kept apart from the rest of the wedding guests. And the high-rise is a safer location. No balconies, no windows accessible from the outside, only one way into the room.”
“We’ll take two queen beds,” Cameron told the manager, thinking that was the safest thing to say.
He nodded. “Excellent.” He took off again.
Twenty minutes later, as they began to get settled in, Cameron realized that the one-versus-two-beds decision really didn’t matter. Bottom line: she and Jack were sharing a hotel room. And here she’d thought living together in a five thousand square foot house had seemed intimate.
She watched from the doorway as Jack checked out the closet and bathroom. When finished, he headed over. “So? Which bed will it be?”
“Excuse me?”
He laughed at her expression. “Which one do you want? I’ll put your suitcase on it so you can unpack.”
“Oh. I’ll take the bed farther from the door.”
“Good answer.”
She watched as Jack lifted her suitcase onto the bed, then threw his duffel bag onto the one closer to the door. She suddenly felt . . . jittery. Up until now, every time she and Jack had gotten physical, it had been under crazy, impulsive circumstances. But staring at those two beds, she now found herself consciously thinking about all those things a single woman in her thirties tended to think about when sharing a hotel room with a man she was really attracted to, and who appeared to be really attracted to her, who she hadn’t yet slept with.
Despite all her sass and bravado, she was falling for Jack. Just yesterday—God, was it really only yesterday?—she’d told Collin that all she and Jack had between them was a physical connection. True, she’d been lying to herself. And a lot had happened since then. But she’d never found herself wanting to be wrong about something as much as she did right then.
She trusted Jack with her life. The next question, she supposed, was whether she could trust him with her heart.
She watched as Jack threw some rolled-up socks into one of the drawers in his nightstand. He’d taken off his blazer, so his gun harness was exposed and he was looking extra