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COURTNEY WHEELED HER cart down the path to the final room on her list. Unless a guest requested a special time for housekeeping, she had the option of cleaning the rooms in any order she liked. At the risk of being just a little weird, she’d saved Quinn’s bungalow for last.
It was nearly one in the afternoon. She was tired, but happy. She’d stayed up until three to finish her marketing report and had sent everything to her professor. She had one more paper to write, then she was done for the summer.
The thought of not studying for nearly twelve weeks was strange. She’d been going year-round since she’d started at community college. With all her general education requirements filled, she only had classes in her major left. And the last few she had to take weren’t offered in the summer.
Not that she was going to be overwhelmed by free time. Her mother was getting married at the hotel in August. August 20, to be exact. Joyce had already made it clear she was putting Courtney in charge of the wedding. On the one hand, Courtney appreciated the fact that her boss had faith in her. Plus, handling an event that large would look good on her résumé. On the other, she suspected Joyce had an ulterior motive—to bring mother and daughter back together. Not that they were actually apart. They were more, um, casually involved in each other’s lives.
She supposed that had always been the case. After her father died, her mother had been frantic to hold her family together and restart her husband’s accounting business. Then the bills had piled up and they’d lost their house. Maggie had been scrambling.
Courtney got that. She respected all her mother had done. As an adult, she could look back and see how hard things had been. But as the youngest kid in the family, the one who was frequently overlooked and ignored, she couldn’t help still being resentful.
For those reasons, and maybe some others, she and her mother had never been close. She could live with that. But, according to Joyce, she should make more of an effort. Something that wasn’t going to happen in the middle of her shift.
She stopped her cart in front of the door to the bungalow and knocked. “Housekeeping,” she called loudly.
She hadn’t checked the parking lot to see if Quinn’s car was there. Not that she usually kept track of guests’ vehicles. Except in his case, it was pretty easy to tell. There was only one Bentley parked there.
She was about to knock again when the door opened. Quinn stood in front of her, all tall and sexy in jeans and a—she blinked—Taylor Swift T-shirt.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a Swifty,” she admitted. “This changes things.”
“I like the irony of the T-shirt.”
“No one believes that.” She rubbed her temples. “Oh, God. Now I can see you dancing to ‘Shake It Off.’ My eyes! My eyes!”
Quinn chuckled. The low, rumbly sound did odd things to her stomach. She, um, shook it off and reminded herself she was here to work.
“Okay, time for me to clean your room. Move aside.”
Quinn didn’t budge from the doorway. One brow rose. “Do you talk to all your guests that way?”
“No, but you’re different.”
“I have no doubt of that.”
“I meant like family. Joyce and I go way back and you’re her grandson. So that makes you...” She wasn’t sure what.
“An uncle?” he asked drily.
“No. That seems a little creepy. We could be cousins.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Whatever our relationship, I need to clean your room.”
“I’m good.”
A voice in her head unexpectedly whispered that she was sure that was true. No doubt Quinn was very good. All that experience, not to mention rhythmic ability.
“It’s my job to clean the rooms. It’s what I do here.” She smiled brightly. “You don’t want to keep me from my work, do you?”
He studied her. “Not your destiny?”
“No way. I have a plan.”
“The college degree.”
“Exactly. But to pay for that, I must work.”
“Why a maid?” he asked.
“As opposed to a train engineer—assuming I had the appropriate skill set?”
“Something like that.”
She thought for a second. “I like working for Joyce. The work is physically tiring, but I don’t have to interact with a lot of people, so I’m free to think about stuff.” She tapped the phone in her shirt pocket. “Or listen to lectures I’ve downloaded from the internet. The money is fair, sometimes people tip and it gets me closer to my master plan. Oh.” She smiled. “It also makes my mother crazy. Not the most mature reason, but one of them nonetheless.”
“You’re honest.”
“I don’t have a great memory, so being honest helps me keep my life straight.”
His gaze settled on her face. “No great moral compass you live by?”
“Sure, but everybody says that and no one believes it.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re unexpected.”
Was that the same as being sexy? Probably not, but a girl could dream. Quinn was a really interesting man. He drove a Bentley and wore Taylor Swift T-shirts. He’d been in tabloids, but he adored Joyce’s two dogs. Not that people who appeared in tabloids didn’t like pets.
She drew in a breath. “Wow—you’re really good. I’m totally confused and it’s been five minutes. Are you going to let me clean your room or not?”
“Not.”
“You don’t want to think about that? You have a cleaning service back in LA. How is this different?”
“It just is.”
Because I want you desperately. She smiled to herself. Right. Because that was exactly what Quinn was thinking.
“Inside joke?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
She heard a cart coming down the path and turned to see one of the room service guys pushing it toward the bungalow.
“Hey, Courtney.”
“Hi, Dan.” She looked at Quinn. “Lunch?”
“Uh-huh. Want to join me?”
Dan winked at her as she pulled her cleaning cart out of the way. She smiled back.
Quinn
