event, I’m thinking.”
If Stuart raised his brows any higher, they were going to end up on the back of his head. “And you are?”
Oh, this should be good, Olivia thought with a distant flutter of panic.
Her unlikely rescuer didn’t miss a beat. “Rhys Spencer.” He stuck out his free hand, and withdrew it gracefully when Stuart simply stared. “Friend of Olivia’s.”
“I see.” Stuart tossed the smeared napkin on the closest table and brushed off the front of his suit with distaste.
Olivia had a feeling “I see” didn’t mean what it usually meant. And in the sudden ringing silence, she had an even more frightening feeling that the next words out of Stuart’s mouth weren’t going to be anything she wanted to hear.
But Rhys was still beside her, his arm draped around her as casually as if they’d known each other for years. As if they were, in fact, friends. As if stepping in to save her from horrifying situations was the thing he’d been waiting all his life to do.
That was silly, of course. If she was honest with herself, she had to wonder about a complete stranger barging into her life and taking over. He was probably unbalanced. An escapee from a local mental hospital, even if he was a gorgeous, unbelievably charming one.
She should really move away from him, gently untangle his arm from around her waist, and take Uncle Stuart into her office. Call the police. Or the men with the butterfly nets.
But the truth was, standing next to Rhys felt…right. Perfect, in fact. Even if that delicious aura of danger hadn’t completely faded.
Maybe she’d gone crazy, too. Today, it didn’t seem impossible.
“This is exactly what I warned your father about,” Stuart said. He looked ridiculous—still faintly smudged with chocolate, cake crumbs on the front of his wrinkled suit coat—but there was nothing ridiculous about the tone of his voice. “This hotel is a dinosaur and you have no idea what to do with it.”
He laughed then, shaking his head as he surveyed the room. The people who hadn’t stormed the maitre d’s station for refunds stared at him, forks in midair, drinking glasses halfway to their lips. Maybe because his laugh was more of a bark, and gleefully nasty. “Do you know what this place is worth?” he said, turning back to Olivia. She stiffened, and felt Rhys’s arm tighten around her. “Millions, Olivia. Millions. Every year, I’ve waited for you to give up, to understand that you can’t make a go of this place. Your father could hardly do it, after all, and he actually had business sense.”
“All right then, you—” Rhys began, but Olivia tugged him back, even though her heart was pounding so violently, it was hard to hear anything past the roar in her ears. A fistfight wasn’t going to improve this situation. Even a real prince on a white steed wouldn’t improve this situation.
“If I needed any more proof that you don’t know what you’re doing here, I got it today,” Stuart continued, unruffled, ignoring a grumble of fury from Rhys. “If you don’t know it by now, you should. And you’re going to learn it before the year is up, I guarantee you that.”
Olivia opened her mouth to respond, even though she had no idea what she was going to say, but this time Stuart was the one to stop her. He raised a hand with weary disgust.
“Don’t bother.” He brushed off his suit coat one last time as he started out of the room and threw his last words over his shoulder. “This hotel will be mine.”
Chapter 3
It was hard to think straight during an adrenaline rush, Olivia decided as Rhys steered her into a chair. And that’s what she was probably feeling—adrenaline zooming through her bloodstream, pure and simple. Fight or flight, panic response, there were probably a dozen terms for it.
But she really didn’t care what it was called, she thought as she stared at a star-shaped piece of chandelier on the carpet not three feet away. She felt as if someone had slapped her, hard, and it was all too clear that no matter how weird this day had been, it was definitely not a dream.
“You all right?” Rhys said, leaning in to offer her a glass of water.
She stared at it, wondering where he’d found the glass, and said without thinking, “Ella Fitzgerald once sang to Mayor LaGuardia under that chandelier. I don’t remember what song, but I know it’s written down somewhere.”
He seemed to consider this for a minute. “Uh, yeah, that’s brilliant. What happened here anyway?”
She sighed and took the water from him, checking for broken glass before she took a sip. “Nothing good.” Then she smiled up at him. “Except for you. That’s the second time you rescued me today. Or tried to.”
“I can still take a swing at him, you know.” He winked at her, and lounged back in his seat. “Old guy like that can’t run very fast, I warrant.”
There it was again, that thrilling flicker of arousal.
Which was just as surreal as everything else about this moment. The glittering bones of the chandelier on the carpet, the sound of renewed shouting coming from the kitchen, the diners who were no longer even pretending to eat and were staring at her instead.
It would be so much better if this really were a dream.
Rhys was still watching her, she realized, raking his fingers through his hair restlessly. He’d changed his shirt—Mick Jagger was gone and the word “Arsenal” had replaced it, whatever that meant.
“Who was that bloke?” Rhys said suddenly, narrowing his eyes.
Who was he? That was the question Olivia wanted to ask. But before she could answer him, Josie’s voice broke the silence and Olivia saw Josie and Roseanne heading toward the table, Josie’s auburn ponytail bouncing over her shoulder and Roseanne’s graying brow knitted in concern. Her heart lifted, just a little bit, which was good since it had sunk so low it was practically down at her ankles.
Josie raised an eyebrow at her, and gestured toward the fallen chandelier. “I thought I told you no more wild parties.”
Roseanne squeezed past Rhys and took the chair beside Olivia, winding an arm around her shoulders. “Oh, leave her alone. What happened, honey?”
Roseanne was in charge of bookkeeping, and she had worked at Callender House since Olivia was a baby. Any minute now she’d be petting Olivia’s head the way she had when Olivia was still in kindergarten, and Olivia wasn’t about to argue.
“Should I start with the cake or the chandelier?”
“Start with Stuart,” Josie insisted. “I saw him marching through the lobby. Weren’t you supposed to have lunch?”
“That was right out after the cake in the face,” Rhys put in with a naughty smirk. “Lost his appetite, he did.”
Josie was horrified. “You threw a cake at him?” she asked Olivia.
“Of course not!” Olivia sighed. “Unfortunately, Rick did. Actually, he didn’t really throw it at Uncle Stuart, but Josef ducked.”
“What
