didn’t need to be thinking about her laughing at him in the candlelight, or the way she’d looked at the end, mouth tempting and full and waiting for his.
With an oath, he carried his dinner out into the living room and sprawled on the couch. With one hand, he dialed his brother’s number. With the other, he picked up a piece of pizza.
“Yeah.” Nick’s voice was flat and exhausted-sounding. Gabe understood, now, his mother’s concern.
“Do you have a dog?” Gabe asked.
“What? You know I don’t.” Irritable, which was at least a sign of life.
“Good. ‘Cause if you had I’d have guessed it just died.”
“You’re cute. How’d you get to be so cute?”
“Just natural, I guess,” Gabe said modestly. “Jacob’s surly, you’re antsy and I’m cute. Except right now you sound like Jacob. What’s up?”
“Talking with my brother the great conversationalist always does that to me.” In the background, a series of bells sounded.
Gabe took a bite of pizza. “You at the firehouse?”
“Yeah. It’s a call for another company, though. What’s going on with you?”
“Pizza, right now,” Gabe told him, chewing.
“And let me guess, you’re drinking some kind of fancy-ass wine with it instead of beer like a normal person would.”
“Yeah, so?”
“And with a fork and knife, instead of with your hands.”
“No fork and knife, and you’ll be happy to know I’m using a paper towel instead of a napkin.” Gabe wiped his fingers.
“What, are you turning into a savage?”
“You just can’t stand the fact that I have style, can you?”
“So are you calling to dangle your pizza in front of me?”
“Actually, I’m calling up to bitch.”
“Don’t tell me, you couldn’t get the right wine for pizza. What does a guy like you have to bitch about?”
“Stone Enterprises.”
Nick snorted. “Why don’t you add on Microsoft and Donald Trump, while you’re at it?”
“Because Donald Trump didn’t just take over my hotel.”
“Ah.”
“And didn’t send in a flunky to take apart everything I’ve built in the past five years.” The frustration that had been simmering in him bubbled up afresh.
“I take it you didn’t hit it off with him.”
“Her.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, ah.”
“Our lives may be in sync. What about the her?”
“Besides the fact that she’s a corporate shark in the skin of a goddess?”
“Definitely in sync. A goddess, huh?”
“Enough to make me change my religion. Except for the fact that her job is to turn my hotel into a low-end chain joint.”
“That is kind of a problem.”
“You think?”
There was a short silence while Nick digested the news. “A wise man once told me that the way to get what you want is to help the people in a position to say yes get what they want.”
“I was the one who told you that,” Gabe said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I meant a wiseass. It’s true, though. People operate mostly on self-interest. Convince her that it’s in her best interest to do it your way. Unless you’re a screwup and you’re doing it all wrong,” Nick added.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Gabe’s voice was sour.
“Fair and balanced, that’s our motto. So why does she want to do this?”
“To meet some bogus profit targets that come from corporate clowns who are clueless about the hotel business.”
“And what do you want?”
To bring Whit Stone back. “I want it to be what it is, something special.”
“Did you tell her that?”
Gabe smiled faintly. “Let’s just say we didn’t see eye to eye.”
“Lot of that going around.”
“Ah,” Gabe said. “Goddess trouble of your own?”
“My advice to you is avoid ‘em like the plague.”
“I’m trying,” Gabe said, pushing the image of Hadley out of his mind. “So what, did you and Sloane get in a fight?”
“We broke up.”
It explained a lot. “When? You guys looked pretty tight at Thanksgiving.”
“I think that was what freaked her out. And if that didn’t, the fire sure did.”
“Fire?” Gabe sat up straight. “What fire?”
“Oh, we had a big one here last week. Ugly building. A couple of guys got hurt in the collapse.”
“One of those guys wouldn’t be you, would he?”
There was a pause. “You going to tell Ma?”
Gabe snorted. “How old are you again?”
“I mean it. She doesn’t need to be scared, not when she’s still getting over losing Dad.”
“Okay, sealed shut,” Gabe promised, invoking their child hood code.
“I had to go in after one of my guys who got hurt. The building came down on us as we were getting out.”
“And what happened to you?”
“Nothing serious,” Nick said. “A few burns and bruises. It looked worse than it was—the people on the outside thought we both bit the big one. Sloane bolted.”
“Well, you’ve got to admit, it would give a person pause. If the idea of waking up with you didn’t do it already.”
“She lost her brother in that Hartford fire a couple of years back. What I do gives her bad vibes, I guess.”
“It’s
