with advertising ideas and events. The marketing side of the brand was a perfect fit for her after college.
Hotel Girard Incorporated was Audrey’s entire world. Running around the properties as a kid, she had known every secret passageway. Every painting that hung in every guest room. Every item sold in the gift shops. Any happiness she could recollect took place within the borders of the hotels. The staff were loyal to Audrey and she was loyal to them. She’d do anything needed for their good. Even get married.
Besides, she thought Reg was a good match and she had become quite amenable to the marriage idea. He was smart. Nice-looking, too. Maybe a little too much hair product. Those short curls might look better if they weren’t so stiff. He was poised and polite and she didn’t know what the medical condition was that made a person have a sweaty upper lip but, hey, she thought she could overlook that.
And he was, safely, nothing like his brother. That split second ten years ago on St. Thomas flickered in her mind again. A freeze-frame in time that she still secretly compared everything else to.
“Should we go to dinner?” she asked. Reg seemed so uneasy tonight, perhaps a change of atmosphere would help. Devotion to the hotels was one thing but she wasn’t going to go as far as to beg him to wed her if he didn’t want to.
“Shane is cooking for us in the restaurant.” Reg took Audrey by the bony part of her elbow and lead her out of the bar. “We are essentially the first guests at Shane’s Table Las Vegas.”
Along the way, Reg stopped to read and respond to another message on his phone. The same amusement that had come across his face earlier returned while he typed.
But he hesitated when they reached the restaurant’s entrance. “Where is the display that’s supposed to be here?”
“You mean that awful stand-up photo of Shane?”
“Name recognition is what Shane’s Table is all about.”
“I’m well aware of that. But that cardboard cutout was absurd. Brash advertising like that is not how Girard maintains its reputation for taste and understatement.”
Not that a life-size photo of hottie Shane Murphy was hard on the eyes, but it was, nonetheless, inconsistent with the Girard style.
“You personally removed my advertising?”
She’d stood it up in her bungalow for the time being and now didn’t seem the right time to confess that. “Reg, I’m head of public relations. I work alongside a marketing team and together we decide when and how best to...”
“I built Shane’s Table into what it is today.”
Wow, Audrey wasn’t expecting this. She assumed Reg would respect her authority on this topic. He should have at least proposed the display prior to just having it planted it in front of the restaurant’s doors, which was technically Girard property.
Audrey attempted to smooth ruffled feathers. “You know, Reg, perhaps I’m not a hundred percent clear on what our contracts state about my role concerning the PR specifically for the restaurant.”
“I’ll have my lawyers call yours in the morning.”
She stroked his thin arm once up and once down in a gesture of calming affection. “That’s a great idea. Can we just put the issue aside for now and enjoy our dinner? I can’t wait to see the completed dining room.”
The pacifying technique worked because Reg pulled from his pocket a deadbolt key and an access fob to open the front door of the newly finished construction. He reached to flick on a temporary lamp that stood just inside the entrance.
Rock ’n’ roll blared from the far end of the restaurant. Reg gestured for Audrey to follow him across the dark dining room and through the double doors leading into the kitchen.
The lone man in the cavernous space stood with his back facing them, but Audrey easily recognized that long curly hair and the broad shoulders that filled out his chef’s coat. The music was turned up so loud that he hadn’t noticed anyone had entered. His head bobbed and his hips ground to the beat as he sautéed something smoking hot on the stove in front of him. Reaching for a spoon, he tasted from the pan.
“Garbage,” he decreed and, in frustration, threw the spoon into the nearby sink.
Only then did he turn enough to be startled by Reg and Audrey’s presence. He grimaced. His gorgeous full lips twisted. A pulse beat in his neck. His eyes locked on Audrey.
“Audrey,” Reg yelled above the music, “you remember my brother, Shane Murphy.”
“HI, SHANE,” Audrey said, turning on the polish. In reality, his intense stare made her heart skip every other beat. “Can you believe it was a full year ago when we stood right here after the old restaurant had been gutted?”
Shane slowly, sinfully, with no restraint whatsoever, inventoried her. From the part in her blond hair, across her face, down every curve of her fitted dress and shapely legs, through her sandals to the tips of her orange-painted toes.
Her legs twitched from his gaze.
He mashed his lips together as he shifted something internally and turned his attention to his brother. “I mixed a white sangria and put it on the bar. Why don’t you take Audrey into the dining room and pour it, Reg?”
“Join us for a glass, won’t you?”
Unspoken communication passed between the two brothers.
“I’ll be out with some appetizers in a few minutes.”
Reg ushered Audrey out of the kitchen and turned on the overhead lighting.
The restaurant was a showstopper. One entire wall made of glass looked out to a furnished patio. A wood-burning oven, large grill and two fire pits would allow for al fresco cooking. The open-air space was enclosed by a semicircular wall made of small stones. At three points, waterfalls rained down. The effect was that of a private outdoor world far from the bright lights of Las Vegas.
Inside, shaded lighting fixtures hung from the ceiling to cast a play of light and shadow throughout the room. Tall-backed chairs cushioned in an olive-colored fabric, teakwood tables and booths dotted the dining room, each placed with enough space between them to allow for dinner conversation. Carpeting in a subtle diamond pattern of khaki and red would muffle the din of a full house. Stone tiling on the walls gave the room a lodge feel that was posh but comfortable.
Audrey took her time inspecting it all. “Everything turned out spectacularly.”
Reg guided Audrey by the tip of her elbow again, a trend she wasn’t enjoying, to the one table in the center of the dining room that had been set for dinner.
“I’ll get the wine,” he said as he pulled out one of the chairs for her. Then he hopped down the three steps to the bar to retrieve a carafe. “Shane used a 2009 pinot gris from the local Desert Castle vineyard we’re working with,” Reg announced as he poured each of them a glass. Crisp green apple slices and chunks of fresh peaches floated in the drink.
“Nice,”
