Jackie Braun - Weekend in Vegas! - Saving Cinderella!

Alex blinked. Then she smiled. “Not that we are.”

“Nice earrings.” It wasn’t a compliment.

“I think so.” She shook her head, sending the little palm trees dancing.

“So…” Katrina went on. “Wyatt let you have a day off to play while he was here killing himself?”

“That’s enough, Katrina,” Wyatt cut in. “I don’t make my employees work seven days a week.”

“I don’t know why not. You do most of the time.”

“I own the place. I get to decide when I work. Now sounds good.”

“Is that a not so subtle hint for me to get back to Gendarmes?”

He smiled. “I appreciate the tip about the reviewer coming here tomorrow, Katrina. Thank you.”

She returned the smile and turned to Alex. “Since you’re going to be only a very temporary fixture here, I guess I can toss you a bone. I do like the earrings.” And she sauntered out, waving to Wyatt.

When she had gone, Wyatt looked at Alex. She was studying him, a frown line creasing her pretty brows. He was tempted, so very tempted, to gently trace a line right down that frown with his fingertip to get her to smile. The thought caught him off guard. He was not a man given to whimsy.

“What?” he asked.

“You do work all the time,” she said. “I know you want McKendrick’s to show well to the reviewers. I take it that Katrina’s got some hint that another one is on the way, and of course that means more hours for you . But do you ever take time off? Since I’ve been here you haven’t taken a break except for those couple of hours the other day. Weren’t you supposed to stay away all day?”

He had been. And he’d come back because she’d been invading his thoughts. “I had something to do,” he said.

“Wyatt,” she drawled.

“Alex,” he drawled back. “Don’t worry. I’ll take time off.”

“When? Don’t you ever need to just…kick back? What do you do then?”

Wyatt almost smiled. No one but Alex would ever ask him about “kicking back.” As for what he did…suddenly he had another burning desire to show her the Haven. That should have alarmed him. No one even knew he owned it. He’d never taken anyone there. And he never shared secrets with another person. Not Katrina. Not Randy. But…

“What do I do? Come on. I’ll take you there.”

“There?”

He shrugged, trying to look casual even though he felt anything but. “I have another hotel.”

She blinked. “No one ever told me that.”

He looked directly into her eyes. “That’s because I’ve never told anyone.”

Her eyes widened.

“You don’t have to come,” he said. And then he realized what this sounded like. A tryst. A man who might be planning on taking advantage of her. “If you’re worried, I can tell you that I’m not intending to jump you.”

She smiled and shook her head, those little earrings swinging wildly. “I’m not worried. I’m…I’m honored to be your first.”

Heat sizzled through him, even though he’d known she had meant that in a completely innocent way. She, however, had obviously finally realized how her words had sounded, and she blushed. Actually blushed. It was charming. She was charming. And he burned for her.

“I mean, that I’m honored to be your first visitor. Is it going to be the next McKendrick’s?”

He shook his head. “It’s definitely nothing like this place. McKendrick’s was a sure thing, a prime piece of real estate. The Haven is far less stable,” he said, mentioning the property by name for the first time. Trusting Alex.

She gazed directly up into his eyes. “You’re not sure you can make it a success.”

“Or that I want to try. Failure isn’t an option, and it needs…something.”

She stood there for a minute, just studying him, as if conducting a computer scan of his thoughts. He’d never had anyone pay that much attention to him, at least not in that way. Women were attracted to his money, his power, maybe even to his looks. But Alex was different. She aimed straight for the core of what made a person tick. He wasn’t sure his soul could survive that kind of close examination.

“It’s not a very impressive place. You can back out and I won’t be offended,” he said. But he hoped she would come.

“Why?” she asked. “Why now? Why me?”

He didn’t want to examine all the reasons. He didn’t want to dig that deep, look inside himself that closely, but he could tell her one true thing. “Because you see possibilities other people miss.”

“And if there are no possibilities?”

“I want you to be brutally honest.”

She gazed up at him with those soft blue eyes. “I don’t like hurting people.”

He held her gaze. “You can’t hurt me.” But he knew he lied.

ALEX looked at the sad little collection of buildings, and her heart broke for whoever had once tried to make a go of this property and given up. It wasn’t near the bustling Las Vegas strip, the cottages were small, parts of the chapel were tumbling down, and yet…

“Beautiful scenery,” she said, noticing the stark red rocks in the distance.

“There’s that, and also isolation.”

She studied the little cluster of buildings, the small attempts at hominess, planters where non-native plants had died long ago, and the remains of an arching trellis outside the little chapel.

Wandering inside the adobe chapel, partially open to the elements where glass was missing from the deep cut-outs of the windows, Alex stood soaking in the atmosphere. It was the most basic of structures, a bare wood floor, plain wood pews with slatted backs. There was no light source. Someone had scribbled graffiti on the big timbers that held up the roof and on the white walls.

Outside there were benches on the path connecting the cottages, their canopy frames empty and skeletal. Everything was silent, deserted, empty.

Alex noticed other little imperfections—the faded blue door on one cream cottage, a crooked welcome sign over another door, the flowers painted over the entrance to the chapel that would never have occurred naturally in this landscape and yet…

“There’s something rather charming and winsome about it,” she said.

“You don’t have to say that.”

“I know.”

“Who even uses the word winsome anymore?”

“I guess I do.”

Wyatt smiled. “Winsome it may be. Commercial? Doubtful.”

“And yet you bought it.”

“I did.”

Maddening man. He knew she was looking for an explanation of why a man who owned one of the most successful, state-of-the-art hotels around had purchased this clearly not-likely-to-be-commercially-successful property. In fact, she was willing to bet that of all the properties available at the time that Wyatt bought this, few had been so…sad.

“You’ll want to make changes.”

He hesitated. “I always make changes. Change is good.”

“How long have you had this?”

“A while. More than a year. Almost two.”

“And yet…no changes?”

“Not yet. No.”

“Why? It can’t be lack of funds.”

“No. Money isn’t a problem.”

“So why no changes?”

She waited while he seemed to consider the question. “It has to be right, and yet…I like it how it is, even though I know it’s not marketable.”

She laughed. “You sound so frustrated with yourself, but I don’t see what the problem is. If you don’t need the money, and you like it as it is, why not simply leave it alone?”

“To what purpose?”

“Everything has to have a purpose?”

“Some people think so.”

“Do you?”

“Let’s just say that I grew up in a world where everything had to have purpose and worth.”