The girl looked flustered. She clicked on her screen again. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know how that happened, but I definitely only have you down for one deluxe suite.’
Jackson was starting to get angry. The last thing he wanted was for Lottie to think he’d tried to pull a fast one. Not that he was above such tactics – far from it – but he respected Lottie too much to try such a crass manoeuvre. Besides, he was going out for a late dinner tonight with an old friend from college, Piers Dellal. Piers had promised to bring some hot girls along (‘Ski-bunnies, man, there’s nothing like ’em. All that mountain air makes ’em hornier than bitches in heat.’). Somehow Jackson doubted that wholesome Lottie Grainger was into threesomes.
‘Listen. I don’t care what you have down. My office reserved two rooms. Two rooms is what we need. Close to the business centre if possible.’
The girl frowned. ‘I am sorry, sir. But I’m afraid we’re totally fully booked. The suite does have a foldout sofa bed in the living room if you need it. And the master bath is stunning. It’s actually the nicest accommodation in the entire hotel,’ she added helpfully.
‘Which is what, code for the most expensive?’ snapped Jackson. So much for his night of passion with one of Piers’s hotties. He turned to Lottie. ‘Sorry. Is that OK with you? I’ll take the foldout, of course. The alternative is that I try to check in somewhere else, but at this time of night …’ He looked at his watch.
‘It’s fine,’ Lottie blurted. ‘Really. It’s totally fine.’
To Lottie’s disappointment, and Jackson’s relief, the suite was so huge that the makeshift bedrooms had an entire room between them, a sort of dressing-room-cum-study. ‘This is great,’ Jackson brightened, disappearing into the bathroom and emerging five minutes later with a towel wrapped around his waist. Lottie blushed to the roots of her chestnut hair, trying not to stare at his six-pack stomach, but Jackson seemed completely un-self-conscious, sauntering around the suite as if she weren’t there.
I’m invisible to him, Lottie thought miserably. Like his little sister or something. She went into her own room and began to unpack. I mustn’t give up. This is my chance. If he doesn’t see me as a sexual woman, it’s up to me to change his mind. Pulling out a pair of sexy, sheer La Perla panties with a matching lace push-up bra, Lottie slipped them on, admiring herself in the mirror. She’d been so excited when Jackson asked her on the trip earlier, she hadn’t eaten all day so her stomach looked wonderfully flat. The clock by her bed said 9.45 p.m. Late enough to change into the new champagne silk robe that just brushed the tops of her thighs and lounge around in the sitting room ‘working’ before bed. Carefully tying the robe so that the lace from her bra peeked tantalizingly out at the top, Lottie tousled her cropped hair and spritzed herself with Gucci Envy, emerging into the sitting room just in time to hear the front door of the suite slam shut.
‘Jackson?’
He was gone. A note on the coffee table said,
Dinner with friends. Don’t wait up. See you at breakfast, 7.30 a.m., J.
After a fractured night, the first half of which was spent lying awake, listening for Jackson’s return, and the second half tossing and turning with sexual frustration so bad she could have wept, Lottie came down to breakfast with huge dark shadows under her eyes.
‘Are you OK?’ Clean-shaven and rested, in a dark suit and tie, Jackson looked fabulous. ‘You look awful. Like you caught the flu or something.’
‘I didn’t sleep well,’ grumbled Lottie, pouring herself a strong black coffee.
‘Really? I slept like a baby. The service here is shit, but I must say that sofa bed was damn comfortable. Now look, the planning meeting’s been pushed back to ten a.m., so we’ve got an extra hour to polish our presentation.’
‘I don’t need it,’ said Lottie. ‘I’ve got it down.’
Jackson raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure? I can run over things with you if you like, I have the time.’
‘I’m sure.’ If she couldn’t seduce him sexually, she was damn well going to impress him professionally. The planning committee would be eating out of her hand.
‘That was amazing!’ Jackson hugged Lottie as they left the meeting. ‘They loved you.’
Walking down Park Avenue towards the golf course, in downtown Park City, beneath a blazing bright winter sun, he felt elated. The deal would go through now, no question. Lottie had dazzled the committee with figures, and melted them with charm. Jack Brannigan, the chairman, a dour, fat, self-important little man, was notoriously difficult to please, but Lottie had joked and cajoled and – there was only one word for it – flirted with him until he rolled over like a puppy. It was a side to her Jackson had never really seen before. He’d always thought of her as so sweet, so pure. But she’d manipulated old man Brannigan like a pro.
‘I’m serious, Lottie, you nailed it. I half expected Jack to propose marriage to you by the end of the meeting. He was drooling.’
Lottie blushed. ‘He was not.’
‘He was too. Man, I’m on a high! Of course, you realize this means we’re going to have to extend our trip. Now we have verbal approval, I want to do as many on-site meetings as we can. Talk to all the bidders, the primary contractors, the subs. Can you stay?’
Lottie thought about her desk in New York and the mountain of work waiting for her. Then she thought about Jackson last night, and this morning, his utter sexual indifference. Did she really want to put herself through two, three, four more nights of mental and physical torture, lying awake, alone, while he ignored her?
‘Of course I can stay,’ she heard herself staying. ‘No problem.’
‘Great. We’ll have dinner tonight and work out a schedule. In the meantime, I think we’ve both earned the afternoon off.’
Lottie beamed. ‘Fantastic! Maybe we could go for a hike up in the pine forest? I’ve heard that the area right above our hotel has some stunning trails.’
‘Sounds great,’ said Jackson. ‘You have fun. I’ll see you at dinner. Eight o’clock, Mastro’s.’
Before Lottie could say another word, he’d hailed a cab and disappeared.
Lottie tried to look on the bright side. At least he wants to have dinner with me. She looked at her watch. One o’clock. Seven hours in which to transform herself into a Jackson Dupree-worthy sex-siren. Last night had been a washout, but that was no reason to abandon hope. Tonight. Tonight was the night.
Mastro’s was a bustling, modern steak and ribs joint attached to an achingly trendy bar. The place to see and be seen in the mountain resort, it was the sort of restaurant that Lottie Grainger usually avoided like the plague. Tonight, however, she felt confident and sexy and fierce. I am one of the beautiful people. I belong here, just as much as the silicone-lipped twigs propping up the bar.
In one afternoon, she had succeeded in effecting a very dramatic transformation. Marching into an expensive salon, she’d demanded the ultra-camp stylist cut her already short hair even shorter, into a spiky, boyish crop, then dye it from Lottie’s natural chestnut to a shocking, peroxide-white blonde.
‘Take a deep breath,’ said the stylist, proudly handing Lottie a mirror. ‘Ta da! What do you think?’
Lottie opened her eyes and burst into tears.
The poor stylist was horrified. ‘Oh, no!’ he wailed. ‘Oh, please, don’t cry, sweetheart. It’s OK. We can soften the colour if it’s too much for you. It’s not a big deal, honestly.’
‘It’s OK,’ laughed Lottie, wiping away the tears. ‘It’s a shock, that’s all. I love it. I look … I look …’
‘Fucking gorgeous?’ the stylist preened. ‘Yes you do, my angel. Yes you do.’