hiding in baggy shirts because her body hadn’t yet settled into its shape. Shane Murphy was the enfant terrible of the culinary world at just twenty-four. Reg, the staid older brother at twenty-six. Connor was opening the Lolly’s café at the hotel and Shane was there to do a tasting menu in the hotel’s formal dining room. The first Shane’s Table had already become the hottest dinner reservation in New York, making Shane an instant star.
The two brothers couldn’t be more different. Though both were tall, Reg was thin and tidy, save for a perpetually sweaty upper lip. He kept his hair closely cropped and always donned a tailored suit. In contrast Shane’s dark curly hair brushed the shoulders of the rock band T-shirts he wore with his jeans. Reg, the immaculate professional, and Shane, the soulful artist. Black and white. Night and day. Shane had made an impression on her that she still carried to this day.
She hadn’t seen Shane in person in many months other than through teleconferences, which he would often leave before they were halfway done. Audrey wondered how much his impatience or inattention had to do with the death of his wife two years ago. She knew firsthand how a loss like that could color everything that came after it.
Helping herself to a glass of icy cucumber water from the clear pitcher on the office bureau, she took a much-needed sip. As always seemed to be the case, mere mention of Shane Murphy made Audrey thirsty.
She paced in front of the windows of Daniel’s third-floor office. Prior to the renovation, there had only been a couple of picture windows on that exterior wall. With the new sweeping vista she could look out to the hotels and casinos, or peer down to see street-level activity on the always-crowded Strip.
Audrey’s eyes fixed on a couple. The young woman, blonde, short and curvaceous like she was, wore a white minidress and a clip-on bridal veil that looked like it hadn’t cost much money. Her groom had on black suit pants and a white shirt with his tie loosened. The two laughed and passed an open bottle of champagne between them to sip from. The bride held her left hand up to the sunlight to admire the ring on her finger. They stopped walking and threw their arms around each other for a passionate kiss.
Las Vegas.
Land of hope. Of gambles. Of chances. Of love.
What would it be like to arrive in Vegas to wed the person you were in love with? Audrey wondered. To embark on a life together, sharing ideas and dreams and romance?
Audrey had no time for thoughts like that. She had her own, practical marriage to plan.
* * *
Having made her way from her father’s office to the central courtyard of the hotel, Audrey stepped outside into the dry Nevada breeze. The main structure of the building formed a square with a public space in the center with walk-throughs to the Strip and parking so that patrons could enter the restaurants, bars and shops from both inside and outside the building. She was eager to settle into one of the freestanding suites at the back of the property they called the bungalows, where she’d make her home for the time being.
For the past couple of months, she’d been utterly buried by work in her small office at the hotel chain’s Philadelphia headquarters. There were splashy incentives to organize and newsworthy stories to cull in order to promote all of the seven hotels for the summer season. Winter had thawed into spring without her really taking note of it.
Along her walk, she said hellos to construction workers and to staff members who were onsite to begin readying the hotel for the opening. This week she’d check in with every department to see what was new and noteworthy that she could use for publicity.
For now, though, she wanted to drop her luggage and check her emails and messages and texts. And see Reg, who had sounded so tentative when she last spoke with him.
As she crossed diagonally through the outdoor public area, she froze on her heels. The Shane’s Table restaurant, not yet open for business, appeared to be fully finished, at least on the outside. In front of its door stood a life-size cardboard cutout photo of chef Shane Murphy.
What the heck?
Audrey was director of public relations and any kind of promotion that went on at Girard hotels came across her desk. It was she who authorized press releases if one of the hotels even so much as bought new towels. If a landscape designer decided on an unusual type of plant for the grounds. When one of the hotels offered a Valentine’s Day package that included breakfast in bed.
Yet she’d heard nothing about this horribly tacky six-foot-two-inch shrine to the male ego. What a monstrosity! Not at all befitting the elegance and restraint Girard hotels represented. Nor worthy of the Shane’s Table reputation for integrity and excellence.
She didn’t know who approved this amateur-hour attempt at marketing for the restaurant. But she was going to find out.
Bustling over, Audrey stopped dead in front of the display. Barely clocking in at five-foot-two herself, she had to crane her neck back to fully study Shane’s likeness. The discomfort she always felt in his presence was just as palpable here in this massive photograph.
A wild toss of dark hair seemed to grow from his scalp in every direction as though it belonged on a mythological Medusa. A folded blue bandanna was tied across his forehead and under his hairline. Those black-as-night eyes were framed with long eyelashes and crowned by heavy brows. A straight nose led to full lips, parted slightly, surrounded by beard stubble above his mouth and across his lower cheek and square jaw.
The look on his face was a dare. To say this man was smoldering and dangerous was the understatement of the century. He was almost too much to take in, even in cardboard form. Thank goodness she was marrying safe Reg.
Audrey bit her lip to stay grounded and continue her survey of Shane.
His chef’s coat fit well from one broad shoulder to the other. The coat’s sleeves were cuffed twice to reveal hefty forearms with a dusting of dark hair. The arms crossed at his chest showcased black leather cording that formed bracelets wrapped around each wrist. One huge hand held a chef’s knife.
An embroidered insignia on the chest of the chef’s coat depicted his restaurant logo of a four-legged table with the name Shane scripted above it. The coat’s hem hit Shane at mid hip, shorter than a typical chef preference. Fitted jeans encased the lower half of his body, with its straight hips and muscular legs. The jeans gave way to black motorcycle boots. One foot crossed over the other in a defiant stance.
Audrey’s eyes did a ride up from the boots to the powerfully built chest to the heart-stopping lips. She followed individual locks of jet hair as each made a different wavy descent down around his face.
All she could say to herself was “Whoa!” as that flush swept across her neck again.
Audrey hated cardboard cutout displays that presented a person as some sort of whacked-out Greek statue or national monument. To her, they were a crass and crude form of advertising. But there was no question that Shane Murphy was a drop-dead sexy man. She was painfully aware of it every time she was around him. While it didn’t directly have anything to do with his cooking, she wouldn’t doubt that his fiery good looks contributed to his restaurants’ success.
Nonetheless, Audrey was not about to have that eyesore muddy the sophistication of a Girard hotel. So she lifted cardboard Shane Murphy at his waist, tucked him under her arm and proceeded to her bungalow. As soon as she swiped her key card and let herself in, she propped Shane in a corner of the room facing the bed.
Dropping her bags, she made a three-hundred-sixty degree turn as she took in the finished renovation of the bungalow. The photo and video tours she’d seen didn’t do it justice. An interior archway divided the suite into two distinct areas. In the sleeping portion, teal and brown bedding appointed the king bed, a palette that evoked the original sixties style. But a flat-screen smart TV mounted on the wall and tech stations on the two lightwood nightstands brought the room straight into the needs of today’s guests. An armchair upholstered in stripes echoed the teal and added in green and cream colors. A reading lamp perched on an end table beside it.
Through the archway, a lightwood desk