one believes that.” She rubbed her temples. “Oh, God. Now I can see you dancing to ‘Shake It Off.’ My eyes! My eyes!”
Quinn chuckled. The low, rumbly sound did odd things to her stomach. She, um, shook it off and reminded herself she was here to work.
“Okay, time for me to clean your room. Move aside.”
Quinn didn’t budge from the doorway. One brow rose. “Do you talk to all your guests that way?”
“No, but you’re different.”
“I have no doubt of that.”
“I meant like family. Joyce and I go way back and you’re her grandson. So that makes you...” She wasn’t sure what.
“An uncle?” he asked drily.
“No. That seems a little creepy. We could be cousins.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Whatever our relationship, I need to clean your room.”
“I’m good.”
A voice in her head unexpectedly whispered that she was sure that was true. No doubt Quinn was very good. All that experience, not to mention rhythmic ability.
“It’s my job to clean the rooms. It’s what I do here.” She smiled brightly. “You don’t want to keep me from my work, do you?”
He studied her. “Not your destiny?”
“No way. I have a plan.”
“The college degree.”
“Exactly. But to pay for that, I must work.”
“Why a maid?” he asked.
“As opposed to a train engineer—assuming I had the appropriate skill set?”
“Something like that.”
She thought for a second. “I like working for Joyce. The work is physically tiring, but I don’t have to interact with a lot of people, so I’m free to think about stuff.” She tapped the phone in her shirt pocket. “Or listen to lectures I’ve downloaded from the internet. The money is fair, sometimes people tip and it gets me closer to my master plan. Oh.” She smiled. “It also makes my mother crazy. Not the most mature reason, but one of them nonetheless.”
“You’re honest.”
“I don’t have a great memory, so being honest helps me keep my life straight.”
His gaze settled on her face. “No great moral compass you live by?”
“Sure, but everybody says that and no one believes it.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re unexpected.”
Was that the same as being sexy? Probably not, but a girl could dream. Quinn was a really interesting man. He drove a Bentley and wore Taylor Swift T-shirts. He’d been in tabloids, but he adored Joyce’s two dogs. Not that people who appeared in tabloids didn’t like pets.
She drew in a breath. “Wow—you’re really good. I’m totally confused and it’s been five minutes. Are you going to let me clean your room or not?”
“Not.”
“You don’t want to think about that? You have a cleaning service back in LA. How is this different?”
“It just is.”
Because I want you desperately. She smiled to herself. Right. Because that was exactly what Quinn was thinking.
“Inside joke?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
She heard a cart coming down the path and turned to see one of the room service guys pushing it toward the bungalow.
“Hey, Courtney.”
“Hi, Dan.” She looked at Quinn. “Lunch?”
“Uh-huh. Want to join me?”
Dan winked at her as she pulled her cleaning cart out of the way. She smiled back.
Quinn stepped outside to let him in. “On the dining room table,” he said, then turned to Courtney. “I got sweet potato fries.”
“How can I resist an offer like that?”
“You can’t.”
She positioned her cart to the left of the front door, then walked inside. The layout for all the bungalows was the same—a living room–dining room on one side, the bedroom-bathroom-closet on the other. There was a private patio with a couple of chairs and a small table. In Quinn’s case, the patio faced the pond with the paddleboats.
Dan set down the lunch on the table, then left. Courtney crossed to the half bath by the door and washed her hands. By the time she returned, Quinn had cut the burger in half and split the fries. He stood by the minibar.
“What do you want to drink?”
“I’ll take the glass of water, if that’s okay,” she told him.
“It is.”
He removed a beer from the fridge. They sat across from each other.
For a second Courtney felt strange. A guest had never invited her to lunch before—not that Quinn was actually a guest. Which probably made it okay.
“Joyce said you live on the property.”
“I do. I have a room on the fourth floor. It’s one of those badly placed spaces with too much noise and a tree blocking the view, so I don’t have to feel guilty when the hotel is full.”
“Why would you feel guilty? The room is part of your pay.”
“Oh, sure. Use logic. My mind doesn’t work that way.”
She took a bite of her burger. Quinn had ordered the California special with avocado, bacon and jalapeños. Delicious.
“I used to live here, too,” he told her.
“With Joyce,” she said when she’d chewed and swallowed. “I remember hearing about that. What happened to your parents?” She reached for her water. “Am I allowed to ask that?”
“You can ask me anything you want.”
She told herself not to read too much into that statement. “Okay, where are your parents?”
“I never knew my dad. My mom got pregnant young and he took off.” One broad shoulder rose and lowered, while his expression remained neutral. “She wasn’t into having a kid around and used to leave me here all the time. Joyce was great, but I didn’t take well to being ignored by my mother, so I acted out. When I was fourteen, I got caught shoplifting. My mother told the judge she couldn’t handle me and that I should be locked up. I spent a month in juvie. When I got out, she was gone. She’d taken off without telling anyone where she was going.”
Courtney stared at him. “That’s so awful. I’m sorry. You must have been devastated.”
The shoulder rose again. “Some, but it wasn’t a total surprise. She blamed me for pretty much everything that went wrong in her life. Joyce moved into the two-bedroom bungalow and dragged me along with her. It was tough for a while, but we made it work.”
There was no emotion in his voice—it was as if he was talking about getting his car serviced. But she knew there had to be a lot of feelings. No one could go through what he had without feeling scarred.
“Joyce loves you. You had to know that, even as a kid.”
“I did.” He smiled. “She blames herself for my mom. She says she was too busy with the hotel to be there for her daughter.”
Courtney reached for a fry. “My mom was too busy for us after my dad died. I guess a lot of parents have to wrestle with