Emily:Everything okay?
No need to tell him she felt absolutely nothing for the guy her sister had set her up with. Besides, he couldn’t really be interested in knowing how it went. Something had to be wrong.
Levi:Are you home?
Emily:Why do you ask?
Levi:Just making sure my star employee is getting her beauty rest. We have an early morning tomorrow.
Okay, this felt a lot like he was checking in on her. After she’d told him she was going on a date. Hmm…
Emily:Will Grace be at the office again?
Levi:Didn’t you get your fill of my dog today?
Emily:She’s a good snuggler. I enjoyed my afternoon nap. When I wasn’t getting carpal tunnel from rubbing her ears.
Levi:No dog, just work. See you tomorrow.
Emily smiled as she stared at the text messages. She might have bounced up and down on the couch several times too.
Levi was thinking of her. And if she was reading it right, he was checking in on her after she’d gone out with another man.
Which meant those kisses might not have been as meaningless to him as she’d thought.
Chapter 19
Levi managedto get through the next few days without asking Emily any more questions about this guy she was seeing, by taking evening lake dips to clear his head. No sense in thinking about a woman who was off-limits.
Only problem? Off-limits suddenly became extremely tempting.
Levi wouldn’t call himself a rule follower, but you had to maintain order as a firefighter when men and women depended on you to keep them safe. He’d helped raise his four brothers, and that meant he’d kept an eye on them too. He was by no means a saint, but he’d tried to model good behavior.
So why, he thought as he stared at the woman in question sitting across from him in her buttoned-up white blouse, was he looking to pushthisboundary?
He’d not planned for Emily, and without a plan, he couldn’t keep her or anyone safe. Regardless, the club had to be his number one priority right now. But dammit, he couldn’t stop thinking about Emily or those kisses.
He was tempted.Verytempted to do something about it. Only she didn’t seem like the casual type, and he couldn’t offer her more.
“So it’s okay,” she said, staring down at her tablet, “if I move forward with the marketing and hospitality team on a children’s program?”
Levi blinked. And cleared his throat. He’d been watching a long lock of hair brush against her breast as she typed notes onto her device. “Establish a budget, and then let’s talk.”
Her lips pressed together softly in a light smile, and she nodded before bending her head and proceeding to take more notes. She absently pushed her hair over her shoulder and away from her breast, and he sighed in disappointment.
Levi wasn’t opposed to the children’s program. He was all for making his guests happy and bringing in additional revenue, but he couldn’t afford to be wrong, not with Shin Electronics still up in the air. They hadn’t heard back from the company, and Levi wasn’t optimistic. However, when Emily had asked to talk about the children’s program, it had seemed like a good opportunity to get her in his office to spend platonic time together—while he admired her from afar. But she’d made salient points he couldn’t ignore. This program could be good for the club on all levels.
They’d spent all morning with the finance director going over current numbers, which had seemed less painful than normal. Everything was more tolerable with Emily around. And on a positive note, the finance director had said that with the evening entertainment bringing in a steady stream of extra visitors, it was possible they could be in the black within a year—as long as they booked out the meeting rooms. And the only way to do that was by enticing businesses to use the resort for their conferences and meetings.
Levi stood and walked to the window overlooking manicured pine trees and shrubs made to appear like the natural landscape. Nothing was as natural as the real deal, and every day Levi was cooped up in this office, he missed his land. “Any thoughts on how to attract companies to the resort? We’ve lost five of our biggest accounts, and as you heard this morning, it blasted a hole in our revenue.”
“About that,” Emily said, her long, graceful finger tapping a manila file folder on her lap. “I don’t understand why we lost those contracts.” Her nose scrunched as she riffled through the paperwork. She pulled out a form and scanned it. “Our hospitality people personally reach out after each conference to gauge how well we did and what could be done better.” She held up the paper. “All positive reviews with promises from our guests to return. We also email every guest anonymous questionnaires, not only the conference attendees, and we rarely receive negative feedback. It just doesn’t make sense.”
He turned to her and leaned his hip against the window ledge, crossing his arms. “What did the negative reviews say?”
Her eyes dipped to his chest and arms, and she glanced away quickly. “Oh, um—” She flipped through a few more pages. “‘Needs more tanning butlers.’”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is this how you knew we needed more cabana boys?”
