Not conversing with her might be a good idea for the long-term, I wanted to tell him.
“Please speak with him and set up a meeting where we can discuss this further. He’s the best way to reach me.”
Ouch. That definitely showed me my place in his world.
I nodded at him, feeling embarrassed.
“That’s a good point for all of our employees to keep in mind,” Ellie said with a small frown at me. “Thankfully, I haven’t had to converse with Zach to reach you,” Ellie mused out loud, lifting a well-manicured finger to her neck, where, to my horror, I saw a large red …
“Love bite,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Ladybug,” I said, leaning forward and flicking an invisible bug off of Ellie’s shoulder.
Perhaps what Desmond had planned with her didn’t involve much conversation.
Ellie’s phone rang again, and this time, she cursed and looked at it for a second before answering it.
“Darn it, I need to take this call,” she said and walked to the elevators behind us. “I’ll catch up with you later, Des,” she called.
Desmond moved to let her walk past and ended up standing closer to me. My senses went on high alert as I looked at him from up close.
He was—I gulped—even handsomer up close. Dark, ruffled hair, devilish brown eyes, and wore a smile that could capture any woman’s heart. Good for Ellie, though not that I cared. I was just glad I didn’t notice good-looking men anymore. They could walk by, stand two inches away from me for all I cared, and I couldn’t even tell the name of the cologne they wore.
Tom Ford’s Neroli Portofino.
That was the cologne Desmond wore.
Ellie disappeared into the elevator, her mouth in a thinline, and as the doors closed, Desmond turned back to me. His eyes were kinder now as he looked at me, his body relaxing. Inwardly, I was fuming. I was angry at myself for feeling so mixed up about a man who was clearly giving another woman love bites. A man who would take Ellie to parties without a second thought while I was off-limits. If he thought he could get away with ruining my restaurant along with my heart, he had another thing coming.
“Well,” Desmond said at last as he pushed open the doors to his office, “to what do I owe this visit, Ms. Hale?”
Steam all but poured out of my ears as I followed him in. “Did you or did you not delay the reopening of our restaurant by five months?”
He seemed to consider that while the doors to his office fell shut behind us. “Is that all?” he asked, affecting a disappointed look as he leaned against the edge of his desk. “I was hoping you’d come to see me for something more exciting than that.”
I remained standing.
Now is not the time, Desmond.
“Oh, what I have to say to you is very exciting,” I said as his eyes widened in surprise.
17
DESMOND
“Why is there a delay in reopening Mom’s restaurant?” she asked, her voice rising. “It was supposed to be a three-month delay, and now, it’s essentially an eight-month delay.”
I hesitated. My team had sent me some preliminary reports that seemed to suggest that we’d have much better profits building a Luxe Hotel in the place of The Galley rather than continuing the investment. I’d asked my team to rerun the numbers and give me some alternatives. I was going to fight tooth and nail for Ava to keep her mom’s restaurant, but the fact remained that if their projections were right, Ava’s restaurant was in for some trouble.
She read something in my hesitation and looked away, crossing her arms.
“What was it you told me in the elevator last week?” When she turned to me, her tone was incensed as she repeated a version of my words. “ ‘I will not make big changes around there without your approval. Trust me on this.’ ” She added elaborate hand gestures to go with the words in what was a very bad impression of me. Her fingerswere bunched up together, the tips touching and pointing up.
I reached out to her hands and held them still. “I’m not Italian, Ava. You need to research your hand gestures better.”
My palms stayed on the back of her hands, feeling the smoothness of her skin. I gently flattened her fingers. I’d bet this was against fifty-odd company policies that I’d recently passed about workplace romances, but I could not care less. Ava’s hands felt natural against mine.
