CHAPTER 4

After learning Amanda’s name, he felt the tightness that had taken up residence in his chest when she had walked away start to ease. He had to find out what she was doing to him. He didn’t normally chase women, but he found himself hustling back toward the entrance of the hotel hoping that Amanda hadn’t gone far. Maybe she was sitting inside. He felt a smile tug at his lips at the thought of walking in and finding her so easily, but the smile slipped when his eyes adjusted to the darker interior of the hotel and she wasn’t sitting in any of the overstuffed chairs.

He scanned the lobby for any trace of her, but she wasn’t there. As he glanced toward the reception desk he was tempted to ask for a guest list of all the single guests registered under the first name Amanda but decided against it. The staff was still too new, and not above gossiping about his strange request.

He would have to put finding her on the back burner and it did nothing to help his raising temper. He was still pissed off that Janice had the nerve to call his hotel boring. If she had wanted a place packed with activities she should have visited one of his other properties. Then maybe he would have been able to have a conversation with Amanda without her running off. It hadn’t been lost on him that Janice had been glaring at her since the moment he walked up to them. 

His eyes roamed back over the people the looking out over the ocean. Were these people sitting inside because they couldn’t find anything outside to entertain them? Shaking off that train of thought, his eyes slid over the registration desk. Feeling some of his tension over the decision to remove activities ease as his eyes swept the check in line he consoled himself with the fact that there would not be that many people checking in if they hadn’t found something to hold their interest here at the hotel.

With his confidence in his decision slightly bolstered he mentally ran through the laundry list of things he needed to accomplish today since he had to put finding Amanda off till this evening. He immediately put checking on his new bartender at the top of his list. Justifying the shift in priorities by acknowledging she was new and he needed something cold to drink after walking the beach. As his footsteps moved him in the direction of the bar he admitted to himself the real reason he moved it to the top of the list, he was going in there to look for Amanda.

He couldn’t put looking for off for too long, he would go crazy now that he knew she was staying there. Maybe she had wanted a quiet place to sit after being on the pool deck this morning, he could only hope. As his feet carried him closer to the bar, across the gleaming tile lobby he could hear the merriment before he pushed through the bar doors.

So much for finding a quiet place to sit if the volume of laughter and banter were any indication. There were always men that hung out in the bar because they didn’t want to be on the beach or their wives were off on one of the excursions but today there seemed to be more men than usual and he knew the reason why, it was his new bartender. Chuckling softly, he shook his head, it didn’t surprise him that she had already made an impression on the male guests. Her bubbly personality was only one of the reasons that he had hired her.

Secure in the knowledge that Stephanie could handle herself behind the bar and handle whatever the customers threw at her he was still protective of her. Making sure that she didn’t need him had become a regular occurrence much to her annoyance. He held up a hand to get Steph’s attention and smiled as she turned toward him with a sassy smile. She finished pouring a beer for the customer then turned and walked toward him. A triumphant grin replaced the smirk she had given him moments ago and he did his best not to let on how proud he was of her.

He knew she needed to prove to herself that she could handle the bar and while he had his reservations he knew better than to doubt her. Anything she had ever set her mind to she had accomplished, well almost everything.

“Hey wait your turn.”  A man in an obnoxious Hawaiian shirt called out from the other end of the bar staring daggers at Russ.

Russ couldn’t suppress his smile as he watched Steph turn to the man and placed an overly sweet smile on her face in an attempt to take the bite out of her words, “Hey, that's the boss. Let’s show him a little respect. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

She may look like a pixie, but she could hold her own. At 5’3 with spiky platinum blonde hair, and a personality bigger than she was, people tended to under estimate her fierceness. If he was honest he tended to forget that she was a big girl now. He kept picturing her running around with his little sister getting into scrapes he had to bail them out of.

“What’s up boss?” she asked leaning an elbow on the bar still smiling.

“Just thought I’d stop by and check on you. First time you’ve had the whole bar to yourself. Are you doing ok?” Even though he directed the question to her his eyes scanned the bar looking for Amanda. He hoped that maybe he hadn’t seen her on his first glance around. If he could find her on his own, then he wouldn’t have to ask Steph for this favor. Then she wouldn’t know and best of all she wouldn’t be able to hold it over him.

“I'm just fine and you know it, so what reason did you cook up to come check on me this time?”

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed her straighten up and start to glance around the bar as if she knew what he was looking for. As the perplexed look crossed her face he knew he was going to have to ask her for help.

“Are you expecting trouble?”

“Why, do I look like I’m expecting trouble? As the owner I must make sure that everything runs smoothly, you know that.”

“Yes your high and mighty I know that, but your eyes keep scanning the bar as if you expect a fight to break out any minute. I told you I have this covered. There is nothing to worry about.”

Oh, there was plenty to worry about and the biggest was that he was going to have to ask her for a favor. He hated to ask her but the need to find Amanda was greater than his fear that she would go running to his sister and make his life a nightmare. He hoped that as her boss she would keep this between them, she wasn’t normally one to gossip with co-workers, but there was no way she wouldn’t be calling his sister later. He was under no illusions about that. “No, nothing like that. I know you can handle whatever the bar dishes out, but can you do me a favor?” he asked hesitantly “I’m looking for someone.”

“Lots of someone’s in the bar.”  She replied with a smirk.

He resisted the urge to ruffle her hair like he had when she was little because he knew it would piss her off and he needed to ask her to do something for him. “Smartass. She’s about yeah high” he held up his hand to indicate nose height. “Blonde hair, didn’t see much of her face. She had on huge sunglasses.”

Steph shook her head and laughed “That’s not much to go on. You know how many people fit that description. Did you at least get a name?” she asked in disbelief.

Embarrassed he replied, “Amanda. No last name.”

“You know it’s a good thing I like you or I’d think you were crazy. Ok I’ll keep a look out for Amanda no last name, but I should get back to work. Don’t want the boss to think I can’t handle the bar.”  With a wink and a wave, she walked away.

Making certain that no one was going to give her any trouble he headed to his office to try and get some work done. When he purchased this hotel, he knew from the beginning that he wanted it to stand out from his other properties. He wanted a place that was peaceful and not over scheduled, but before he could make his vision a reality he had a lot of work to put in. One of the first things that he had to do was revamp the rooms and the employees.

His hard work was slowly paying off and hopefully soon he would be able to hand over the day to day operations to his manager. All that needed to be finished was the reconstruction of the private villas on the other side of the hotel. Russ pulled the construction timeline up on the computer and started to run the numbers.

Satisfied that everything was running on schedule and on budget he closed his laptop and leaned back in his chair. Wondering for a moment what he would do when he wasn’t trying to launch this hotel, when he was done with the rebranding, when he wasn’t worrying about repair schedules, or profits.

Ok the worrying about profits wouldn’t stop, that was his nature but when this was handed over to his management team maybe he would stay and take an actual vacation, spend more time on the beach, or just lay around without a plan for once. If he gave himself the time for a vacation maybe he could convince someone to stay and keep him company.

If he could find Amanda maybe he would be able to convince her to stay with him. He thought back to seeing her this morning and wondered again why she ran off like that. What could he have said to scare her?  Thoughts of her departure lead him to thoughts about her bikini clad body and just the mental image of her had him growing hard.

He jumped guiltily as the phone rang and tried to get his body under control.

“Bassett.”  He barked.

“No name just got a drink.”  Steph snickered into the phone like a twelve-year-old.

“You sure?” he asked trying to keep the excitement from his voice.

“Well she’s blonde, has a few inches on me, and her credit card said Amanda.”

Russ cleared his throat. “Ok thanks.”  He tried to play it cool but knew he failed when a quiet chuckle was all he heard in response before the phone went dead in his ear.

Quickly glancing at the clock on the wall he figured if he got up and rushed over there, Steph would never let him live it down. So, he would sit there for a moment and collect himself, he needed that few minutes anyways to get his body under control.

As he watched time seemed to slow down, he waited five of the longest minutes of his life. With every tick of the second hand, he prayed that she didn’t leave. That she would sip her drink, take her time, and he hoped more than anything that she was alone.