MOTION Page 25

  I exited first and walked toward the trunk, hoping to grab my bag and disappear into the large casino lobby. I felt as though I might even cry. Limo #2 was maneuvering into the casino but was still some distance away.

  I felt Quinn hovering behind me, and then his hand closed over my arm just above my elbow; the heat of his words on my ear and neck made me shiver despite the warmth of the Las Vegas sun.

  “I’ll find you later.”

  I turned toward him, but he’d already released my arm; he was walking toward the hotel lobby and away from me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I was basically Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; except, instead of a blinking red nose, I had a crimson blush. Quinn Sullivan made my light blink on and off. You could guide a sleigh by it, or a private jet. It was a beacon of embarrassment, mortification, pleasure, turpitude, awareness, frustration, and, yes, anger.

  At present, however, I was a normal shade of whitish-beige. I was listening with all outward attentiveness to Quinn as he finished the presentation our team put together for the meeting. It was an overview of the security in place for Club Outrageous, a schematic of the new club in Vegas overlaid with identified weaknesses in current operations, a comparison of approaches to security management of the entire property, casino included, and so forth. It was a strong presentation. I knew it by heart.

  I didn’t hear any of it, partly because I knew it by heart and partly because it was Quinn delivering the presentation. I spent the entire half hour trying to appear attentive to the content rather than the fine, agile movements of the speaker, the cadence of his voice, the depth of his cobalt eyes, the shape of his...

  I blinked, with purpose, and shook my head just a little in order to redirect my thoughts. The room was dimmed for the presentation, and for that, I was thankful.

  The afternoon up to this point had been somewhat of a blur. After Quinn had left me standing outside by limo #1, Steven, Carlos, and Olivia’s limo pulled in behind ours. Carlos didn’t seem surprised to find me there by myself and warmly folded me into their group, helping me navigate hotel check-in. Really, all I had to do was follow him into the casino; he did everything else. He even handed me my key, told me what room number was mine, and how to find the elevators.

  We were then dispatched with instructions to meet in the hotel lobby in one hour. I went to my room and didn’t do much of anything but frown, use the facilities, brush my teeth, look at the list of in-room TV channels, and then head back downstairs armed with my portfolio and iPad. Carlos and Olivia were sitting across from each other on large, golden, jewel-encrusted settees. They weren’t talking; rather, they were independently together, engrossed in the contents of their own cell phones.

  I glanced around with not a little trepidation. Neither Quinn nor Steven was present in the lobby. Carlos noticed me first, and he and Olivia both stood in lagged unison as I approached. That was when I saw a third person, also standing in lagged unison, and he was engrossed with his phone also. He was of normal height, a little taller than I was, and had normal blondish-reddish hair and normal bluish eyes and a normal smattering of freckles—though light—over his cheeks but, strangely, not his nose.

  Introductions were made swiftly; the unknown person was the nephew of the casino owner and the manager of the new club; his name was Alex or Adrien or Aiden or Allen something like that. I was introduced rather formally as Ms. Morris, Senior Fiscal Project Coordinator and manager of the account. We shook hands. He may have smiled and held my hand a little too long; he might also have winked. I wasn’t in the mood to notice anything about him.

  Allen or Aiden (or whoever) was going to escort us and give us a tour of the new club, the club for which we were to provide security, the club for which we had prepared the presentation. I tried to push myself to feel at least some professional interest in the tour if not some normal inquisitiveness.

  On the elevator ride up, I was informed by Olivia that Quinn and Steven had a separate meeting with the client to go over the private account—a meeting I wasn’t invited to attend. I spared her a waxy, unconcerned smile.

  The tour was fine. The club was fine, although it looked peculiar as it was empty of partygoers and was rather brightly lit by several west-facing windows. It didn’t look anything like Club Outrageous; it just appeared to be a typical nightclub; although, in its defense, they hadn’t yet finished decorating. There were several men, I assumed construction workers, coming in and out of the main area, but I expended no mental energy noticing them.

  We ate lunch at a black table near one of the windows. I didn’t notice the view of the Las Vegas Strip or the landscape of rust-capped ridges and canyons beyond.

  I drifted through these happenings, not tasting my food, speaking when spoken to, answering questions but not really asking any of my own. I was wholly uncurious, which should have concerned me, but it didn’t.

  There were a few more tours of the casino floor, the lock room, and a few sections of the basement. Finally, after an indeterminable amount of time and banal chitchat, we were taken to a conference room and prodded with coffee, tea, and cucumber water. The club manager left briefly while Carlos and Olivia set up for the presentation; he pulled out a thumb drive, and she placed hardcopy packets in front of each of the conference table’s large leather seats.

  Then, in walked Steven and Quinn and, suddenly, my brain engaged. I started noticing.

  In fact, I couldn’t stop noticing.

  I noticed that he didn’t look at me or speak to me, and he seemed to sit in the seat farthest from mine.

  I noticed that Carlos made all the introductions as the client entered: Mr. Northumberland, a tall, tanned, trim man in his fifties with black eyes and pepper hair. He owned the casino. His nephew, the one who was either called Aiden or Allen or Alex or something starting with ‘A’, entered the room behind him, and an entourage of four men and three women followed. I suspected their names didn’t matter. They weren’t making decisions; they may as well have been curtains.

  There were some initial niceties, such as comments about college football; someone pointed out that it was hot outside; I was asked if I’d had a chance to spend any time gambling since we’d arrived. I wanted to respond that life was a gamble, and we were all losers. Instead, suppressing my emo-moroseness, I replied in the negative and settled into my seat.

  Then the presentation began. Though my color was normal throughout, I knew it was only a matter of time before he would say something or do something to set my Rudolph light blinking. The man had my button in his possession, and he pressed it repeatedly.

  I couldn’t help but notice that Mr. Northumberland seemed very impatient—impatient to get the presentation started, and then during the presentation, impatient to ensure that our security implementation would be completed by next month. He interrupted Quinn frequently, asking questions such as, “How much time will that take?” and “Don’t you already have everything you need?” and “Is that going to delay the project?”

  When the presentation ended, Olivia stood and adjusted the lights in the room, and Quinn requested that the casino staff open their information packets. He took the group through the implementation plan, the timeline, the resources we would provide, the cost; suddenly he surprised me, and I guessed the rest of our team, by adding, “These budget numbers are initial estimates. We’re planning an overhaul to our billing structure in order to provide corporate clients with a greater level of granularity. The next time you see the cost estimates and, for that matter, the invoices, they’ll have line item detail.”

  Mr. Northumberland nodded with what I guessed was appreciation because he said, “That’s good, that’s good; just as long as it doesn’t hold anything up.”

  Quinn assured him the changes would not preclude moving the project forward, and then Quinn was discussing networking and wiring requirements of the space. I could only watch him with mystified incredulity.

  I felt Steven’s foot tap against mine unde
r the table and swung my gaze to meet his. He had the ability to enlarge his gray eyes and narrow them at the same time; it often impressed me. He gave me this look now; it was meant to convey surprise and suspicion. I shook my head almost imperceptibly, hoping he understood my silent communication. I had no idea why Quinn chose that moment to mention my idea about billing changes, or why or when he’d decided that Cypher Systems was going to commit to the new software one hundred percent.

  I did know that Olivia was also watching me; the daggers she was throwing with her glare were difficult to overlook, even in my peripheral vision. Instead of focusing my attention on her knife-wielding propensities or Quinn’s continuing recitation of the deal’s details or Steven’s sideways glances, I stared unseeingly at the two-dimensional, top-view diagram of the club space within my packet.

  It was such a small thing, the new billing technique. It really was such a small thing. I doubted Mr. Northumberland or any of his lackeys cared about line item detail on billing invoices.

  But why had he done it? Why had Quinn even brought it up?

  It was nothing. It meant nothing. Stop obsessing about it.

  My eyes followed the lines of the blueprint. I distracted myself by studying the digitally rendered topical design and comparing it to the tour we’d taken of the space earlier. This, as it turned out, was a very effective distraction.

  I frowned, blinked, and rechecked my examination. My frown deepened.

  The schematic in the packet did not match the actual size, layout, or features of the club we’d toured that morning.

  I must have sighed loudly or made some other overt sign of displeasure, because the room became quiet; somewhere to the right a throat was cleared. I glanced up. Everyone was looking at me, including Quinn.

  “Ms. Morris…” Quinn was very Mr. Sullivan in his expression and tone. “Is there something you wish to add?”

  I looked from Quinn to Carlos to Steven to Allen (or Alex or Andrew or whatever his parents had named him that was so forgettable) to the client, Mr. Northumberland. I was on a precipice. It was my first client meeting, I was the most junior member of the team; I didn’t even know if I deserved the job or if my zebra print stilettos had been the deciding factor. I should smile politely and apologize, or cough wildly to cover up the unintended sound. I could also feign Tourette syndrome.

  Or I could publically announce that all the team’s cost estimates had been based on a grossly inaccurate rendering of the space due to an oversight or, more alarming, the purposeful deception of the client.

  Well, what do I have to lose?

  I licked my lips then placed my hands, folded, on the table. “Yes. I do. Before we move beyond the AutoCAD rendering, I would like clarification as to why the space we toured this morning doesn’t match the plans sent by the casino last month, included here in our packet. We based all our cost estimates on the AutoCAD rendering.”

  There was a slight pause as the group apparently absorbed this information before all eyes swung to the nephew—AllenAlexAndrewAiden. I followed their stares.

  He looked decidedly uncomfortable. The man’s eyes bounced around the conference room then settled on Mr. Northumberland’s before he issued a small, nervous laugh. “The differences are minor, really. It’s basically the same.”

  I frowned severely as several sets of eyeballs ricocheted back to me, but I focused my attention on the nephew. “I must respectfully disagree. There are two partitions—non-weight-bearing walls—that are not present on the digital design rendering; the current space has west-facing windows and an outside patio, but the design depicts no windows and no patio; additionally, the square footage of the actual space is at least eleven hundred feet larger, not including the patio.” I shifted my gaze to Quinn’s.

  I couldn’t read Quinn’s expression, which may have been due to my current unrest regarding all topics McHotpants rather than any surreptitious attempts on his part. I did comprehend that his stare was neither hostile nor warm; in fairness, I could only describe it as attentive.

  The nephew moved from side to side in his seat as though he couldn’t get comfortable. “That’s absurd. Clearly you can’t read architectural schematics.”

  “Actually…” Quinn paused, pulling his eyes from mine and addressing Mr. Northumberland, who, for the first time since the meeting began, hadn’t felt the need to interrupt. “Actually, Ms. Morris is very familiar with such schematics as she graduated summa cum laude from Iowa State University with a dual major in architecture and mathematics. You see, Iowa State is one of the top schools in the nation for architecture.”

  I flinched, just a little, barely perceptible to anyone who may have been watching me, when Quinn recited my qualifications. I was not aware that he was so acquainted with my academic credentials. It made me wonder what else he knew about me and how he came to be such an expert.

  Mr. Northumberland’s expression of surprise boiled into sudden impatience; to my relief this thunderous glare was directed at his nephew. “Allen, this is entirely unacceptable! If this causes another delay in—”

  Quinn smoothly interrupted. “Mr. Northumberland, we can modify our implementation strategy and meet the deadline if time is the issue here. However, the cost…” Quinn sighed, closed the packet of papers in front of him, and leaned back in his chair. “I cannot guarantee that the cost of the project will not be impacted.”

  Without any overtures or pretense, the client leaned forward and pointed a finger at Quinn. “If you can meet the deadline, you can have triple your original budget.” Then his black glare moved to his nephew. “I can’t have any further delays.”

  Quinn nodded once then abruptly stood; I watched his long fingers button the top button of his suit jacket. “In that case, we’re finished for today. I see no further need for pretense and discussion; what’s important now is getting started.”

  Northumberland stood as well, almost eagerly. His entourage also stood; they reminded me of synchronized swimmers, only in business suits. Their boss said, “Good man. I couldn’t agree more.” He reached across the table and shook Quinn’s hand. “You have an impressive team.”

  I caught Steven giving me a meaningful look, and I returned it with a raised eyebrow and a shrug of nonchalance even though inwardly I was breathing a ragged, yet guarded, sigh of relief.

  I’d taken a chance. I only hoped it would be enough to prove that I was worthy of keeping my job.

  Carlos and Quinn disappeared together directly after the meeting adjourned, and I begged off dinner with Steven, claiming a headache. Of course, Steven still threatened to keep his promise of a sleepover. I was noncommittal and laughed at his good-natured teasing, but I didn’t feel like company. I felt like stewing in my room alone with a bottle of wine and a hamburger and HBO.

  Before I ran off, Steven reminded me that our meetings for the following day had been canceled and that the plane would now be departing at 3:00 p.m. He suggested we meet up during the day and try to see a little of Vegas before leaving. I was, again, noncommittal. I felt kind of like a jerk.

  I did have a headache. I had a cornucopia of confusion to sort through. I needed to figure out what I needed, what I wanted, what was right, and where they all intersected.

  What I needed was to keep my distance from male humans—Jon and Quinn—and keep my job—and reorganize my life so that calm and order were restored.

  What I wanted was to throw myself at Quinn and continue behaving like an infatuated teenager.

  And I didn’t know what was right.

  When room service arrived, I took the bottle of wine into the bathroom and had a bubble bath. The hotel tub was nowhere near the awe-inspiring, spectacular feature in the apartment Quinn had showed me last Sunday, but it was perfectly adequate for my current needs.

  Nevertheless, after an hour in the tub drinking alone, I felt no closer to solving my dilemma. Instead, I was left with an empty bottle of wine, pruney fingers, and more questions.

  I was getting
dressed when I heard a confident knock on my door. It was just past 9:30 p.m. Naturally, I assumed it was Steven making good on his sleepover threat. Due to this perilous assumption, I didn’t check the peephole; I just opened the door.

  It was a crucial, if not monumental, mistake.

  If I’d seen Quinn first through the fish-eye opening, I might’ve had time to compose myself. I might have decided to pretend I was asleep. I might have trapped myself under a heavy immovable object or jumped out the thirty-story window.

  As it was, I could only return his smolder with stunned, albeit tipsy, surprise. My internal organs and major muscle groups were helpless against the chemical reaction reducing them into frozen yet gelatinous goo. My heart, likewise, spring boarded to my throat. I was abruptly aware that I was attired only in a white tank top, bra, and bikini bottoms; so, basically, my underwear.

  I’d like to say that, when faced with the smoldering indigo eyes of Quinn Sullivan after a bottle of wine, his impressively massive and muscled form hovering outside my hotel room door and big hands gripping the frame, I felt very little in the way of intense physical or emotional response.

  If I said that then I’d be a dirty liar—a dirty, dirty liar.

  Quinn, suspended like a metaphor on the abyss of in-my-room/out-of-my-room, was still in his custom cut black suit, white shirt, and blue silk tie.

  However, he was emphatically mussed.

  His tie was loosened haphazardly and hung a little off balance around his neck; his shirt was wrinkled from hours of wear; his hair was askew and spiking about at odd angles; his chin and jaw were shadowed with a full day of stubble. Of course, he still looked like a GQ model, but instead of the well-groomed variety, he looked like the well-tousled variety.