Weekend in Vegas!. Jackie Braun

two of the workers doing the renovation are fighting,” the young woman said.

      “Physically?”

      “No, but there’s a lot of yelling. The customers can hear them. And the security guys are on the tenth floor, helping a woman who fell getting out of the bathtub. I didn’t know what to do, so I came here.”

      “Thank you. It was the right thing to do,” Alex said, and she took off toward the ballroom. She could hear raised voices before she even opened the doors.

      “Don’t worry,” she told the crowd of people that had started to gather. “It’s probably just a minor disagreement between friends. I’ll straighten everything out.”

      She pulled open the tall double doors and walked into the huge, mostly empty room. At the far end, workers were involved in various tasks, but just twenty feet inside the room, two big muscle-bound men were right up in each other’s faces, yelling and swearing and getting louder and more red-faced every second. They didn’t even look away from each other when she entered the room.

      Alex took a deep breath. She had no idea what to say or do. Her heart started tripping as she drew closer. No doubt she should call someone else, but who? The longer and louder these two got, the more agitated the customers outside the doors would become. If this accelerated into an actual fist fight, wouldn’t that look great in the morning papers? She could practically see the headline: Blood spilt at McKendrick’s. The owner of Champagne would waltz away with Wyatt’s award.

      She frowned. She was so not going to let that happen. She wanted Wyatt to win. At the moment she didn’t even care why it mattered to her. She’d worry about that later. But for now…

      Alex took a deep breath. She waded into the fray. “I don’t know who you two are,” she said, raising her voice just enough so that it carried, “but I’m here on Mr. McKendrick’s behalf, and if you don’t stop this right this minute, your firm will lose its contract. I’m giving you fair warning. I’m walking right up next to you, so if anyone hits anyone, I’ll probably get hit, too. That will be assault, and you won’t even be able to plead that you didn’t know that I was here.”

      She kept moving as she spoke. “Who are you, anyway?” she asked. “And, no, I don’t want to know what you’re fighting about. I just want it stopped. Right now.”

      By now she was only three feet away, easily within the peripheral vision of the men. One of them blinked. He turned toward her. “This doesn’t concern you.”

      “Yes, it does. My job is to make sure my customers are happy. You’re scaring them.”

      The other man turned toward her. He looked her over, head to toe. “So you work for Mr. McKendrick. Who exactly are you, luscious lady?”

      Alex realized that if the man wanted to, he was close enough to reach out and touch her. She took a very slight step back.

      “I’m Alexandra Lowell.”

      “And she’s none of your business.” The deep, steely voice came from behind Alex. She turned to see Wyatt, eyes blazing, bearing down on them. “I suggest you two men return to your work immediately,” he said. “I’ll discuss this with you and your supervisor shortly.”

      The man who’d asked who she was scowled and grumbled something unintelligible, but both of them turned. They started to lumber back to whatever they had been doing before all this began.

      Wyatt waited until they were out of hearing range. “Break time?” he said, and Alex looked up into his glittering eyes. He was angry and not trying to conceal it.

      “I’d say that’s a yes. But I should…”

      “Find someone to man your desk? It’s already done. Let’s talk,” he said, his tone perfectly calm.

      But Alex didn’t miss the tense line of his jaw. She turned and followed him out of the ballroom and down the hallway. He threw open the door to a conference room, pulled her inside and then shut the door behind them.

      “What was that?” Wyatt asked, trying to leash his anger.

      “That was me trying to avert a crisis.”

      “That was you trying to get your pretty face and body rearranged. Again. Presenting yourself as a punching bag to enraged men is getting to be a habit, Alex. Do you know what one swing from one of those men’s fists could do to you?”

      “This is nothing like that other time. Protecting that little boy was…well, anyone would have done that.”

      Wyatt seriously doubted that. “So how is this different?” He gazed down into those sky eyes, waiting for her answer and for his heart to stop racing, but it didn’t. Watching her confront two full-grown angry men, listening to one of them try to hit on her…he wanted to swear.

      “Two reasons. For one, the hotel’s reputation was at risk this time.”

      He lost the battle not to swear. “Alex, you’re an amazing woman. You’re doing great things for McKendrick’s and you’ve become a customer favorite.” My favorite, he thought, but he couldn’t utter those words. He shouldn’t even be thinking them. “But I don’t want you to get hurt helping me.” I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to be another man taking your help and then not giving anything back.

      “Wyatt, I’m fine,” she said. “Look.” She held out her arms, as if to show him that she was all in one piece.

      He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t try to schmooze me, Lowell. You know what I mean. You’re not to confront any more angry men. For any reason. Got that?”

      For a second he thought she was going to do the right thing and meekly agree, the way any other employee would have. But Alex raised her chin and looked him square in the eye. “I’m sorry. I can’t agree to that. If I’m going to run my own shop, one I operate alone, I have to be able to handle any situation. That was the second reason I had to get involved.”

      Wyatt growled. There was nothing he could say to that, was there? Except this. “I know you’re going to run a fantastic shop. People will visit in droves. Every customer will go away satisfied. But don’t practice your negotiating skills here, Alex. Not again. If any bullies come in and Security is otherwise occupied, you send them to me. If any workers get into an argument, you send them my way. Anything that might threaten you physically, you step away from. If I’m not here, you find someone bigger than you to handle it, and then you find me.”

      “It was your day off.” She hadn’t lowered her chin even a notch.

      “Where your safety is concerned, I have no days off. Understood?”

      She blinked.

      “Alex? Please.”

      As if that one word did it, she nodded. “All right. Actually, I was just the tiniest bit concerned. When that one guy asked me who I was and looked at me as if he wanted to…do something, it made my skin crawl.”

      And any thought Wyatt had of regaining his composure flew right out the window. He slid his hand around Alex’s waist and slowly drew her close, giving her ample time to tell him to stop or to push back. “I’m not going to let anyone touch you.”

      But Wyatt was most definitely touching her. He pulled her even closer. For a moment, several moments, he just held her. He stroked her hair and whispered soothing words against her temple. She was warm and vibrant and so…Alex in his arms that he couldn’t stop himself from reacting to her, wanting her.

      He drew back and gazed down into her eyes, his lips close to hers. “I’m going to kiss you, Alex.”

      “Yes.” The word came out on a breath.

      “You can stop me. You can say no. You know you have a choice.”

      Her answer was to rise on her toes and press her lips to his. “I know,” she whispered against his mouth.