You Call This Romance!?: You Call This Romance!? / Are You For Real. Barbara Daly

fine,” he said.

      “No, it’s not,” Faith said.

      “Yes, it is,” Cabot said. “Tippy will like the ambiance. You ready out there, guys?”

      “Ready as we’ll ever be,” Raff called back.

      “It’s show time, folks,” Cabot said. “Hold on a minute. I want to splash some water on my face first.”

      The next thing she heard was a roll of thunder, a crackle of lightning and a sound from Cabot that, if his voice weren’t so masculine, she might have called a scream. As the waiting crew muttered curses and flung down their equipment to dash to the rescue, the bathroom door opened. Cabot emerged, water dripping from his hair and clothes, clutching a leopard-print towel.

      “I guess that wasn’t the light switch after all,” he said, deadly calm.

      “It was your rain-forest effects,” Faith said.

      He stared at his crew for a long, silent moment. “We’ll ‘cross the threshold’ tomorrow,” he said in the same overly calm voice. “When the rainy season has passed.” He slammed the door in their startled faces.

      He glared at her, then turned his back and opened his suitcase. She gazed at his back, watching the elegant, black, soaking-wet suit crumple up, then opened her own large bag the bellhop had positioned on a luggage rack.

      “When’s dinner?” Cabot said, pulling things out of his suitcase and depositing them in a zebra-striped dresser.

      “We have an eight-o’clock reservation,” she said, hoping she’d remembered right.

      “We have to stay here until eight?” There was an edge of panic in his voice.

      She could understand the panic. She couldn’t wait to get out of this place herself.

      “It will be eight by the time we’ve unpacked and freshened up and…” It hit her like brand-new information that she was sharing the Tahoe Jungle Suite with a man she found almost irresistible. “And it will be time for dinner before you know it. Cabot…”

      “What?” he said, sounding impatient as he unzipped a leather bag and pulled interesting-looking items out of it. Socks, underwear, turtlenecks…

      Faith accepted the sad but true fact that everything about Cabot interested her, even his underwear. “I realize this isn’t the mood you want for your honeymoon,” she said. “By July the demand for hearts and flowers will slow down, and I’m sure I can—”

      “I already said,” he answered her, bent over a suitcase, “Tippy will like it just fine.”

      This time the familiar words didn’t annoy her. She felt sympathetic, amused, willing to educate him. He didn’t have a clue as to what a woman would like. Except that the woman would like him. What woman could keep herself from liking him. Wanting him. Loving him. Giving herself to him…

      “I’ll confirm the reservation,” she said, and hastily involved herself in her unpacking.

      Makeup and toiletries, the beautiful outfits with their matching shoes and handbags, belts, chiffon scarves, pashmina stoles. Jewelry—stunning, fake, and, Cabot had told her, borrowed. The pale-blue dressing gown. With shaking fingers she scrambled through the bags, unzipping pockets and ripping open Velcro cubbyholes before finally giving up the search.

      That thing that had been niggling at her as she was leaving town—now she knew what it was. She’d forgotten to bring a stitch of underwear.

      6

      CABOT PULLED A SWEATER over his head, and just as he’d reached that point of no return, with both arms in the air and his head still trying to push through the turtleneck, he heard Faith say, “I need to do a little shopping.”

      “Forgot something?” He wanted to say, something else, but restrained himself.

      “Ah, yes, a thong or two.”

      Nah, she couldn’t have said that. His head popped through the sweater. “What?” He could see her now, and her face was flushed pink.

      “A thing or two,” she mumbled.

      Female stuff probably. All he needed to put the perfect shine on the weekend was a surrogate bride with PMS. For a second he tried to imagine Tippy with PMS, but he didn’t have to imagine it. Tippy acted like a woman with PMS all the time. “There are shops in the hotel. Go buy your stuff and I’ll…” He would lie down quietly on some animal’s skin and try to recover from Faith, from the tackiness of the room, from having to share the tackiest room in the world with Faith, all of those things. He might even experiment with the hammock, find out just how bad the night was going to be.

      “Don’t forget to confirm the restaurant reservation,” he couldn’t keep himself from adding. “Let’s see, I’ve got all those written permissions to film. You got a separate table for the crew, right?”

      “A sep—yes, of course,” she said hastily.

      “Because I don’t want to treat them like staff. They’ll do the filming between courses, and they’ll be less obtrusive if they have their own table. Did you get the chart telling you what to wear when?”

      “Ah…” She scrambled for a minute through a folder that had little pieces of paper sticking out randomly from three sides. “Yes.”

      “Be back in time to change.”

      “Yes, Sir,” she said, and saluted smartly.

      He had to admit he was being a nag. “Sorry,” he said, “it’s a bad habit.”

      “Everything will be fine,” she said, and gave him a sunny smile as she tripped out the door, her little blue crocodile sandals not making a sound on the three-inch-thick jungle-green carpeting.

      HER SMILE FADED as she raced through the hotel, which seemed to be one endless casino, looking for a private spot. At last she found a small foyer with a marble bench and collapsed onto it. With shaking hands she took the restaurant reservations sheet out of the folder and dialed the number of that night’s restaurant—the nicest one in the hotel—on her cell phone.

      “Confirming a reservation for two this evening in the name Drennan,” she said in her best travel agent’s voice.

      “Yezz, of courzz,” came the purring response. “We’re eggspecting you.” The voice cooled slightly. “You are the ones who are going to be vilming.”

      “Yes,” Faith said. “We’ll also need a nearby table for three, same time,” she added, and held her breath.

      “That is quite impozzible,” the voice intoned at last. “We are vully booked.”

      “But it’s very important,” Faith said. What had she thought the crew would do? Stand around their table filming them having dinner all evening? “My job depends on it.”

      “I’m sorry about your job, but I can’t make a table where there izz no table.” The purr was rapidly turning into a snarl.

      “Oh, but you can,” Faith said with enthusiasm. “Just set up an extra table for three next to our table. We don’t mind being crowded.”

      “Miss, zizz is not our style at Arturo’s of the Inn of Dreams.”

      “Would you tell me your name, please?” Faith said, feeling desperate.

      “Mario.”

      “Mario,” she said, “maybe I should come into the restaurant and discuss this with you privately.” So if necessary, she could slip him fifty dollars of her total liquid assets—one hundred thirty-six dollars and change. “I hesitate to tell you over the phone who will be filmed this evening, but she has strong democratic tendencies and will be appalled if her film crew doesn’t have its own table.”

      “Izz