You Call This Romance!?. Barbara Daly

at the keyboard, moved the mouse around on a mousepad that had the word Focus! printed on it in capital letters. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but they’re fully booked for…Oops!” Startled, she drew back. “Somebody just broke up.” A slot, in fact a deluxe theme suite, had opened up before her very eyes. “Our most popular theme room,” they described it on the Web site. She cast a sideways glance at Cabot, feeling he’d somehow done it himself, broken up a couple who had a reservation in his hotel for his room.

      “So grab it!” He was half out of his chair, reaching for the mouse.

      She grabbed it.

      He heaved such a sigh she was sure he was wondering what error in his otherwise impeccable judgment had led him to walk up to her workstation yesterday when all around them automatons were chatting with contented-looking clients while quietly doing everything perfectly, serene, unharried smiles painted on their faces.

      With the room safely booked, she asked him, “Shall I reserve a wedding chapel in Reno?”

      “No.” He growled the word. “I don’t intend to be married by Elvis.”

      “That’s more of a Las Vegas thing,” Faith explained.

      “The answer’s still no. The ceremony will be here and we’ll fly to Reno. I’ll need two limos from the Little Chapel in the Pines to LAX and two waiting at the Reno-Tahoe airport.”

      “One for each of you?” It came out like a squeak.

      Another sigh. “No, one for the crew.”

      “Oh, yes, the crew.” It wasn’t her place to tell Cabot Drennan she thought his honeymoon plans sounded less than romantic. She went to the Web site of her favorite limousine service, the one with plenty of long, long, white, white cars, which they decorated with flowers when they carried a wedding party.

      She frowned. Flowers that would freeze if they had to drive over any mountain passes between the airport and Reno. Maybe they used fake in February. Maybe they used fake all the time. How would she know? She’d never ridden in one.

      “What are you thinking about besides my limos?”

      She turned to confront his accusing glare. “Fake flowers,” she said before she could stop herself.

      “Good idea,” he said. “Tell the limo service I want them to cover the lead car in fake flowers.”

      “No problem.” They’d love it.

      “Then look up the restaurants in the area and choose five of them.”

      “Five?” She couldn’t help herself.

      “Two lunches, three dinners. And limos to take us. No flowers.”

      “Oh.” She turned to him, wondering if she was doing the right thing. “The hotel features twenty-four-hour room service.”

      “That’s very interesting information. Now book the five restaurants.”

      “Won’t you at least want breakfast in bed?” She was feeling sorrier for Tippy Temple’s raging hormones by the minute. She knew Tippy Temple’s hormones had to be raging at the prospect of being Cabot’s bride, because her own hormones were raging just sitting across from him watching him glower at her.

      “Okay. Breakfast in the room. After the hairdresser and manicurist leave. Book one of each every morning at seven.”

      A night with Cabot Drennan could certainly mess a woman up. On the other hand, she couldn’t imagine a night with Cabot Drennan would end at seven in the morning.

      “Coming right up. How about a massage?”

      “Too time-consuming. And I wouldn’t want to film it.”

      “It might relax both of you.”

      “We’re already relaxed,” he said tightly. “No massage.”

      She sighed. “I’ll get to work on the restaurants.”

      “Nothing exotic. Tippy’s a salad girl. Meat, potatoes, salad, good wine list. And a bar,” he added, sounding glum about the prospect even as he specified it. “We need a smoking section.”

      “Tippy smokes?” An uneasy feeling slid through her body. She remembered reading something about…When Cabot hesitated, she moved the mouse around and found what she was looking for. Her uneasiness intensified.

      “No,” he said finally. “I might want an occasional cigar. Or somebody in the film industry might join us for dinner. You know. Just covering all the bases.”

      “Oh, thank goodness.” She expelled a sigh of pure relief. “Because the Inn of Dreams advertises itself as Reno’s only no-smoking hotel. I was worried to death there for a minute.”

      “Stop worrying,” Cabot said, his brows drawn together in what Faith would describe as a worried frown. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow.” He got up.

      She really hated to see him leave. She really hated thinking she could get all this together by tomorrow. It would take more focusing than she thought she could manage, especially with the elusive scent of his aftershave lingering around her workstation, the daydreams already appearing on the margins of her mind. Daydreams of her sharing this strange, much-too-organized honeymoon and throwing it at once into spontaneous, passionate chaos.

      “O-kay,” she said, feeling warm and dreamy.

      His frown deepened. “You’ve got a funny look in your eyes.”

      “What kind of look?” She locked away the daydreams.

      “Never mind. It’s gone.” And so was he. She didn’t even let her gaze follow him to the door. She didn’t have to. She’d already memorized every nuance of his body.

      3

      IN LOS ANGELES ALONE, forget Pasadena and Malibu and all the other contiguous communities, the ratio of travel agents to customers had to be one to ten, and he’d somehow picked the one who made him look at what he did for a living and find it detestable.

      Creating an image for a client, a job he was good at, could be described two ways. One was simply bringing out the best in a person.

      His father had needed nothing more than some decent promotion. The guy had been a great actor. He’d provided a comfortable living for the family doing bit parts. But he’d never made it to the big time. At last he’d given up trying, ended up teaching drama at a small Midwestern college and acting with the local community theater. He was the reason Cabot had become a publicist in the first place. He’d wanted to do for actors what he wished someone had done for his father.

      Nothing detestable about that.

      The other way of describing image making was that you were inventing a whole new person out of lies. Tippy was invented.

      Cabot realized he was chewing his nails. Twenty-five dollars for the essential executive’s manicure these days and he was chewing his nails. He needed to do something with his hands. Of course, he was driving with his hands, but in L.A. that didn’t count. He had to call Tippy, but after he’d punched her number into his car phone, he was hands-free again.

      “I want to take you to dinner,” he said as soon as he’d gotten her on the line.

      “Shoo-uh,” Tippy said, ending with a big popping sound. “Where? You gonna get a photographer? Get us in Variety?”

      “That depends,” Cabot said mysteriously.

      “Well, I got a new dress and I wanna be sure we’re going someplace worth wearing it.” She sounded cross.

      “Wear it. We’re going to Spago.” The restaurant was always packed with celebrities. Incentive. That’s what he needed here. Motivation.

      She cheered up right away. Of course, he also heard the