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“Not quite,” she mumbled. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” he said. “I was just getting dressed and Tanner ran across the hall to his room to shower.”
“Can you get him back over here?” she asked. “I need to talk to you both—at the same time.”
“Sure,” he said. Declan pulled his cell from his pocket and called Tanner. “You done in the shower?” he asked. “Good, then get your ass back over here. Shelby is here and wants to talk to both of us.” He ended the call and before he even shoved the phone back into his pocket, Tanner was banging on his door.
“Hey, everything all right?” Tanner asked, pulling her into his arms. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and was still wet from his shower, making her want to lick the water off of his body.
“No,” Shelby breathed, pulling away from him. “Everything is not all right. I just quit my job.”
“Good,” Tanner said.
“Good—how can you say that?” she asked.
“Because I didn’t like you working for that asshole, Claude. He hired you to be the concierge and when you got here, stuck you in as a made. That’s not right, honey.”
“Tanner’s right,” Declan said. “Claude is an asshole. We know that much.”
“How do you know that Declan?” she asked. “How do you know Claude at all?”
“What’s this all about, Shelby?” Tanner asked. “You seem angry at us.”
“I’m pissed,” she admitted, “at Claude, and at the both of you. The two of you lied to me,” she said.
“Lied to you—when?” Declan asked.
“You didn’t tell me that you own hotels in America,” she challenged.
“That’s not a lie,” Tanner said. “We just never discussed what we do for a living with you.”
“I told you that we’re business partners the night you found us fighting in the hallway—the first night we met,” Declan reminded.
“Right, but you never told me that you own hotels in America,” she said again.
“No, we didn’t, but to be fair, you never asked what kind of business we were in,” Tanner said. Shit—he was right, and she hated that they were making her look crazy for making such a big deal about all of this. Maybe she was, but she felt the need to get this off her chest.
“I guess I thought we’d get to all of that later. What’s happened between the three of us kind of threw me off-kilter,” she said, trying to cover for herself.
“Us too,” Tanner admitted. “I’m just confused why you seem so upset about what we do for a living,” he said.
“I’m not upset about what you do. I’m upset that you didn’t give me a heads up. You see, I went into work this morning and was immediately called down to Claude’s office. When I got there, he told me that you two owned hotels in America and accused me of planning on leaving him to take a position with you two.”
“Well, that’s not a bad idea,” Declan mumbled, interrupting her. She shot him a look and he shrugged. “Well, it’s not.”
“He’s right,” Tanner agreed. “Come work in one of our hotels as the concierge. We promise not to make you wear the maid’s uniform—unless you want to do a little role play,” he teased.
“This is serious, Tanner,” she chided. “Claude made me feel like a liar because I didn’t know about who the two of you were. I told him that I had no clue, but he called me a bitch for leaving him high and dry. I quit and he called me every name in the book. Do you know how embarrassing it was to have to clean out my locker while everyone watched Claude calling me names? It was awful and all of this could have been avoided if you both had just told me about your hotels.”
“I’m not sure that I can apologize for something that I didn’t do, but I’m sorry that you had to go through that,” Declan said. “How can we help make this better?” he asked.
“Want us to beat the shit out of Claude?” Tanner asked.
“No,” she said. “Although, I wouldn’t mind having five minutes alone with him.”
“My money would be on you, honey,” Declan said.
“You can help me pack,” she said. “I have to hit the road by nightfall,” she said. “I mean, who talks like that? Leave by nightfall—that’s ridiculous.”
