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In the meantime, however, she was going to try for a solid night of sleep, then get up early, go to the gym at the hotel and put in another day of work. The pattern of her life was comforting in the midst of the unknown.
CHAPTER THREE
Hudson was up early, ready to start part one of his plan for the Serenity Point resort assignment. He’d arrived there late the previous afternoon, but instead of checking in for the owner suite, he’d done it for the room that Caleb had reserved for him.
On Sunday, he and Caleb had had a conversation about the plan for going to the Serenity Point resort. Caleb had pointed out that it might be good to go in “undercover” first, so that he could get the lay of the land and see how things functioned.
After mulling over the idea, Hudson had decided that his assistant was right. So rather than use a driver from the resort, he’d had Caleb arrange for a rental he could drive from Coeur d’Alene where the Remington jet had dropped him off to his destination.
He’d gone through the check-in process, been lightly flirted with by a woman sporting short blond hair and a name tag that saidLiz.She hadn’t been the one to check him in, but she’d hovered beside the young man who had handled it.
After he’d settled in, Hudson had called for room service to evaluate that. Thankfully, the food was up to Remington standards, though the room service delivery person had seemed a little nervous. It wasn’t hugely concerning, but the behavior wasn’t the norm for how staff were trained to deal with guests at the Remington properties.
Now, jetlag of all sorts was catching up with him. First from Asia to NYC, and then from NYC to Idaho. His body didn’t know what time it was, which was probably why he’d woken up at five-thirty.
He decided to go to the gym, since it would probably be empty that early in the day. Because he didn’t have to go out in the miserable cold that was winter in northern Idaho, Hudson wore his workout clothes to walk through the halls to the elevator that took him to the floor where the gym was located.
When he reached it, he discovered he wasn’t the only one getting in an early workout. There was a petite woman running at a brisk clip on one of the treadmills. She glanced over at him as he walked into the large space and gave him a quick smile, but then focused again on the tablet that was propped up on the treadmill.
Hudson went over to where the weight machines were located and prepared one with his preferred weight amounts. He usually spent time on the treadmill as well, but since there was someone already on one, he decided to wait until the end of his workout to do his run.
Though he didn’t stare at the woman, he couldn’t keep from glancing at her periodically. Her shiny dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail that swung back and forth as she kept up a steady, rapid pace.
She was wearing an oversize T-shirt over a pair of fitted shorts that reached almost to her knees. Her outfit wasn’t anything like what he expected to see at a resort of this caliber. Usually, the women he encountered in the gyms at the resorts he visited wore much more fitted and revealing expensive brands of workout clothes.
About half an hour into his workout, the woman’s pace slowed. She stepped off the machine, then grabbed her tablet and headed for the changing room. It wasn’t long before she reappeared with a small bag over her shoulder, and she gave him a quick smile and a nod as she walked to the door of the gym.
He kind of hoped he saw her again.
The thought took him off-guard, and Hudson could only assume it was because he was still dealing with jetlag. Women weren’t high on his list of priorities these days. It had been ages since he’d last been on a date, and he hadn’t noticed the lack.
Even with this woman snagging his passing interest, it couldn’t be more than that. He was there to do a job, and as always, his work took top priority.
Probably the main reason she had captured his interest was that she’d pretty much ignored him. He was used to women wanting to talk to him. To flirt with him.
Of course, there were any number of reasons why this woman wouldn’t hang around and chat. She could be shy. She could already be in a relationship or married, though even that didn’t seem to stop some women from approaching him.
For the most part, Hudson hated it. He was well aware that he’d inherited his good looks from his father, and Alexander Remington had used his looks to charm plenty of women, most of whom he should have steered clear of.
Growing up without his father, Hudson had often wondered what he looked like because he hadn’t looked much like his mom. She’d been petite, with curly blonde hair, pale skin, and gray eyes. He’d passed her in height by the time he was twelve, and his hair was dark, while his eyes were a deeper blue. The only thing he’d seemed to inherit from her had been his curls.
When he’d met Alexander after his mom had been killed, he’d finally seen where the majority of his genetic makeup had come from. Of course, by that point, he was aware of the circumstances of his birth, and that had left him completely uninterested in connecting with the man.
The good thing was that at the time, Alexander had seemed similarly uninterested in connecting with him. A few years later, he’d gone on to have a son with his fourth wife, followed by a daughter and another son. It was to those three that Alexander Remington was a present and involved father.
Which made sense, of course. Why would he have wanted a relationship with the son he’d fathered with the woman who had been his mistress during his second marriage?
Hudson was actually glad that he’d had those formative years with his mom because she’d instilled in him the need to be a different man than the one who had fathered him. The main way he hadn’t wanted to be like Alexander was in how he dealt with women and the relationships he had with them.
It had ended up just being easier to not get involved in relationships, so he didn’t have to worry about becoming like his father.
However, hehadbecome like Alexander in his work ethic. Both of them worked hard, though Alexander had slowed down a bit in the past few years. Hudson wasn’t sure that his mom would be pleased about his workaholic ways, but she wasn’t there to urge him to have interests besides work in his life.
Hudson pushed the thoughts of his mom from his mind, surprised that they’d been able to sneak in. Clearly, his exhaustion had lowered all his mental barriers.
He finished his time on the treadmill by focusing on what he’d seen of the hotel so far, and how he could experience even more before he had to reveal his presence there. Alexander might have wanted him to come and focus on the issues that had cropped up, but there was no way that Hudson was going to pass up the opportunity to evaluate the resort as a whole while he was there.
The rest of the day was spent dealing with email, making a couple of video calls to check in with other Remington locations, talking with Caleb, and wandering around the hotel. He checked out the pool and other amenities, then tried one of the restaurants for dinner.
