Suite Embrace

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“Doesn’t sound that way to me.”

“Oh, drop it, Deena, please.”

“Okay. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Miss Dagrun gives you a real workout when she gets here. But don’t let her rattle you, okay?”

“Afraid I might run off and join Jean-Paul at the Hyatt Regency in Utah?” Skylar joked.

“No, but you might be tempted. She sounds like the kind of guest who can be a real pain in the butt. Demanding, picky and insistent on having things done a certain way. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s coming to Scenic Ridge to convince Mark to leave.”

“Leave? But you said he was happy here.”

“He is, and I plan to keep him happy and keep him here.”

Skylar sipped from her mug, intrigued by Deena’s remark. “You talk about Mark Jorgen as if he’s a guest, not an employee.”

“In a way he is a guest,” Deena agreed. “And I expect you and the staff to treat him as such. As an Olympic gold medal winner he has clout…a following of devotees that attracts high profile clients. Whatever he asks for, you get it, or do it. Okay?”

With a jerk of her shoulder, Skylar puckered her lips and nodded her understanding, pleased with herself for already having shown him exactly what she was all about. Fulfilling Mark Jorgen’s requests would be easy, as long as he didn’t overstep the boundaries she planned to put in place right away.

Chapter 9

The sculpted candle in the center of the table gave off the delicious scent of white gardenias and cast a golden glow over Virina Dagrun’s model-sharp features. Her silver blonde hair, cut into a short-boyish style, softly cupped below her ears, shimmered in the candlelight as she reached for her balloon-shaped wine glass. She leaned closer to the flame, appreciative of the muted lighting in the intimate restaurant, hoping it helped disguise the newest wrinkle she had discovered beneath her left eye that morning. What a drag! If she’d had more time she would have made an appointment for a Botox injection before dinner, but she’d been too rushed, having flown in from Oslo only five hours earlier.

“Do you like my choice of restaurants, Richard?” she asked her dinner guest, lifting a hand layered with jewels as she glanced around the New York City establishment. Each table was nestled inside a private semicircle booth and was covered with a crisp white lace cloth, sparkling crystal and silver so shiny that it created tiny bursts of light throughout the room. Virina found so many of New York’s better restaurants too boldly lit and open for her tastes, but the atmosphere at Jannike’s was perfect. It was dim, decorated in old European style and expensive enough to keep the riffraff out.

“A very elegant place,” Richard replied, nodding his approval. “Quiet, and as private as you said it would be. The kind of place where people can actually talk to each other without screaming in their faces or worrying that the people next to them can overhear every word.”

“Precisely, and we have a lot to discuss, Richard. I’ll be leaving New York in a week, so we don’t have a lot of time to get everything settled,” Virina began, taking a quick sip from her glass. She placed her goblet on the table and a bright red fingernail to the side of her mouth, as if struggling with a thought, when in fact, she was sizing Richard Nobel up while formulating her strategy.

She knew how to play the negotiating game with the best and knew she was going to get what she wanted from this good-looking journalist who was sitting across from her, drinking the two-hundred-dollar-a-bottle wine she was paying for. He was thin, almost gaunt, but carried himself with an aristocratic air that she found very appealing. His earthy brown skin, black eyes and bright white teeth reminded her of Nat King Cole, the most gorgeous black man ever, in her opinion. A man as good looking as Richard was probably used to women coming on to him, so why not take a chance? If flirting with him didn’t work, she had other ways to get what she wanted.