Close to You (2 page)

His mouth opened, then closed. Good.

Mr. Duff chuckled. “Please excuse Jack, Dr. Shire, he's still a little grumpy from his time in coach.”

He wasn't just grumpy, he was an arrogant sod. But she'd
dealt with far worse. She pasted on a smile. “Right, let's get that coffee then.”

Six more tours, Allie. Just six more tours. Then you'll never have to be seen as inferior by people like him ever again.

* * *

“C
an we have two flat whites and a hot chocolate please, Matt?” Dr. Shire gave the order to the guy working the coffee machine.
Doctor.
Whatever.

“Actually, I'd prefer a latte.” Jackson hadn't gotten where he had by letting anyone force their preferences on him.

She raised an eyebrow. “You asked for real coffee. I'm ordering you a
real
coffee.”

It was worse than his worst nightmares. Not even his wildest imagination could have conjured up some frumpy girl who barely came up to his chest, dressed as a
hobbit
, denigrating his beverage choice. And don't get him started on the so-called
Doctor
. Yeah right, if buying it off the Internet counted.

Three takeout cups appeared on the counter. She picked up the larger one and handed it to his uncle, then handed one of the smaller ones to him. He took a tentative sip, preparing himself for something horrid.

The smooth combination of coffee and milk hit his tongue. It was good. Really good. He struggled to stop himself from closing his eyes in bliss. Couldn't give little Miss Hoity Toity the satisfaction of seeing that he liked it.

“We should go and collect your bags.” She directed her comment to his uncle, who nodded and started walking faster than his age and cane should have allowed.

Fifty feet later the space opened up to a large atrium encir
cling a food court and retail shops. Large glass windows overlooked the runway. Hanging from the high ceiling, supervising it all, were two huge eagle sculptures, one with the wizard Gandalf perched on top of its back. Twenty feet farther on, surrounded by fish, hung the little goblin-like creature who had a thing for the ring. “It's—” Jackson's mind blanked.

She stopped, looked at him, waiting. Fortunately, his uncle had paused a few steps ahead of them and was also staring above their heads, so he hadn't seen his nephew, who was supposedly as ardent a Tolkien fan as he was, flailing over the most basic of character names.

Think, Jackson, think.
He'd crammed two of the movies on the plane. If he failed this most basic of tests he had might as well kiss the money good-bye right now and go home. There was no way he was going to survive three weeks.

It sounded like goblin but wasn't. Gobbin? Grobbin? Gollin? “Gollum!” He announced the name triumphantly, like he was wielding some kind of trophy.

“Oh boy.” The hobbit—or should it be hobbitess?—stared at him with an incredulous look on her face as she muttered under her breath.

“I was just surprised.” His pathetic excuse sounded lame, even to him. He was going to have to make up a lot of ground to convince her he was a legit fan. Not that he cared what she thought, but if she didn't believe it, it would only be a matter of time before she blew his cover with his uncle. That couldn't happen.

The man himself appeared beside him. “Isn't he brilliant? I've always felt sorry for poor Sméagol.”

Sméagol? Who on earth was Sméagol? This was Gollum.
Wasn't it? He looked down at Hobbit Girl, the confusion obviously clear on his face because she was struggling to cover a smirk.

“Yeah, me too.” Time to change the topic, fast. “We should go and get our bags, right?”

He tried to catch the girl's eye. His uncle had paid top dollar for this trip, and Southern Luxury Tours marketed themselves as the most luxurious in New Zealand. Presumably that included doing their jobs with some sort of discretion.

She smiled sweetly. “We never rush anything on our tours. They're all about the experience. I'm sure your bags have already been collected, so we can stay here and admire Sméagol as long as Mr. Duff likes.”

He closed his eyes for a second. What a pain. He was going to have to find a way to get the girl on his side before she became a liability. There was no way he was going to allow his family's future to be compromised by some snarky tour guide with a fake degree.

Fortunately, the one thing Jackson Gregory had never struggled with was charming the ladies. She'd be looking at him like he'd hung the moon in no time.

* * *

A
llie eyed Jackson across the aisle of the company's luxury Mercedes touring bus. There was something about him, deeper than the patronizing arrogance, that jarred her. She didn't know what, but she didn't like it.

She couldn't give two hoots that he wasn't a Tolkien fan. Frankly, they were great to have on a tour. The more the better. It was the obsessives who drove her nuts, wanting to dis
sect every last nuance of the books, convene a debate club every other second on the shortcomings of the movies, and practice their Elvish. She'd had plenty of rich people bring their assistants who couldn't give two figs about
The Hobbit
or
The Lord of the Rings
. They usually spent their days managing things back on home turf and making sure their boss's every whim was catered to.

People who had sheep phobias, people who freaked out at the sight of green food, people who had to have their hotel room at exactly 19°C, people who always had to have the bathroom on the right side of the room, people who ordered special food flown in from all over the country—she'd seen it all. Jackson Gregory was not a Tolkien fan, but he desperately didn't want his boss to know. Maybe it was for the dullest of reasons, but she was going to find out what they were. She liked Mr. Duff. There was no way he was getting taken advantage of under her watch by some guy who looked like a C-grade soap opera star. Especially not when he clearly had some serious money if he had paid for Jackson to come on the tour. In her experience, serious money tended to attract some serious lowlifes.

She pushed down the swirling emotions that threatened to come up at the thought. Only six more months and she'd be finished dealing with all the carnage that Derek had left in his wake. Then she could return home having salvaged some pride. Think about starting to rebuild her career.

She'd learned her lesson. Love had no place for Allison Shire, and she was fine with that.

Two

J
ACKSON DROPPED HIS BAG ON
the floor of the hotel room that was to be his home for the next week and looked around with a critical eye. His uncle was safely ensconced upstairs in an executive suite with harbor views, while Jackson found himself buried in the bowels of the hotel in what was euphemistically called a “classic deluxe” room.

To be fair, it was perfectly adequate. Queen-size bed with comforter, walls featuring large, bright floral prints, generic bedside tables, and a large armchair all positioned for a view of the plasma television hanging on a mirrored wall. He had just gotten used to living the high life—much like his uncle was currently enjoying, in his double-size room with marble bathroom and sweeping views.

He blew out a breath. Sometimes it still surprised him how much life had changed since the day he walked into his condo and discovered it stripped of every sign that his ex-girlfriend had ever existed.

Jackson shoved her out of his mind. So he was going to have to make a few sacrifices to get things back on track. So what? This was still a life of comparative luxury compared to how he'd lived during the years he'd spent pouring every cent he made into trying to build his company and gain the interest of serious investors.

Besides, this was a business trip. One he'd managed to get on by the sheer chance of his uncle's real assistant quitting a few weeks before. Nothing mattered except accomplishing his goal. He would sleep at the cheapest, nastiest hostel in town and risk getting some horrid foot fungus from the shared bathrooms if that was what it took.

The soft bed called to him, inviting him to sink his weary body down and close his eyes. Just for a few minutes. He hadn't slept properly in two days. He shook his head. No! Sleep was for the weak. He had three hours before the tour officially started, and he needed to use every second of that time to prep.

Dropping his carry-on onto the desk, he unzipped it and pulled out the material he'd have to ensure no one on the tour ever saw. Copies of
A Cheat's Guide to “The Lord of the Rings”
and
A Cheat's Guide to “The
Hobbit
.” DVDs of all six movies. Two large folders packed with hundreds of pages of information he'd printed off the Internet about Tolkien's books and the movies.

Picking up the two guides, he kicked his shoes off, grabbed a soda out of the minibar, and dropped into the armchair.

Though he had no doubt of his abilities to charm the tour guide, there were seven other people on this tour he also had to convince of his Tolkien credentials. And he had three hours to
start covering some huge holes in his most elementary knowledge. For starters: who the heck was Sméagol?

* * *

A
llie allowed her body to sag into one of the plush seats that made up the informal area of the hotel's bar. Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes and gave herself a few seconds to relax. She was a little early. Hopefully John, the hotel's manager, would be a few minutes late.

She absorbed the silence like a sponge. At eleven in the morning, both the bar and the restaurant were still half an hour from opening for lunch. Thank goodness. The last thing she wanted was to be seen by the ladies-who-lunch set who frequented the restaurant.

At least she'd had time to shed the hobbit feet and wig in her room, though she was still in the horrid dress because it was too much effort to get out of all the obnoxious padding only to have to wrestle it all back on in a couple of hours.

“An ice-cold Diet Coke with a slice of lemon for the lady.”

She opened her eyes as John placed a tall glass on the table in front of her. “You're a lifesaver. Thanks.”

The manager settled his lean frame into the seat opposite her, all business in his perfectly pressed navy suit and carrying a hotel-branded folder. Flicking it open, he eyed Allie's clipboard, which sat on the table between them. “So how bad is it?”

Allie picked up her glass and took a long sip. “Not too bad in the grand scheme of things.”

She'd lost count of how many of these meetings the two of them had had. When people paid what SLT charged for a tour, they had high expectations. And on every tour, there was at least one person who would find fault wherever they went.
Fortunately, after his years in high-class hospitality, there was almost nothing John hadn't dealt with. Though, admittedly, a few of her tourists had added to his repertoire.

Allie picked up her clipboard and consulted her notes. “The Barrett sisters would like their minibar emptied and filled only with glass bottles of sparkling Evian. The small ones. They would like the potted plant removed, their beds remade with the Frette sheets they brought themselves, their bathrobes replaced with brand-new ones, and an organic fruit basket.”

John scribbled away. “No problem. That all for them?”

Allie paused, unsure how to frame the final directive. “And they, um, would like all their room service attendees to only be attractive gentlemen under fifty.”

John threw back his head and let out a laugh, his perfectly coiffed dark hair not moving so much as a millimeter. “What are they? Like seventy?”

They were seventy-seven. “Over.”

He shook his head and scribbled a note. “Oh well. Guess at that age you're entitled to get your fun wherever you can find it.”

She consulted her notes again. “Mr. Johnson wants to confirm that the only thing accessible on his daughter's TV are the
Lord of the Rings
and
Hobbit
movies, and the German couple would like this added to the minibar.” She handed over the name of a German spirit she couldn't even pronounce.

He took the piece of paper and raised an eyebrow. “I'll see what I can do.”

She closed the cover of her clipboard. As far as tours went, so far the participants in this one were surprisingly undemanding. Though she was sure the Barrett sisters would up their game if they found that out. “And that is it.”

“Nothing for Mr. Duff or Mr. Gregory?”

She shook her head. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Excellent.” John pulled a few envelopes out of his compendium and handed them to her. “These came for you.”

“Thanks.” Allie took the mail and gave it a quick shuffle, pausing at one marked as being from the University of Virginia. Its paper-thin width told her all she needed to know. The only question was which template their HR department had used to say,
Thanks, but no thanks
. She flipped past it, then did a double take at the familiar logo on the top left-hand corner of the next. Her heart sped up. Could this be it? The news she'd been waiting two years for?

Placing the envelopes on the table, she tried to keep her face neutral, as if they contained nothing of particular interest, even as the pounding of her heart filled her ears. She clasped her hands in her lap to prevent herself from grabbing up the innocuous-looking rectangle and tearing it open.

John tapped his notes with the tip of his pen. “I'll get onto these straightaway. We'll make the changes to the rooms while you're at the Weta Cave.”

Allie conjured up a smile. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Standing, he looked down at her almost empty glass. “Need another before I go?”

Was the man ever going to leave? The cream envelope on the table enticed her like the famous ring called to Gollum. “No, thanks.”

“Okay. Well, you know where to find me.”

He started walking away, then paused and turned back. She battled the urge to scream. “Oh, I almost forgot. We have some rooms opening up tomorrow. I could upgrade Mr. Gregory to a deluxe room.”

She suppressed a smile. “Don't worry about it. Mr. Gregory
is fine right where he is.” The snooty aide would never know that she'd banished his supersize ego to a hobbit-size room, but it would give her something to smile about if he gave her as much grief as she was anticipating on this tour.

John nodded and finally, finally, disappeared from sight.

Allie waited a few seconds for the sound of the elevator's familiar
ding
before allowing herself to lean forward and flick the top envelope from the pile, revealing the letter from her lawyer.

Picking it up, she sucked in a deep breath. Stared at the creamy embossed paper in her hands. The envelope was thicker than usual, which meant it had to contain something more than the ordinary single-sheet quarterly invoice.

She tried to temper her expectations. She'd been mistaken before, thought they had finally reached the end of the road, only for Derek's lawyers to manage to cause another delay. But surely this had to be it.

The glue released as she slid her finger under the flap, and she reached inside to extract the folded document.

God, please let this be it.
The desperate prayer surprised her. It had been a long time since she'd asked Him for any kind of intervention. As her mother liked to remind her, she'd made her bed and now she had to lie in it. There were other people out there far more deserving of the Almighty's help than she was.

She flipped open the pages, caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

Dear Ms. Shire,

We regret to inform you that Judge Finlayson has granted opposing counsel's request
for a further continuance . . .

Her vision blurred and she couldn't read what followed. Didn't need to.

Bad enough that she'd married a guy who—it turned out—had already gotten himself hitched during a drunken weekend in Vegas to some girl he'd known for five minutes. But how could getting an annulment be this hard? She'd read the Family Proceedings Act so many times she could recite it. In particular, the section declaring any marriage to be void where either party was
already married
. And yet, almost two years later, she was still shackled to him while lawyers argued.

Allie flipped to the next page, a mirthless laugh escaping her lips at the sight of the jump in the quarter's bill. She added it to her mental tally of legal fees. At the current rate, it would probably be cheaper to strike a deal to pay Derek off to drop his opposition.

It might have even been a viable option if the court hadn't frozen most of her assets at the beginning of this wretched saga. And there was no way she could cobble together enough now to satisfy her so-called husband.

She threw the papers on the table and knocked back the last of her drink. Wished for something stronger.

All those people who waxed lyrical about following your heart were idiots.

* * *

J
ackson slapped his cheat's guide shut and stretched his legs. After all that, Gollum and Sméagol were the same creature. No wonder the guide had seen right through him. How could he have forgotten such a basic piece of information?

Opening his suitcase, he pulled out a fresh polo shirt and a
pair of Calvin Klein jeans. Decent attire was one of the few luxuries he had left. At least the vultures hadn't literally stripped the clothes from his back.

His eyes lingered for a second on the family photo he'd thrown into his suitcase at the last moment. His parents and sister and her family grinned back at him. He wasn't normally the sentimental type. Business dealt harshly with those who were, but given that the woman he'd been considering spending the rest of his life with had turned out to be a traitor and that his so-called friends had disappeared as fast as his money, there was something oddly comforting about it.

Picking the silver frame up, he placed it on the bedside table. He might never understand their contentment with their lot, but they were all he had left that mattered. Them, and raising his reputation from the ashes.

Getting changed quickly, he tucked his wallet and phone into his pocket and stepped out the door. His skin felt gritty from hours of travel, but a shower would have to wait until tonight.

Taking the elevator down to the lobby, he stepped out and scanned the room for his uncle. At least so far he was proving to be reasonably low-maintenance on the assistant side of things.

A flash of frizzy red hair caught his eye. Did she have no shame? He would take a jump off a high building before he'd ever wear anything so hideous. Though with that unfortunate figure, there was only so much she could do.

He heard the thought resonate through his head, as if someone else had spoken it aloud, and flinched. When had he gotten so mean?

Striding across the room, Dr. Shire turned as he approached.
“Ah, Mr. Gregory. Mr. Duff hasn't joined us yet, but let me introduce you to your companions on this tour for the next few weeks.”

He hadn't even so much as glanced at whom she'd been talking to. He looked left, pasting an expression of polite interest on his face as he did.

As he registered what was standing there, he barely managed to keep his jaw from becoming unhinged. A man who looked to be in his forties stood in front of him in a full Legolas costume, from the long blond wig to the black boots to the bow-and-arrow set he clutched in his left hand. The guy beamed like he had swallowed a lightbulb.

He stuck out his hand and gave Jackson's a vigorous shake. “Elroy. Elroy Johnson from Minnesota. And this is my daughter, Esther.” He gestured to a slender girl beside him who looked to be in her early teens in a light-green flowing dress, Elf ears, and tiara.

She cut an annoyed glance at her father. “Arwen.”

Oh, brother. Seriously? He gave her a nod. “Nice to meet you, Arwen.”

Now the scathing glance was turned on him. “You forget to whom you are speaking. I am Arwen, queen of the reunited kingdom of Arnor and Gondor.” Her next words were complete gibberish. Followed by a string of even more. The tween looked at him like he was not only supposed to have a clue as to what she was saying, but be doing something in response.

He felt a poke in his ribs. “You need to kneel.”