The fact he was resorting to lame puns even in his own head reinforced his need to get away and stop dwelling on a woman for the first time in forever.
11
Harper had always had a thing for hotels.
Ever since she was little, her parents would take her away with them wherever they went. They’d been on family holidays to Singapore, Bali, and Vanuatu, and while those trips had been great, she’d enjoyed the staycations in posh Melbourne hotels just as much. She’d loved everything about those long-weekend stays, from ordering indulgent room service to the tiny toiletries, from crisply tucked sheets to pay-per-view movies.
So as she stepped into the foyer of the new Storr Hotel in Auckland, she exhaled in relief, like she’d come home. Glancing around the opulent lobby, she didn’t know where to look first. The funky curved stainless steel reception desk took pride of place along the far wall, which was covered in large asymmetrical wooden panels. A turquoise bar and aluminum-clad terrace to her right looked like the perfect place to chill with a drink while waiting for check-in. The striking red sofas and stylish white leather seats curved around low-slung Carrara marble coffee tables, while lush green plants invited the outside in.
She loved anything esthetically pleasing, and this hotel delivered. She inhaled, allowing the intoxicating smell of paint and new floor coverings to permeate her lungs, and knew this job could be the start of something big for her.
The hotel had opened last week, and she’d read rave reviews online. The restaurant, one of many high-end eateries around the world bearing the name of famous Scottish chef Jock McKell, had local diners flocking, and the thought of styling food for the major magazine campaign Wayne Storr wanted had her subduing an urge to dance a jig right in the middle of this plush foyer.
Jock McKell had been at the hotel opening, but she doubted she’d get to meet him. Probably just as well, as she’d had a major crush on the fifty-something chef ever since she’d started working in the food industry, and she’d rather not make a fool of herself when styling his food for photography was so important. She’d made enough of a fool of herself with that whipped cream incident at Nishi’s wedding, and Manny’s text on her cell had been burning a hole in her pocket since she’d received it four days ago.
She’d toyed with responding but couldn’t come up with something that sounded as witty and lighthearted as his text. She’d never been any good at trading quips, and the fact that she’d embarrassed herself so totally with him made composing a response even harder.
She’d half expected him to send a follow-up text, but her phone had remained annoyingly silent. Then again, isn’t that what she wanted? She needed to focus on doing a kick-ass job here and not dwell over a dashing doctor who’d annoyed the hell out of her but kissed like a dream.
After checking in and dumping her stuff in a room with a view of the impressive Sky Tower, she grabbed her laptop and headed for the function room where she’d be styling the food tomorrow. The hotel had several large banquet rooms they used for conferences, and judging by the number of men and women wearing immaculate suits with lanyards around their necks and heading toward the dining room, there must be a conference on now.
The head chef was waiting for her in the function room, and after introductions, he took her through the rundown for tomorrow: the order in which he’d be cooking dishes, the preparation times between each for photography, and any last-minute specifications from Jock McKell himself.
Perspiration trickled down the back of her neck as the implications of what she had to do set in, but the chef assured her the assistant they’d assigned her, a woman named Kylie, was experienced with food styling and the job would proceed smoothly.
However, she’d feel a lot more comfortable once she holed up in her room and studied up on Jock’s green-lipped mussels with garlic and parsley, rack of lamb with red wine jus, whitebait fritters, and stewed feijoa ice cream parfait. She knew real inspiration wouldn’t hit until she had the food in front of her tomorrow, but she always liked to prepare by studying various presentation methods online.
She’d touch base with the assistant too, because while she trusted the chef, she wanted to make sure there were no nasty surprises tomorrow.
After thanking the chef, she headed back to her room, where she typed Kylie’s number into her cell and pressed “call.” When the call switched to voice mail after ten rings, she left a message asking Kylie to call her back and hung up, trying to ignore the niggle in her gut. There could be any number of reasons why Kylie didn’t answer: she was in the middle of a job, she had an appointment, she wasn’t near her cell. But the chef had said Kylie was expecting her call and was free all afternoon, prepping for the job.
She was being silly. Kylie would call back and everything would proceed smoothly tomorrow.
She’d make sure of it.
12
As medical conferences went, this one had been more interesting than most. Manny liked keeping abreast of the latest updates in emergency medicine, and the speakers at this conference had been some of the best from around the world. Advances in treatment for acute pneumonia, deep vein thrombosis, upper gastrointestinal bleeding, prophylactic negative pressure wound therapy, and croup had kept him riveted for the last seventy-two hours, but he looked forward to having the next few days off.
He rarely had vacation days at home, which meant whenever he attended a conference away from Melbourne he scheduled some time to relax afterward. He’d never been to Auckland, despite it only being a three-and-a-half-hour flight away, and he looked forward to playing tourist.
After bidding farewell to fellow delegates, he headed for the bar tucked into one side of the foyer. The glaring blues and stainless steel hurt his eyes, but they served a mean martini, a drink he hadn’t sampled since his early days as an intern, when one of his supervisors had insisted his protégés attend Friday night drinks at a pub near the hospital for those not on call.
He rarely drank these days, considering his life revolved around the hospital, and being the chief ER physician meant he had to keep his wits about him most of the time. But he had no such compunction here, and after ordering an extra dry martini, he pulled out his cell to check on Izzy.
His grandmother always answered on the third ring, like she hated keeping anyone waiting.
“Manish, my boy, how are you?”
“Good. Brain-dead from information overload, but good.”
“You love it,” Izzy said, her soft accent never failing to invoke memories of trailing after her as a boy, of rolling out parathas alongside her as a teen, of standing hip to hip at the stove while she showed him how to taste food by tapping the wooden spoon against his opposite palm. “But I hope you’ll have some time to relax too. You work too hard.”
“The conference wrapped up an hour ago, so I’ll play tourist for a few days. How are you?”