Interesting.
“Why is it I don’t know about this place?” It sounded exactly like the kind of resort to find private clients, or to ensure her current clients could vacation without the watchful eyes of the press.
“Not sure. Seems like a given in your line of work,” Shannon said.
It was a given, wasn’t it? Alliance needed places like this all around the globe.
Paul found the ladies. His tie hung over his collar, his easy smile and charm that turned many women’s heads fell on Shannon. “I thought you’d left me already.”
Shannon rolled her eyes and didn’t flinch when he placed a hand on her back.
Paul glanced at Meg and winked.
He laughed when she narrowed her eyes and frowned.
“They need us for cake cutting,” he told his temporary bride.
Before they could leave Meg’s side, she shook her finger at Paul. “Behave.”
He winked a second time.
Meg knew that behave wasn’t a word in Paul Wentworth’s vocabulary.
Sapore di Amore Villa and Suites was a hell of a lot more than a hotel.
It was an island. A private island sandwiched between two of the larger keys. Getting there required a private plane, or a charter off the mainland. Helicopters were a favorite form of transportation for those wanting to bask in the Caribbean sun without the flash of the paparazzi cameras.
From the pictures Shannon had sent her after she and Paul returned from the resort, Meg made it a daily task to arrange her trip to Sapore di Amore.
She secured the finances to visit the island through Sam, and then procured Sam and Blake’s private jet to fly her there.
Now all she needed was a date.
The date was the kicker.
Until she remembered that Michael Wolfe, Hollywood hotshot movie star, was the big brother of her best friend, Judy.
Every uterus in the free world sought after Michael. Problem was, he didn’t play for that team, a fact that Meg had realized after joining Alliance.
The shock had come to Meg shortly after her BFF Judy married the love of her life, Rick Evans.
Meg and Judy had gone to college together and then moved to Southern California. Both were headed in different employment directions. Judy was destined to rise in the ranks of professional architecture, where Meg had no idea what she would do with her business degree. Luck and timing placed her with Samantha Harrison and Alliance. The matchmaking service for the elite wasn’t anything Meg thought she’d studied for. Yet the job suited her perfectly.
OK, maybe not with perfection.
Having grown up with very little, it was often hard to blend with the rich and famous. But in the last couple of years, she’d managed to do just that. She’d found a handful of clients, both paying men and willing women, to fill the client base of Alliance.
Once Meg proved herself to Sam, she learned the secrets of Alliance. She discovered that Michael had married a woman through Alliance simply to fend off any media or bad press due to his personal life.
Michael’s career was lucrative to the degree of thirty to forty million per film, and Hollywood liked their heartthrobs heterosexual.
Michael had opened up to a few family members and those within Alliance about his sexuality. His parents and the rest of the world had no idea.
In her opinion, Michael would probably keep his personal desires hidden for years to come.
So when she’d asked him if he would be game to a little cat and mouse in the Keys, he’d been more than happy to jump.
When she’d told him about how the resort was a paparazzi-free zone, and she was there on a recon mission to determine if the place actually kept secrets . . . secret, he was even more intrigued.
One tiny problem.
Meg wasn’t passing Sapore’s background check.
Or at least that’s how she translated the letter from the desk of Valentino Masini.
Valentino had some nerve.
Madam,
While we have accepted the application of Michael Wolfe, we’ve yet to secure the credentials of Margaret Rosenthal. While we respect the references of the past eighteen months, we’re concerned about the previous timeline. Please accept our apologies while we search further.
Please understand that every guest at Sapore di Amore is highly respected and their privacy is of utmost importance . . . as is yours if you join us.
We shall have an answer to your request within the coming weeks.
Sincerely,
Valentino Masini
Meg knew a form letter when she saw it. Place a name here, omit a name there . . . bottom line, before Alliance, Meg was a nobody.
In reality, she still was. She just knew some seriously loaded and influential people.
Meg’s own people were on the nobody side of life.
Letters like this drove home her biggest insecurity. She stood beside the elite, wore clothing from the same boutiques they did . . . rode in private planes for crying out loud . . . but she wasn’t one of them.
Still.
Rejection ate at the pit of her stomach and made her skin crawl.
How dare Valentino reject her. Valentino! What the hell kind of name was that anyway?
Made up, she decided. A name formed by ambition and not given by his mother.
Besides, Valentino’s secretary probably wrote the letter.
Valentino was probably a balding old man sitting in some musty brick building in Italy where the sun made him thick with musk that would choke anyone standing by.
“If I join you my ass,” Meg said to herself while she responded to the e-mail.
Dear Mr. Masini,
While I completely understand your concern and I respect your need for privacy, you’ll see by my references and my traveling companion, security and secrecy are just as important to me as they are you. More so.