Better Than Chocolate (Sweet Somethings Book 1) (5 page)

A hand flattens against the small of my back, pushing me forward again. “Just keep moving,” Ryan says, close to my ear. “This is a busy terminal.”

He steers me through the crowd, his garment bag and laptop case slung over his shoulder. He’s a good ten inches taller than me, and by staying close behind, he directs my steps without exposing me to jostling elbows and wayward luggage. I clutch my messenger bag, further disoriented by our brisk pace.

I assume he knows where he’s going.

When we retrieve our luggage from baggage claim, Ryan laughs at the bright green duct tape wrapped around my suitcase.

“Do you see any other bags marked this way?” I ask, sweeping my arm to encompass the winding conveyor belts.

“Touché.”

Ryan gives me one more reason to be thankful for him on this trip as he leads me toward the hotel shuttles. I probably would have spent way too much on a cab.

The shuttle bus blasts freezing air at us, and as we speed away from the airport, I pull the printouts of my travel itinerary from my bag and check my reservations again.

“The hotel’s in Isla Verde,” Ryan explains, peering over my shoulder at my hotel reservation. “The beach is on a sandbar, one of the nicest in San Juan.”

The hotel isn’t far from the airport, and I still don’t have my bearings by the time we pull up in front of the main entrance. It takes all my willpower to keep my jaw from dropping when we enter the lobby. I’ve gone on vacation before and stayed in plenty of hotels. But never anywhere with this much marble.

Again, Ryan has to steer me away from the door, turning me toward the front desk. “Don’t worry. They’ll all speak English.”

The concierge looks up, a smile on her face as we approach. “
Bienvenido
to the Arena Dorada. You have your confirmation number?”

I pull my papers from my bag and show her the hotel reservation page. She frowns, puzzled, then looks up at Ryan and me.

He takes a step away, one palm raised. “No, we’re not on the same reservation.”

It takes me another second to realize why the concierge is staring at us like we’re circus sideshows. “No, just friends,” I add. “Just happened to be traveling together.”

The concierge picks up the courtesy phone, summoning a clerk from the office behind the desk. Ryan shoots me a grin and slides down the counter toward a second computer.

Since it’s my first visit to this particular hotel, the concierge rattles off all the amenities, most of which I really don’t care about.

“Mr. Mattingly has cleared the room service charge for you,” she explains.

Ryan has already moved across the lobby to greet some people he knows. Probably other conference attendees. I drag my eyes from him as the concierge lists everything I’m allowed to charge to the room.

“So . . . Mr. Mattingly will pay for anything I buy at the hotel?”

The concierge nods. “Yes, Señorita Sannarelli. Drinks at the pool-side bar, all meals at the restaurants, items from the boutique downstairs, salon services―”

“Thanks.” I cut her off with a smile. Again, I assume Nelson Mattingly knows no other way to travel, so he’s ensured all the wedding guests get the white-glove treatment.

I sign for my room, accepting my key card, and turn to rejoin Ryan.

Intimidation floods me. There are four suited executives clumped around him, and I bet every one of them would look down their noses at me if I just walk up.

A balding guy with wire-rimmed glasses notices me and nudges Ryan’s arm. “Somebody’s waiting for you.”

I wish the ground would open up and swallow me. Not only do I look terrible, I’m ridiculously out of place in this be-marbled hotel lobby.

But Ryan shakes their hands and crosses the polished floor. “All set with your room?”

“Yeah.” I glance at my key card. “Seventh floor, ocean view.” I’m not naive enough to say my room number aloud when I’m traveling by myself like this, so I show him the number instead.

He smiles at me, reaching around to tug on the end of my French braid. “I have meetings all through tonight and early tomorrow morning, but maybe I can catch up with you in the afternoon.”

“Sure. That’d be nice. I’ll probably spend most of the day poolside.”

But I’m definitely ordering a huge meal from the room service menu tonight.

Chapter 5

Like Old Times

Taking complete advantage of the charge-to-the-room allowance is tempting, but practicality wins out. I refrain from ordering the most expensive items for my room-service dinner and at the lobby’s breakfast bar. Even a trip to the boutique results in no purchases beyond a floppy straw hat with a green ribbon around the crown.

After slathering on about a gallon of sunblock, I spend an hour or so baking in a lounge chair, kindly set up on the sand for me by one of the beach furniture guys. The waves crashing on the sandbar and the salty smell of the ocean almost lull me to sleep. But the sun is more intense than I’m used to, and I decide some shade is in order.

With my most charming smile, I flash my plastic bracelet—a required accessory for anyone wishing to return to the hotel after a sojourn on the sand bar—and claim two cushioned lounge chairs under a curtained gazebo on the pool deck, one for my bag and one for my behind. A quick dip cools me off before I loosen the white curtains on the gazebo. They flutter in the sea breeze, shifting the shade over the two chairs I’ve commandeered. My sunglasses and new hat provide extra privacy as I settle in with my book.

“Found you.”

I look up at the sound of Ryan’s voice. He holds the edges of two curtains together, sticking his head between them so it’s all I can see.

I turn back to my book. “Dork.”

He lets the curtains drop and enters my hideaway. His hair is wet, as are his red swim trunks, and his gray muscle shirt sticks to his back in spots. The outdoor pool isn’t set up for his preferred lap swimming, but he must have jumped in before looking for me.

“Put the tome away, Carmel-cakes, you’re on vacation.”

My lips twist in an involuntary smile. Ryan stole that nickname from my dad about six months after he met Sadie and me. Hearing him say it is a great reminder of simpler times, when I didn’t have to tiptoe around any topics of conversation with either of my two best friends.

“I thought you had meetings.”

“The corporate big-wigs are stuck in the conference room, but I’m done for the day.” He swats my bare knee. “Go get changed.”

I smack his arm with my book. “Why?”

The book is out of my hands, and he tosses it into my bag with expert aim. “Because it’s almost lunch time, and I’m taking you into Old San Juan.”

“Do I have to?” I whine. He grabs my wrists to pull me up, but I exaggerate my groan and flop back like a limp fish.

“Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder,” he warns.

There are worse things than exploring a historic colonial site with Ryan Wutkowski. With his background in architecture, at least he knows what he’s looking at.

“Fine. Let go, you Neanderthal.” He releases my wrists with a grin, and, gathering my belongings, I follow him back to the lower lobby. “Just remember your sunblock, buddy.”

He glances at me, holding the door open. “What for?”

“If I recall correctly, I wasn’t the only one who turned into a well-done slab of bacon on that one spring break trip to Sanibel Island.”

“Leave it to the New Yorker and the Michigander to underestimate the Florida sun.” We step into the elevator and he hits the buttons for the seventh and tenth floors. “I’ll meet you in the lobby in ten minutes.”

No way am I venturing out in public without at least washing my face and reapplying my makeup. “Thirty,” I counter-offer.

“Twenty, and if you’re late I’m coming up to get you, Sannarelli.”

I stick my tongue out just before the elevator doors slide shut between us.

We grab a light lunch of empanadas and fried plantains, then spend an hour touring El Morro. I take at least a hundred pictures on our wanderings through Old San Juan. By five o’clock, we’re exhausted, footsore, and sweaty.

“I’m ready for a nap.” I spread my arms along the wall marking the north side of the old city, laying my cheek on the sun-warmed bricks. Below us, a local neighborhood stretches to the shore, and the amazingly white stones of a cemetery shine off to the left. The air carries the salty taste of the ocean. Closing my eyes, I savor the crash and ebb of the waves.

Beside me, Ryan sighs. A lock of my hair is caught under my arm, and he pulls it free.

“Maybe I should get my hair highlighted before I check out tomorrow morning,” I muse. “I can charge it to the room.”

“I don’t think you should bother.” He tugs my hair once. “Stay here for a minute.”

I crack one eye open, curious as he crosses the street toward a vendor’s cart. He returns with a paperboard cup and a spoon. He digs the spoon into the cup as I straighten, then holds it out to me. A perfectly luscious mound of chocolate ice cream awaits. I almost open my mouth to the promise of sweet, cool, chocolaty release. But I shake my head instead.

“No. Thanks, though.”

He turns his head slightly to one side, his left eyebrow raised. “What?”

“I can’t. Standard pre-event detox.” Why does everything have to circle back to Sadie’s wedding? “I promised Sadie I wouldn’t eat any more chocolate until . . . after.”

Drawing a deep breath, he pulls his upper lip behind his bottom teeth, then exhales. “You promised, or she told you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” The spoon waves under my nose. “It’s not really chocolate, it’s ice cream.”

The swirls of fudge release a tantalizing sweet scent. “Close enough.”

Ryan steps closer, eyes narrowing and brows lowering as if this is a life or death situation. “Open your mouth.”

I clamp my lips shut and shake my head again.

“Carmella. Open up, or this ice cream is going all over your face.”

Despite the absurdity of the warning, he’s serious. He’s followed through on this sort of threat before. As obedient as I am when Tess makes me her recipe guinea pig, I accept the ice cream, glaring at Ryan all the while.

Smirking, he digs out a spoonful for himself. “She seriously made you give up chocolate until after her wedding?”

“It’s not that big a deal. Besides, I’m sure my hips will thank me.”

He almost chokes. “What?” he gasps, pounding his closed fist against his sternum a couple times. “Please tell me you’re joking. You’re one of the most―”

I plant my hands on said hips when he shoves another spoonful into his mouth instead of finishing his sentence. “Most what?”

“Never mind.”

“Most what, Ryan?”

The phrase ‘cornered gazelle in the Serengeti’ applies as he stares at me. After a few seconds, he turns away, leaning his elbows on the wall. “I was just gonna say you’re the last person who needs to worry about her hips. Or her hair.”

“You’re treading on dangerous ground.” I rest against the wall, my back to the ocean.

He nudges my arm. “You don’t need to change to please other people. You’re perfect the way you are.”

Frowning, I risk a glance at him, but he’s absorbed in scraping the last melted drops of ice cream from the paperboard cup.

If anyone’s perfect, it’s Ryan. Even wearing that stupid, ratty old University of Georgia baseball cap, he’s good-looking at thirty-two. Straight nose, square jaw, hint of a cleft in his chin. He served four years in the Marine Corps before moving to Georgia for college, and between his stint on the swim team and his regular fitness regimen, he’s kept a pretty athletic build. But all that aside, he’s one of the most generous, caring guys I know. He’d give you the shirt off his back, sometimes literally, to help you if you were in trouble. The whole reason Sadie and I met him in the first place was because of his instinct to protect people.

Sadie used to have a propensity for dating guys who were less than stellar gentlemen. Toward the end of our freshman year, she broke up with one such fine individual, only to be stalked by him for a good three weeks. I got caught in the crossfire when he cornered the two of us outside our dorm during finals week. He not only got in Sadie’s face, he got in mine, and things escalated too fast for us to handle. When he shoved me hard enough to knock me into an azalea bush and then went after Sadie, Ryan appeared and basically wrestled the jerk to the ground.

“Couldn’t walk by and let him do that to you,” he’d told us as the campus police carted Sadie’s ex-boyfriend away. From that point on, the three of us were inseparable.

Sadie must be crazy to let him go.

Ryan tosses his empty ice cream cup and spoon into a nearby garbage can and joins me in leaning against the wall. “So, what else do you have to look forward to in St. Croix, besides going into chocolate withdrawal?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

He shrugs, stretching his arms along the top of the wall. “It’s okay. Really.”

My glance is wary, but his expression is calm, his hands relaxed. Risking the topic of conversation is his idea, so I might as well dive in.

“I don’t have a very good idea of the week’s schedule. Probably a bachelorette party, some awkward meals. I don’t even know if she’ll have a bridal shower or―”

I gasp, then slap my hand over my forehead and groan.

“What?” Ryan rubs his right hand across my back.

“I forgot to get Sadie a wedding gift.”

His hand drops. “I think your presence is a gift in and of itself.”

“Ryan. This is Sadie.” I smooth my hair back, adjusting my long, heavy ponytail. “Maybe I can order something tonight and just tell her it’ll get there late. She said something about a platter with dolphins on it that she really wants.”

“She still wants that ugly-ass platter?”

“I haven’t looked to see what else is even on the registry, so I don’t―” I freeze again, then cover my face, my cheeks rapidly heating and probably turning crimson. “Oh, God, Ryan. It was your registry, too, wasn’t it?”

This is getting worse and worse, Carmella-you-idiot.

His shrug bumps his arm into my back. “It was mostly stuff she wanted. No big deal.”

I grab the side of his shirt and give him a little shake. “It is a big deal! Why am I freaking out about this more than you are?”

Pulling his shirt free of my fingernails, he pats the back of my hand. “To be honest, the breakup was a long time coming. Like I said on the plane yesterday, it wasn’t just one thing. It was pretty mutual, actually. I think Sadie and I will end up being friends again at some point. We were always better at being friends anyway.”

I start to protest, but he slings his arm around my shoulders and nudges me into motion.

“Really, it’s fine. Listen, let’s head back to the hotel. I’ve got a reservation for eight o’clock at the Italian restaurant. We’ll catch up on work stories and have a good time like we always do. It’ll be like old times, just like this afternoon.”

“But―”

“No buts, Carmel-cakes.” He pulls me to a stop, looking down at me. “Please, let me take you to dinner.”

I grimace, and the plea on his face squashes any argument I might have ready. “Okay. But really, no chocolate for dessert.”