Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“Glad to be of help.” He stayed where he was. The stuff keeping him awake wasn’t anything anyone could help him with, I imagined. “You know, you can call on me any time. After this, I assume I can be so bold as to consider you a friend? I have come inside your girlfriend, after all.”
I barked a shocked laugh. “Dick.”
Upstairs, I slipped into bed beside Charlotte. I breathed in the scent of her hair, curved myself around her small, soft body. But it wasn’t her physical presence that comforted me to sleep. It was the purity and peace of her heart, which couldn’t be disturbed even by the godawful racket of her snoring.
* * * *
The next day, I tried to call my sister. The fact that she didn’t answer didn’t alarm me. Our relationship wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy.
But the day after that, when she hadn’t even sent a terse text message back, I started to wonder what I did wrong. I’d have to check in with mother later and hear all about it.
I was in my office, spending work hours on extracurricular research about various charities and seeking out the numbers of hospital billing departments, when there was a knock on my door.
“Yes?” I called.
Charlotte burst in and hurried over to my desk in a weird, creepy walk on the balls of her feet. Her tongue was poised on her upper lip, and she wiggled her hands in front of her. “Guess what I have!”
“Several empty espresso cups on your desk, judging by how you came in,” I joked.
She immediately dropped out of enthusiasm mode and straight into being fed up with me in the most adorable way possible. “The plans, jackass.”
“The plans?” It clicked before the words were out of my mouth. “Oh! The plans. That’s great news!”
“They’re in conference room A,” she said, already moving to the door and waving her arm as if she were directing traffic. “Come on, come on.”
Chuckling, I pushed my chair back. I hadn’t recovered quickly as quickly from our play time with Elwoods as she had; my muscles were still deeply sore. I’d been relying on my cane even more than usual since we’d gotten home. “Hang on. Your ancient boyfriend isn’t as fast as you are.”
“You’re not ancient,” she admonished, but she did slow down.
We walked to the conference room, where I’d expected to find everyone on the project team clustered around the blueprints spread out on the tabletop. But the room was empty.
“They were just delivered from the printer,” Charlotte said, reverently touching the edge of one of the large sheets of paper. “I wanted you to be the first to see them.”
“You haven’t looked at them?” I asked, making my way around the table.
“Okay, I wanted you to be the second to see them,” she revised. “I poured over them immediately. I couldn’t wait.”
“You didn’t have to.” Pride swelled in my chest at the thought of the hard work that had gone into the plans in front of me. Hard work that had been guided and organized by Charlotte. My Charlotte had gotten all of this done.
Though I could read a blueprint perfectly well on my own, I wanted to hear the excitement in her voice as she explained them all to me. “What am I looking at here?”
She lifted one of the sheets and carefully smoothed it out in front of me as I took a seat. “This is the reception floor. Not for the hotel, I don’t know what stage they’re in on the hotel side. But this is the reception area for the club.”
I visualized what I saw on the blueprint. An elevator would open on a lobby with a large semi-circle desk, which would match the hotel lobby downstairs; I had been keeping track of that side of the project, and I admired the consistency. The desk was situated between two sets of double doors.
“This is entering, this is exiting,” she explained. “So that there isn’t any waiting for checking in and checking out. One of our safety features is that upon check out, any guests will have to sign a secondary waiver and re-acknowledgement of the NDA. And guests can have the valet bring their car up or our ride service can be ordered here, too. And through here…”
I watched with amusement as she walked her fingers across the image like legs.
“This is the inner lobby, where people can order drinks and take in a show. That was Sophie’s idea. She said she went to a club in France that did floor shows.”
I nodded my approval.
“Now, there’s an interior elevator, but these stairs will take you up to the second floor, as well.” She pointed out the two curved staircases. “Behind this stage area is where we’ll have utilities, storage, locker rooms for the performers, the boring stuff. But upstairs…”