If anything, the rain was heavier than it had been the night before, and the wind seemed angrier. Eamonn and Nell hurried along the path to the center of the resort and made a beeline for the portico of the office building, where they took shelter for a moment as they looked for a sign to lead them to the dining room. The office building also had signs for laundry, a games room, and a library. To one side of it, another building appeared to be a sort of boutique general store, and on the far side of that, they could see a signboard that read Pink Champagne Dining Room. They splashed along the driveway that curved around in front of the three buildings, making their way to the far side and taking shelter under the restaurant’s porch roof before collapsing their umbrellas. Fortunately, the dining room had lights on and seemed to be open.
Even though Nell arrived at the French doors to the restaurant in front of Eamonn, he managed to reach past her and pull the door open for her. She suppressed a sigh, remembering that he’d said his mother taught him to open doors for women. A guy who remembered what his mother taught him couldn’t be all bad. The dining room was empty, but a little bunch of bells chimed with the door’s movement and a moment later a woman with a mess of blonde curls popped out from the pass-through to the kitchen.
“Good morning,” she said, then, “You’re not guests — oh, are you… Nell, and…?”
Nell stuck her umbrella in the brass holder by the door and strode over to the woman with a smile, holding out a hand to shake. “Yes. I’m Nell, and you must be Mary. We talked on the phone. This is Eamonn, my assistant.”
Mary looked at Eamonn as though she’d like to pour caramel sauce all over him and eat him up. “Hi, Eamonn!” Then she grabbed a couple of menus from the hostess desk and waved for them to choose a table. The room was a pleasant one. Ten tables were spaced just right for intimate dining, with cream linen tablecloths and white roses in crystal bud vases. A cheerful gas fireplace gave the room a warm and inviting coziness, much needed on such a rainy morning. “Come and sit, you two. I’ll go tell François you’ve arrived. Have a look at the menu — he’ll make you anything you like. We’re so glad you’re here! Are you going to find out what happened to Jessalyn? I’ve been so worried!”
“Of course,” said Nell, as though there couldn’t be any doubt. Act with confidence, be decisive, don’t show weakness. Wanting to look authoritative in front of Mary, she marched over to a table by the window and sat down, assuming Eamonn would join her. She scanned the menu. By the time he’d seated himself across from her, she’d decided on the mushroom hollandaise omelet with fruit salad.
Mary popped back out of the kitchen with her order notebook and asked if they knew what they wanted or if she could start them with some drinks. “François says if you don’t see anything that appeals to you on the menu, he’ll make you whatever you like. Just ask. Now, tea or coffee? Or hot chocolate? And will you have orange or grapefruit juice as well? We usually do a hot beverage and a juice — the breakfast comes with both. But you don’t have to.”
“I’ll have grapefruit juice and Paris tea, please.”
“Just coffee with cream and sugar for me, sweetheart,” said Eamonn. Mary turned pink and fluttered her eyelashes at him before whirling away to get the drinks, her blonde curls bobbing like fancy ribbons on a gift.
Nell shook her head. “You oughtn’t call women by pet names like that. You’ll either make her feel like you don’t respect her or you’ll give her the wrong idea and have her all over you.” She couldn’t put her finger on why she felt so irritated with him. It wasn’t as though she wanted his attention — why shouldn’t he flirt with Mary the waitress and even potentially roll around with her in the staff bunk room? He’d said he was turned on by her mind, but maybe that was just a line and he was equally up for sex with a bubbly dumb-as-rocks Barbie doll.
“Come on, Nell,” he said, “I get that you don’t like being called baby and sweetheart and stuff, but not everyone’s offended by it. Mary seemed pretty content just now. And maybe having her all over me isn’t such a bad — hey!” Without meaning to, Nell had shoved her chair back and stood up, popping with adrenaline, ready to — she didn’t know what she was ready to do, only that all her fight-or-flight instincts had kicked in. “Sit down,” Eamonn was saying. “Please? Don’t go off mad. I shouldn’t have joked about that.”
She flopped back down in her chair, feeling like a puppet whose strings had been cut. “Whatever. Why shouldn’t you go have a cuddle with Mary, then? Why the ever-loving hell should I care?” She forced a neutral expression onto her face as Mary came over to the table with their drinks.
“Here’s your Paris tea, Nell.” Mary placed a small brown teapot on the table in front of Nell and set an empty mug next to it. “Do you want any milk or honey or lemon? Just black, is it? And coffee for you, Eamonn. Here’s the cream
