Hailey bent over to pick up the fallen robe and slung it over her arm as he finished buttoning his still damp shirt. It seemed to cling to every ridge, every ripple, she couldn’t help noticing.
Keeping her face forward, Hailey fell into place beside him as Dillon started walking toward the front exit.
“Will we be seeing you at the grand opening?” she asked.
Focused on making his retreat, as well as on what time it was, Dillon hadn’t heard her. But by the look he saw on her face, the woman was obviously waiting for some sort of response from him.
“What?” he asked, still walking as he tucked his shirt into his slacks.
“The grand opening, it’s in a few days,” Hailey prompted. “Will we be seeing you there?”
“Oh. Right. Yes, of course. Wouldn’t miss it,” he assured her a second before he made good his escape.
“I don’t know about that,” Hailey murmured under her breath as she watched him hurrying down the front steps. “You seemed to have missed the tour, even though you were physically here for it.”
With a sigh, Hailey turned away from the spa’s large double-glass doors.
“So? How did it go?” Candace asked.
Hailey’s assistant seemed to materialize directly behind her the moment that the contractor had walked out of the building.
“It went,” was all that Hailey allowed herself to say.
Candace frowned. “Well, that doesn’t sound very good.”
Hailey tactfully walked back her initial assessment. “It could have gone better,” she amended. “I got the impression that Mr. Fortune’s mind was elsewhere during most of the tour.”
“His mind was probably on his next project,” the young woman guessed.
Or his next conquest by the looks of it, Hailey thought. She had seen men preoccupied with the women in their lives, or the women they were about to have in their lives. Dillon had all the signs.
But, for the sake of the spa and things moving forward on that front, Hailey decided to agree with her assistant. “You’re probably right. He was undoubtedly thinking about his next project. I guess I’m being just a little bit edgy.”
Still, despite her pep talk to herself to the contrary, Hailey couldn’t help being curious about who the person on the other end of Dillon Fortune’s phone had been. Whoever it was was wreaking havoc in what otherwise seemed like Dillon Fortune’s orderly world.
To her way of thinking, the butterflies that Hailey had experienced at the beginning of the week while she had waited to give the handsome contractor a tour of the spa were just a dry run for what she assumed she would be experiencing today, at the spa’s official grand opening ceremony.
But oddly enough, she turned out to be wrong. To Hailey’s surprise, when the big day came, she was completely calm.
Hailey had spent the days between then and now overseeing every single detail involved in the grand opening, then going over them twice, from the festive decorations to the extensive array of catered food. She’d even easily handled the last-minute shipments of some equipment. Mercifully, nothing rattled her.
She survived it all and when the big day finally did arrive, she was ready hours ahead of time. To her relief, the butterflies in her stomach seemed to remain subdued.
One of the first people to arrive to the festivities was Ellie Fortune Hernandez, Rambling Rose’s mayor and Steven Fortune’s recent blushing bride. As expected, Steven was at her side.
The mayor was scheduled to make an appropriate speech about how the spa was one of the projects that were already revitalizing the town and how she anticipated that this feeling would be on the upswing in the weeks to come, thanks to other projects that were in the works.
Waiting for the official ribbon-cutting ceremony to take place, everyone meandered around the front of the spa, availing themselves of the refreshments that were set up on tables before the front doors. Hailey was there to play hostess to the gathering crowd.
The slender dark-haired mayor and her six-foot-tall husband were still practically newlyweds. The striking couple definitely looked the part. Anyone looking at them could see that they still had that newlywed glow about them, although Hailey was willing to bet part of that glow was due to the fact that Ellie Hernandez was also pregnant. Her condition was just now beginning to show and no matter what the young mayor talked about, she seemed to be literally beaming.
Hailey found that she was both very happy for Ellie as well as just a little bit envious of the woman. Hailey could only imagine what it had to be like to be that in love with someone and to be that loved in return. In Hailey’s estimation, anticipating the birth of a baby only added to that perfect scenario, increasing happiness by a hundredfold.
She sincerely doubted that it would ever happen for her.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew, Hailey.
Just as she was about to say something to Ellie, the mayor beat her to it. Ellie came up to her, gestured about the immediate area and said, “So I see congratulations are in order.”
Hailey’s eyes dipped down to the mayor’s waist. It was still very trim looking, but Hailey could see that it was just beginning to widen in order to accommodate its new little boarder.
“I hear the same can be said to you and your husband, Madam Mayor,” Hailey responded, looking over Ellie’s shoulder and catching a glimpse of Steven who was talking to someone.
Ellie offered her a serene smile, the kind that was so commonly seen gracing the faces of expectant mothers.
“Thank you,” Ellie responded, her eyes shining. The next moment, the mayor’s husband came up to join them. He rested his hand protectively on Ellie’s shoulder.
“Don’t you think you should be sitting down?” he tactfully asked her.
“I feel fine,” Ellie assured him. “Really.” Looking at Hailey, the mayor decided she needed to explain her husband’s display of concern. He wasn’t just
