“Anyway, it won’t be so bad, marrying me,” Darla promised coaxingly. “I think we’ll get along just fine, and I know this great retirement home where we can grow old together.”
Liam smiled at her. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Chapter 2
“Have you got a key to cottage fifteen?” the handyman Travis asked, striding into the kitchen with his rattling tool belt. “Scarlet says we’re missing one, and you’re the likeliest candidate.”
Breck Aster, leopard shifter and head waiter at Shifting Sands Resort, looked up from the plates where he was arranging garnish and grinned. “Oh, cottage fifteen? That gorgeous brunette with the legs for miles. And her sister. Yeah, I probably still have that.” He made a show of searching for the key in his pocket as if there were several to choose from. “Mmm, the stories this key could tell…” He pulled it out.
“I don’t want to know,” Travis protested. “I really don’t want to know.”
The lynx shifter took the key with distaste, and carried it back out of the kitchen held out in front of him as if afraid that it was permanently contaminated.
Breck watched him go with a satisfied smirk that faded as he turned back to give the garnish one final tweak.
Appearances matter, he reminded himself, lifting the plates into his hands and carrying them out to the restaurant deck. Travis didn’t need to know that Breck hadn’t been using any of the keys he’d been collecting.
“The beef tenderloin,” he announced, setting the plate down in front of a fresh-faced blonde woman with a wink. “And the halibut filet for the catch of the sea.” His exaggerated appreciative appraisal of her boyfriend made him startle and squirm, even after a week of the treatment, but it was a flattered and tolerant embarrassment, not a harassed objection to the attention.
The young woman laughed in amusement, delighted with her boyfriend’s discomfort.
“Can I order you anything from the bar?” he offered. “A mojito for the lady? A beefeater for the beef?” These two had been at the resort for nearly a week, and he’d figured out their habits within a day.
“Just top off the water,” the blonde said regretfully. “We’re packing up to fly out tonight.”
Breck put his hands over his heart. “The resort will be empty without you,” he said dramatically. “My nights will cease to have meaning.”
Even the boyfriend laughed at that.
Breck topped off water for all the tables on the deck, smiling at the single woman in blue who was making eyes at him over her sunglasses and steak. He flirted very lightly with her, keeping it silly and over-the-top when she might have been angling for something more, and he escaped back to the kitchen as quickly as the conversation politely allowed.
It was quiet, for the time of evening; the resort was in an odd lull. Usually, people streamed in and out at regular intervals with the scheduled charters, groups overlapping. But this time, the entire resort was being emptied to make space for an exclusive wedding of two high-profile dragon families. For the first few days, it would be only the immediate family and wedding party. Then there would be almost a week of extended guests, stuffing the resort to the seams.
The wedding itself was a two day affair, with a ceremony so convoluted and steeped in specific tradition that Scarlet, the resort owner, had diagramed it with visual aids. There was a midnight vigil, hours for recitation of the family lines, formal dances, even a two hour window for a duel of challenge, should there be one.
Everyone was under strict orders to be on their best behavior, and the staff knew that Scarlet was hoping that this was the event that would tip the resort over into genuine solvency.
Chef was singing something operatic in the back of the kitchen, chopping and banging pans around as he started concocting experimental hors d'oeuvres to offer as options for the wedding.
“They’ll choose the worst one,” Breck warned him, depositing a load of dishes into the sink. “It’s inevitable.”
“Even my worst is better than they’ll find anywhere on the mainland,” Chef said expansively, waggling a cleaver at Breck when he snuck in for a taste of the truffles being chopped.
“Your genius in the kitchen is only exceeded by your humility,” Breck agreed, licking his fingers.
He washed his hands dutifully, and went to freshen up the dessert platter.
By the time the young couple was finished with their meal, the forward woman with the sunglasses had left… leaving her key conspicuously behind.
Breck pocketed it thoughtfully and dismissed the rest of the staff early.
As he finished clearing the last tables himself, he found himself patting the key in his pocket thoughtfully. He was in the longest dry spell of his life, and it wasn’t for lack of opportunity. But the endless string of available partners had somehow lost its lustre, and Breck found himself searching faces for… something more.
It wasn’t that she was too old, or that she wasn’t plenty attractive — Breck appreciated beauty in all packages — it was just that Breck felt like he had nothing left to give.
He felt oddly like he’d been giving a little piece of himself away with every lover, never asking for anything in return. And now, at last, he’d been whittled away to a tired, hollow shell that felt like a mask.
He had that mask firmly in place, smiling in apparent self-satisfaction when he returned to The Den.