One Night in Santiago (A Stanton Family Novella)
Audra North
For A.B.
Chapter One
Lily Stanton pushed her way through the heavy doors of the hotel entrance, rolling her small suitcase closely behind her. The rain was still coming down in droves, but as soon as she stumbled into the gorgeous, rotunda lobby of the Santiago Ritz and the doors swung shut behind her, the din of the pounding rain dropped away as if by magic. Some of the accumulated exhaustion ebbed from her body.
She shrugged out of her rain-splattered down jacket and hung it over the handle of her suitcase, breathing a sigh of relief…just before the doors whooshed open again behind her. The deafening noise of the storm rushed back in, accompanied by a renewed tension in her shoulders. Lily whipped her head around and saw a tall man striding in from the awning-covered sidewalk, looking arrogantly calm, as though the raging torrent just behind him didn’t affect him one bit.
Wow. A fantastically good-looking, well-built man…
She shook her head and turned back around to walk toward the reception desk. She shouldn’t be checking out guys like that, ones who commanded attention even when the rest of the world was falling apart around them. Still, he was pretty damn hot.
Two employees were manning the desk, each busy giving out room keys to business travelers. Lily got in line behind one, while the man who had walked in behind her stood in the other.
There was just something about him.
The hairs on her arms were standing on end. She could feel it. Lily paused for a moment to confirm that it wasn’t the temperature causing this reaction. Nope.
It was him.
The effect he was having on her made her think he should be classified as his own weather system, something strong enough to rival the tempest outside. A veritable hurricane of hotness.
She glanced over at him surreptitiously as he, too, removed his wet coat, and then his suit jacket. He had on black pinstriped pants, and a lavender shirt that highlighted just how very broad his shoulders were and how alluringly tanned his skin was. His hair was cut short enough that the intense winds outside hadn’t disturbed a single strand.
He draped his coat and suit jacket from the handle of his suitcase, just like she had, and she could see a dark purple tie sticking out of the right side pocket of the jacket.
He looked like a proper man who was coming undone.
Lily pressed her thighs together against the pure sensation that shot between them. Get a grip. You’re only attracted to him because you haven’t had sex in several months. Then why hadn’t she felt the same reaction when her last date, back home in New York, had kissed her good night? It had been only three weeks ago, but that date seemed like something from another life.
“Se?ora?” A man’s voice broke into her reverie. The customer in front of her had moved away, and the receptionist was calling her forward.
“Oh! I apologize. I was daydreaming.” Lily gave him a smile and walked up to the counter. The man in the suit was coming forward at the same time.
“How may I help you, madam?” the receptionist—Edgardo, according to his name tag—asked.
She stifled a sigh. “I need a room for one night, please.”
Edgardo nodded. “Of course. Do you have a reservation?”
“No, unfortunately. I was supposed to fly back home this afternoon, but because of the storms, all the flights got canceled and—” She stopped herself before her voice broke. Thinking about how she might miss her baby sister’s graduation because of her own selfishness in going on this ski trip in the first place would have her crying her eyes out in seconds.
“The recent storms have been keeping us quite busy, indeed. I am sorry to hear your flight was affected. Let me just check the system for you.” Edgardo punched a few keys on the computer in front of him and studied the screen for a bit.
At the same time, the other receptionist was saying the same thing to the man next to Lily. That she was sorry about his flight, and that she was going to check the system. Apparently, the sexy stranger had also been trying to get somewhere on a plane and didn’t have a reservation, either.
Edgardo looked back up with a furrow in his brow. Oh, no. Please don’t be out of rooms.
“We have one room left…” He and his colleague began speaking at the same time, but realizing the echo, both stopped.
The female receptionist—a pretty young woman with pale green eyes and light brown hair—turned to Edgardo. They conferred for a moment in Spanish and Edgardo turned back to address her…and the mysterious man to her left.