“Gorilla,” Wyatt supplied.
“He wasn’t that big.”
“He was a lot bigger than you.” Oh, clearly this topic had been festering inside him.
“You could have simply come to me and forbade me from interfering in altercations between guests.”
He gave her a “you’ve got to be kidding” look. “You’re the woman who told me that you tend to be overzealous about helping people. You ignored my memos about breaks and lunches. You implied that you make decisions based on emotions.”
“I did not.”
“Didn’t you? Well, somehow I must have just gotten that impression. Oh, yes, now I remember how. Maybe because you squeezed yourself in between that boy and the man, so that you would take the pummeling if he decided to let his fists fly.”
“You would have done the same.”
“Maybe.” How ridiculous. Of course he would. The only thing that had saved that jerk of a man from a punch in the jaw had been the fact that Wyatt knew how to exercise self-control. Except when he was tasting a woman’s lips.
Alex frowned to herself, but Wyatt had moved on.
“It doesn’t matter if I would have, anyway. I’m taller, bigger and stronger than you. He could have hurt you.”
“But I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’re pushing yourself and not getting away from your desk enough.”
Again Randy’s words about guilt nudged at her. “I don’t want you to feel guilty just because I forgot to take much of a lunch break today. I was getting to it.”
He gave a harsh bark of a laugh. “You,” he said, pointing a breadstick at her, “are a workaholic.”
She laughed and picked up her own breadstick. “You ought to know. You’re one, too.”
But he was still frowning. “Seriously, Alex. Cesar, who works the night desk, told me that you came downstairs the other day to help Lois out when things got busy, and then you slipped in two extra tour groups. After hours.”
“Work is how—” she began, and then stopped. How could she put this? Work is how I keep my mind off you? Or worse…
Reality struck. Work, helping people, was how she’d always tried to impress those she cared about, the way she’d tried to win their affection. The possibility that she was doing that now made her ill; it totally frightened her. Because Wyatt was the one man she’d never even stood a chance of winning. He’d told her so. Randy had told her that. Everyone had told her. And yet she couldn’t stop. With the awards, there was too much at stake. Reports of Champagne’s new improvements were coming in daily.
“What does this award mean to you?” she asked.
He frowned. “It doesn’t mean life or death,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I want you making yourself sick.”
“Okay. I promise I won’t make myself sick. I’ll be reasonable.”
He looked incredulous.
“I’ll be more reasonable than I have been,” she said. “Why do you want to win? Why are you working so hard to obtain it?”
His jaw tensed.
“Please,” she said. “Tell me.”
His eyes turned fierce and angry. “I don’t want to want it, but I do. It would be…validation.”
Something in his eyes reminded her of Randy’s comment about Wyatt’s past. Let that be a warning, she told herself. It had been a girl from Leo’s past and a woman from her stepfather’s past that had taken them out of her life. Men with dark, secret pasts had never been good for her. “I want to help you win,” she said.
“And I want to win. But not by harming your health. I can’t be abusive, Alex, demanding that everyone jump in an effort to make me happy. I don’t want and I can’t have a slave.”
That cool edge that always tinged his voice was gone, replaced by something much more raw. Alex wanted to know what that was about, but Wyatt clearly didn’t want to share anything that personal. And maybe…Was she afraid to know more? Afraid of what she might feel?
She studied him, looked down at the table, then up again.
“You don’t have to worry. I won’t be a slave for any man. I’ve willingly volunteered to be a lesser person before and I’m through with that. It hasn’t worked out well for me. But nothing you’ve asked me to do falls into that category.”
His green gaze held her captive. “You’re going to have to explain that ‘lesser person’ part.”
Alex tried to look away, tried to think of some light way to laugh and brush away this question. Opening her soul to Wyatt would be a mistake. It would be a connection…and there could be no connections with this man.
“Oh, you know, it was just one of those minor ‘left over from my childhood’ things. After you have not one father but two fathers walk out the door, you tend to try a little too hard to salvage your relationships. You give a little too much of yourself. I might have subverted my needs to others once or twice, but, as I said, that’s completely in the past. It’s irrelevant.”
She had tried to say it in an offhand, breezy manner, but Wyatt wasn’t looking breezy. “Elaborate on subverting your needs to others.”
Alex considered sidestepping that command. She could have reminded him that he was being highhanded and that baring her soul wasn’t a part of her job, but then she made the mistake of looking into those fierce green eyes. Her breath caught in her throat. Dizziness threatened. She wanted to lean closer, and suddenly talking seemed like the safest thing to do. Telling him about the stupid mistakes she’d made suddenly became a way to put some distance between them, to keep her mind off the man.
So, despite the fact that she didn’t want to go into the humiliating details, she told him about tutoring Robert, mentoring Leo, and helping Michael with his parenting problems. “They thought they cared, but they were just…grateful and euphoric, I suppose,” she said. “And once their selfconfidence was restored, I was only a rung on the ladder, one that had served its purpose. They felt guilty, but it didn’t change things. I learned a valuable lesson. So you really don’t have to worry about me overdoing it at McKendrick’s. I like the work, but I’m not volunteering for a servile position.”
“Idiots,” he said.
“I was making the point that you don’t have to worry about me being a sacrificial lamb. I wasn’t aiming for your pity. I was trying to tell you that helping you isn’t hurting me. You’re not taking advantage of me, because I know all about that and this isn’t it.”
“They wounded your spirit,” he said angrily.
“But I survived.”
“That’s because you’re an intelligent, competent, selfassured woman.”
“Yes, I am,” she said, and realized that it was true. Her bad luck with love hadn’t broken her. Yet. “I’m not being egotistical. I know my flaws. But I also know what I like and what I’m good at, and that’s connecting with people on a basic, friendly, let-me-help-you level. It’s what drives me at work and what will help me get to where I want to be. I can help you win.”
“By running yourself into the ground?”
She sighed. “Wyatt, weren’t you listening? I thrive on work. It makes me feel good about myself. This job makes me feel powerful. To you I’m running myself into the ground. To me I’m just…being me.”