Picking up the bag, she opened the door and walked down the corridor. Her stride confident, she looked as though she knew exactly where she was going and why.
Of course there was no way he would allow her access to his guests; it was just fascinating to watch her at work. The first bagger to catch his interest and certainly the most resourceful.
But enough was enough. Time to mobilise the troops.
Before he could say anything Nathan’s massive body tensed as she ducked into the ladies’ restroom. ‘Better hope she is a bagger. For all we know she could be building a bomb in there.’
Staring at the screen, Adam concentrated on unclenching his jaw. It was an outside chance, but it was still possible that the intruder was armed. And he had let a moment of inappropriate attraction blindside him. A pulse started to beat in his cheek and he closed his eyes, grounded himself, before pushing himself away from the desk in a single lithe movement.
‘Close the ladies’. Be discreet. Say it’s a plumbing problem and send your men down there in cleaners’ uniforms.’
Nathan nodded. ‘I’ll go in and get her out,’ he said.
Adam shook his head. ‘I screwed up. I’ll go in.’
‘But...’
‘No buts,’ Adam said. ‘We could’ve stopped her by now. That was my call and I didn’t make it.’ Too busy stewing over the past whilst lusting over a stranger. Who said men couldn’t multitask?
‘I still think...’
Adam shook his head. If he didn’t sort this one out himself the strawberry blondee stranger would haunt his dreams for too long. Best to make her real. Expose her as the avaricious gold-digger she undoubtedly was whilst avoiding the baggers no doubt waiting to hunt him down in the ballroom.
He picked up his tux jacket and gave Nathan his best impression of an action hero. ‘I’m going in.’
* * *
Olivia mentally ran through her entire and extensive repertoire of swear words. This was ridiculous! This was supposed to be the easy bit. The bit where she locked herself into a cubicle and transformed herself from faux hotel employee to fake ballroom guest. All she had to do was change into a party dress. Good grief! What sort of personal shopper couldn’t get herself into a dress? A dress she’d tried on at home with no problem.
But now the stupid zip on the stupid little black blend-right-in dress was stuck. Worse, she couldn’t get out of the skintight concoction to unstick it.
As she twisted she lost her balance and the back of her knee thunked the lip of the toilet seat. ‘Ouch!’ Biting her lip, she stilled. Please let there be no one out there. Though...surely there should be someone out there? Guests must have arrived in droves by now so it made sense that someone would want to freshen up in the ladies’ restroom.
That was the essence of the last stage of her plan. Guests would only be allowed entry into the hotel on production of an invitation, embossed and coded and impossible to duplicate. This was a private party, an annual gala that raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for Support Myeloma, thanks to the auctioneering powers of Adam Masterson. But she was already in the building, and as the invitations were inspected at the foyer of the hotel Olivia figured she should be safe.
Particularly as the plan was to leave the ladies’ with a group of other women who would serve as camouflage. Then she would find a large potted palm and lurk unnoticed until the moment arrived when she could snag Adam Masterson.
After all, she was good at lurking at parties.
Memories skittered through her brain as echoes of raucous laughter peppered with the pop of champagne corks reverberated in her eardrums. How she had hated the numerous shindigs her mother had hosted, even as she’d understood Jodie Evans’s desperate need to extract fun out of every second of a life that had stacked the odds against her. Olivia hadn’t begrudged her mother one of those seconds of fun; she had wished with all her heart for Jodie to be happy. The knowledge that she could never repay everything she owed her mum was always with her.
Closing her eyes, she sucked air into her lungs. For goodness’ sake! This was not the time for a trip down memory lane. Any minute now someone was bound to come in here so she had better hurry up. How hard could this be? She was flexible, remember? She reached round for the zip.
‘Need a hand?’
Olivia froze as an unmistakably male voice drawled out the question.
In slow motion she forced herself to look up at the man observing her over the top of the cubicle. He must be standing on the toilet in the next door cubicle, her brain told her dully, trying to operate past the volcano of panic about to erupt in her chest.
Dark hair, light brown eyes, square jaw, a nose that was ever so slightly off-shape... Recognition slammed her like a sucker punch. ‘It’s you,’ she breathed.
His eyebrows pulled together in a deep frown as his lips tightened. ‘In the flesh,’ he said.
Olivia opened her mouth but the words evaporated under the heat of his gaze. Plus, she was damned if she knew the best way to explain her presence. Blurting out her reason for being there whilst standing half-dressed in a toilet cubicle had not been part of the Masterson Master Plan.
Still, she was going to have to work with what she had; this was an opportunity. ‘Mr Masterson,’ she began. ‘I can expl—’
‘I need to check your bag,’ he broke in.
‘My bag?’
‘Yes, your bag,’ he said, his impatience tingeing the air.
Olivia glanced down at the bag in confusion. Looking back up at the exasperation that lit the brown eyes, she realised his motivation was irrelevant. Right now it seemed clear he wouldn’t listen to anything she said until she gave it to him. She ducked down awkwardly and picked up the bag.
‘I’ll come round,’ he said.
She heard the thud as he presumably jumped down from the toilet; she pushed the door open and held out the bag. ‘Look, is this really necessary?’ she asked, a shudder of aversion shivering through her as he started to sift through the contents.
‘Yes,’ he stated. ‘My security chief is worried that you are locked in here constructing a bomb.’
Fabulous! Her stomach plummeted into a free fall of panic; she was under suspicion of being a terrorist.
Come on, Olivia. Calm down. You’ve talked your way out of worse than this before.
Though she suspected that talking her way past this man would be akin to melting iron with an incense stick.
Still, she had to try. She took a step forward out of the cubicle and straightened her spine.
‘I realise all this is a bit bizarre, but I’m not a terrorist and I’m not here with the intention of hurting anyone. If—’
Adam Masterson wasn’t so much as looking at her, let alone listening. Instead he was on the phone.
‘Nate,’ he said. ‘I’ve checked the bag. Our enterprising intruder locked herself in the toilet to get dressed, not to build a bomb.’ He listened for a moment and then put the phone back into his pocket.
OK. At least the terrorist theory had been knocked on the head. Not that Adam Masterson looked relieved; if anything the set of his lips was even grimmer, the frown deeper. Time to try again.
‘Look, I’m truly sorry,’ she said. ‘I never meant to cause so much hassle. I really, really just want to—’
A derisive snort interrupted her. ‘I know what you really, really want to do, and I’m really, really not interested.’