Watching Amanda Read online

  PRELUDE TO A KISS

  Amanda stood and paced the room, then sat back down on the chair, then stood, then sat back down. Lord, what was wrong with her? She knew it’d been a long time since she’d been with a man, but c’mon.

  It had been a long time. Pre-pregnancy long. Paul Swinwood long.

  Suddenly she imagined Ethan coming out of the bathroom, wrapped in a tiny towel, his body slick, his hair damp. The towel would fall, and he’d be naked, and they’d both reach for it at the same time, and then they’d play tug of war with the towel, but he’d win because he was so much stronger, so much bigger, and he’d tug and tug until she was pressed tight against him, her breasts crushed against his chest, her pelvis pressed against his erection. He’d undo her pants and slide them down, remove her panties with one finger, and then he’d—

  “Amanda?”

  She started and blinked and looked up, and there he was, damp and half naked under the tiny white hotel towel. “I-I was just thinking about something. . .”

  ALSO BY JANELLE TAYLOR

  Dying to Marry

  Don’t Go Home

  Can’t Stop Loving You

  Defiant Hearts

  Destiny Mine

  First Love, Wild Love

  Forbidden Ecstasy

  In Too Deep

  Lakota Dawn

  Lakota Winds

  Night Moves

  Not Without You

  Passions Wild and Free

  Savage Ecstasy

  Someday Soon

  Sweet Savage Heart

  Tender Ecstasy

  Wild Winds

  WATCHING AMANDA

  JANELLE TAYLOR

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  PRELUDE TO A KISS

  ALSO BY JANELLE TAYLOR

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER 1

  A beautiful dark-haired woman wearing an ankle-length fur coat and matching ear muffs was throwing a temper tantrum—complete with foot stomps—in the lobby of the Metropolitan Hotel. While her two children played tug of war with a silk flower plucked from a previously lovely display, the woman wagged a manicured finger in Amanda Sedgwick’s face.

  Amanda, one of the Metropolitan’s many front desk clerks, sat on her uncomfortable little stool behind the mile-long, granite reception counter and resisted the impulse to jump up and grab the woman’s finger. She forced herself to smile “the Metropolitan way” and checked her computer monitor again. “I’m sorry, Ms. Willington, but your reservation is for only one room and we’re completely booked. I can have a porter send up two cots for your—”

  The woman narrowed her cold blue eyes. “Did you say cots? I don’t think so. You are to find me two suitable rooms—my usual suite and an adjoining double with two full-sized beds for my children. Immediately. And it’s Mrs. Willington. Not Ms.”

  Amanda mentally referred to the Metropolitan Hotel Handbook she’d received when she began working at the hotel eight months ago: Metropolitan Hotel front desk clerks are Guest Specialists. Metropolitan Hotel policy is that the guest is always right—even when he or she appears to be in the wrong or is exceedingly difficult. To Amanda it seemed that “exceedingly difficult” was a euphemism for obnoxious.

  Hmmm, so since there was no suite with an adjoining double room available anywhere in this entire huge, thirty-two-story hotel, how exactly was Amanda to produce one?

  “I wish there was—” Amanda began.

  Mrs. Willington stepped closer, removed her ear muffs, and slid the band around her wrist. “Clerk, I don’t care what you wish. I want two suitable rooms, adjoining, now.”

  How dare you, you pompous prima donna! Amanda yelled back—silently of course. I want this, I want that! Well, I want my baby boy to wake up healthy tomorrow. I want to be home with him right now instead of arguing with you. I want so many things ...

  Amanda said none of this. It wasn’t the Metropolitan way. The Metropolitan was one of the most expensive hotels in Manhattan. And as a “guest specialist,” Amanda’s job was to make Mrs. Willington happy.

  The problem was that there weren’t two adjoining rooms available. Mrs. Willington could have a double for herself and a double across the hall with two twin beds for her children, or she could have the one suite she reserved for all of them. The Metropolitan was hosting three different conventions this weekend, and the annual Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center—just blocks away and a major attraction in a city full of attractions—was scheduled for this Tuesday. The hotel was booked.

  Period.

  Amanda forced another smile and explained to Mrs. Willington that she had two options: the one suite or the two non-adjoining doubles.

  Was that steam coming out of Mrs. Willington’s ears? Yes, I do believe it is, Amanda thought. The full force of the woman’s anger was about to be let loose on Amanda, but luckily, Mrs. Willington’s children had chosen that moment to chase each other around their mother, grabbing her fur coat to stop themselves from falling.

  Mrs. Willington let out a shriek. “Stop that right now!” she yelled to her children, who stuck out their tongues at each other but listened. The woman smoothed the ruffled fur and turned back to Amanda. Or, rather, she turned back to Amanda’s counter and began pounding on the call bell next to Amanda’s computer monitor.

  Amanda could feel her cheeks burning. The lunatic woman banged on the bell with unnecessary force. People in line and milling about the marble and glass lobby stopped and stared. Even Mrs. Willington’s own children stopped throwing jelly beans at each other to stare at their mother—and they had to be used to her by now.

  Amanda counted to three (one of the Metropolitan employee handbook’s suggestions for dealing with “exceedingly difficult” guests). “Mrs. Willington, if you’ll—”

  Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

  She pounded on the bell with all her strength.

  “Mrs. Willington! How lovely to see you again!”

  Uh oh, that was the voice of Anne Pilsby, the front desk manager. Amanda’s boss.

  Amanda glanced behind Mrs. Willington to find Anne rushing up to the woman. Anne’s mouth was drawn into a tight coral line as she shot Amanda a withering look.

  “Mrs. Willington,” Anne gushed, smoothing her fitted tweed jacket. “I do hope everything is to your satisfaction this afternoon.”

  “It most certainly is not,” enunciated Mrs. Willington, who launched into a tirade about Amanda’s lack of skills, initative, hospitality, and diplomacy, especially when dealing with the wife of F.W. Willington.

  Amanda had no idea who F.W. Willington was. And it was a shame that his wife seemed to think she had no other identity.

  “Step aside, Ms. Sedgwick,” Anne snapped, practically pushing Amanda out of the way to ease behind her computer. A few minu
tes and clicks of the keyboard later, Anne smiled. “Ah, I have found the perfect set of adjoining rooms for you, Mrs. Willington. Miss Sedgwick should have known there is always a set of rooms on reserve for our treasured guests. A suite for yourself, as always, with an adjoining double room with two full-size beds for your beautiful children. How big they’re getting!” Anne added, smiling at the kids, who were now taking turns flying the silk flower through air as though it were an airplane.

  “Ow!” yelped a woman, whirling to see what had poked her sharply in the back. The flower dropped to the floor at her feet. She glared at the children, now giggling and hiding behind their mother’s legs. The woman waited for the mother’s apology.

  There was none.

  “Brats,” the woman muttered and stalked away. Anne ignored the incident, so clearly the injured party was not a wealthy repeat guest of the Metropolitan Hotel.

  “I expect to be compensated for having to ring this bell so hard,” Mrs. Willington said. “My hand is hurting now.”

  Oh, brother! Amanda thought, rolling her eyes. Was she kidding?

  “Of course,” Anne replied with a consoling smile. “A complimentary hand massage in our spa should do the trick.”

  No, she wasn’t kidding. Neither was Anne, who lied about “on reserve” rooms. Yet she’d done some fast and clever guest reassignment.

  Satisfied, Mrs. Willington grabbed her children by the hands and headed for the elevator. Anne snapped her fingers high in the air, and a porter rushed to help Mrs. Willington with her luggage.

  Anne turned to Amanda, the bright white smile now replaced by a frown. “Amanda, I’m very disappointed in the way you handled one of our best—”

  The phone rang at Amanda’s station. As any of the front desk clerks could answer the ringing line from their stations, Amanda decided this wasn’t the time to interrupt her boss’s That Wasn’t the Metropolitan Way speech.

  “Well, answer it!” Anne barked, shaking her head.

  I hate this job. I hate this job. I hate this job, Amanda silently chanted, picking up the phone.

  “Metropolitan Hotel, front desk,” Amanda said in the Metropolitan way—which meant with forced good cheer.

  “Amanda, thank God I got you,” came Lettie Monroe’s panicked voice. “Tommy is burning up with fever. It’s over a hundred and four! And he’s so listless. I’m worried, Amanda.”

  Oh no. Lettie, Amanda’s neighbor and her eleven-month-old son’s babysitter, wasn’t prone to exaggeration. Amanda squeezed shut her eyes for a second and tried to will the panic away. “Lettie, take Tommy to the emergency room in a cab right now. I’ll meet you there.”

  “I’m on my way,” Lettie responded. “See you soon.”

  Amanda hung up the phone. “Anne,” she said to her boss, “I’ll need to lea—”

  Anne put her hands on her hips and surveyed Amanda. “You’ve needed to leave early two other times this month. Babies get sick, Amanda. It’s what they do. I’ve raised two of my—”

  Babies get sick. It’s what they do....

  “Tommy was a month premature, Anne,” Amanda interrupted through gritted teeth as she gathered her purse and checked her wallet for cab fare. “He’s prone to—”

  Anne dismissed her with a wave of her own manicured hand. “Maybe if you’d breastfed, you wouldn’t have such a sickly child.”

  Amanda recoiled as if slapped in the face. How dare she! “For your information, not that it’s any of your business, I did breast—”

  “I’m not interested in your personal life, Amanda,” Anne said, raising her chin in a show of dismissal. “If you abandon your post, I’ll have no choice but to permanently relieve you of your employment at the Metropolitan Hotel. Your frequent absences leave us short-staffed without proper notice, per the Metropolitan Employee Handbook.”

  No. Amanda couldn’t lose her job. No job meant no health insurance. And Tommy’s frequent ear infections and high fevers meant constant trips to the pediatrician.

  There was no way Amanda could afford COBRA on what meager savings she had.

  “Anne, please.” Amanda abandoned her indignation and flat-out pleaded. “Tommy is very sick. He has a fever of a hundred and four, and he’s—”

  “And it seems your babysitter is fully capable of taking him to the hospital,” Anne interrupted. “If I ran home every time my child got a cold I would not have achieved the position I hold now.”

  Amanda refrained from taking the glass of cold water on her desk and throwing it in her boss’s face.

  “Tommy doesn’t have a cold,” Amanda said. “He could be seriously ill and—”

  Anne held up her palm in Amanda’s face. “I’ve now wasted ten minutes of my own day and this hotel’s time in dealing with you, Amanda. Enough is enough. This was the third time I’ve had to warn you about your attendance record. Pack up your locker, return your name pin and uniform, and see payroll about picking up your final paycheck. I’ll alert them that you’re coming. You’re fired.”

  Who are you, you monster? Amanda thought numbly.

  This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.

  “The only place I’m going is to the hospital,” Amanda told Anne. She took off her name pin and thrust it into the woman’s hand.

  “Ow!” Anne yelped. “You pricked me.”

  The phone rang at Amanda’s desk. Amanda grabbed it, praying it wasn’t Lettie with more bad news about Tommy.

  It wasn’t. It was a guest wanting information.

  “It’s for you,” Amanda told Anne and shoved the phone at her before running across the lobby, praying she could get a cab.

  Only when she was outside in the chilly December air did she realize she forgot to get her coat and hat.

  Amanda frantically raised her arm to hail a taxi in front of the hotel. Please, please, please, she prayed to the fates of the universe.

  As if this is my lucky day, she thought, letting out a frustrated breath as occupied taxi after occupied taxi sped past. Finding a cab in midtown Manhattan was never easy, let alone at the start of rush hour and during the holiday season. The streets were crowded with New Yorkers and tourists coming and going in every direction

  Amanda shivered in her thin uniform. If a taxi didn’t come soon, Amanda would have to waste more time running back inside for her coat, which was on the basement level in the “hourly employee” locker rooms.

  Please, please, please, she prayed again, extending her arm as far as it could go, her eyes darting to check for available cabs.

  Yes! A taxi was pulling to a stop right in front of the hotel and right in front of Amanda. Thank you, she whispered to the darkening sky. She rushed over to the cab and claimed it by holding onto the door handle, prepared to pull it open the moment the slowpokes inside appeared ready to emerge.

  Hurry up, please! she silently shouted at the occupants of the back seat, who were taking their sweet time. The man had his hand in his wallet, and the woman, who was facing the other way, had a silver cell phone pressed to her ear.

  As she watched the male occupant pay the driver and await his change, she decided she would try to talk to Anne tomorrow, when she went back for her coat. Maybe Ms. Scrooge would be in a better mood. Or find an ounce of holiday season compassion in her heart.

  Come on, Amanda urged the couple silently. Finally, the man turned to open the door, and Amanda pulled it open for him. Out, out, out! she coaxed mentally. He was yakking into his own cell phone while extending a hand into the taxi to help the woman, also still gabbing on her phone.

  Finally, the woman emerged. And Amanda froze.

  It was her sister.

  Her half sister, acutally. Olivia Sedgwick.

  Without looking in Amanda’s direction once, despite the fact that Amanda was standing a foot in front of her sister, Olivia dashed onto the curb, saying something into the phone about a “layout.” As Amanda stood there open-mouthed, her hand barely still touching the cab’s door, the man pressed something into Am
anda’s hand, then joined Olivia on the curb and escorted her into the hotel.

  Amanda opened her fist to find a five dollar bill.

  Well, isn’t that humiliating, Amanda thought, darting into the taxi and giving the driver her destination. Olivia’s companion clearly took Amanda, dressed in uniform, for a front-door valet, whose job it was to greet arriving guests.

  As the driver flipped the meter and pulled away from the curb, Amanda glanced out the window just in time to see Olivia and the man greet some well-dressed people who were seated at a grouping of plush sofas in the lobby. She watched Olivia smile and laugh and shake hands, and then as the taxi swerved into a lane that was actually moving, she lost sight of her sister and turned back around.

  Whoa. Olivia Sedgwick in the flesh. She felt a stab of envy and longing that startled her. She thought she had accepted the very different lives her sisters led and put them in their proper perspective years ago.

  When was the last time I saw her? Amanda wondered. When was the last time I saw my other half sister, Ivy? Or the only person we all have in common: our father, winner of the I-Can’t-Be-Bothered-To-Be-A-Father award, William Sedgwick.

  It had been years since she’d spoken to her father, but Amanda could pinpoint the exact day she had last spoken to her sisters: eleven months ago, on the day her son, Tommy, was born on a snowy January morning.

  Because he’d been premature, she barely had a look at him before he was whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit. And while they were separated for that short while before she could go see him, she was so overcome with longing for her family—and overcome with longing to provide her newborn son with family—that she picked up the phone in the room and called Olivia and immediately got her answering machine. Amanda had left a message, informing Olivia that she was a brand new aunt and that mother and child were doing well at Lenox Hill Hospital.

  Amanda had left the same message for their other half sister, Ivy. And then she called her father’s office, which was the only number she had for William Sedgwick. Though it was only eight o’clock in the morning when she’d phoned, William’s secretary had answered. William had been in, but in a closed-door meeting and had asked not to be disturbed for any reason. Amanda didn’t want to reduce the birth of his grandson to a message on a While You Were Out pad, but she wasn’t sure William would call back if she didn’t leave a message of magnitude. The secretary, a very pleasant-sounding woman, congratulated Amanda heartily, and assured her she’d let William know the great news the moment the conference room door opened.