Page 57 of The Christmas Accomplice

Chapter 15

Reece couldn’t believe it. He’d thought Welton was different. As if Welton returning home in a couple of days wasn’t bad enough, now Reece had discovered he’d lied. He and Dean had a history together. Were they currently a couple? Had they come on this trip together? Were they working on their relationship in an effort to make it stronger or mend a rift? Or were they trying out an open relationship to see if that could keep them together?

To make matters even worse, they were slammed at the front desk for a quite a while following Reece’s discovery, so he couldn’t tell Nick. He had to smile and act friendly with each guest in line, while on the inside, Reece’s heart slowly froze until it felt completely solid. Then it seemed to have shattered, throwing icy shrapnel all throughout his chest.

Welton didn’t approach the desk, either because it was too busy or he just didn’t know what to say. Reece felt conflicted about it, but was mostly grateful not to have to see or speak with him at that moment.

Out of all the guys who’d hurt him, Welton had cut the deepest. And they hadn’t known each other but a matter of days.

Just goes to show you how hard and fast you fell.

Reece didn’t know how or if he could get over this. He’d known something was weird about Dean, that smirk and the fact he always seemed to be hanging around or a few minutes behind Welton. Well, now Reece knew why.

When the last of the guests finally walked away, Nick immediately stepped close to him and lowered her voice. “What’s going on? I’m feeling a lot of angst coming off you right now. Like tidal waves of it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Reece worried he might actually cry if he started talking about it, and he definitely didn’t want to be caught standing behind the front desk crying.

“I can see you’re really upset about something,” Nick said in a gentle tone. “And I’m not going to push you on it. But I’m here and ready to listen when you want to talk about it.”

“Thank you.”

Before she could say anything else, Graham crossed the lobby and stood on the other side of the desk. He clasped his hands on the smooth granite top and fixed Reece with a cool look.

“Edward sent me out to get you. He’s ready to assign us our final activity assignments.”

“Now?” Reece said, hating how high his voice went up in pitch.

Graham smirked. “I could just go back and tell Edward this isn’t a good time for you.”

“Reece will be more than happy to go see Edward and find out what he’ll be doing to get the promotion,” Nick said. “I’ll cover the front desk for him.”

Nick and Graham stared each other down a moment until Graham spun on his heel and stalked off, leaving behind a cloud of that citrus scent.

“You’ve got this,” Nick said.

“Yeah. Thanks for covering for me. Again.”

“Any time. And you’ve got this.”

Reece grabbed a notepad and pen and left the desk area. He set out across the lobby at a fast pace, eyes fixed on the hallway that led to Edward’s office. With long strides, he purposefully avoided looking anywhere but straight ahead for fear of seeing Welton, or possibly even Dean. At that moment, he didn’t know which of them would be worse.

Graham already sat in one the visitor chairs before Edward’s desk. He didn’t look up from his phone as Reece entered the room, but a small upward curl of the corner of his mouth made Reece feel as if he’d arrived too late for something.

“There you are,” Edward said with a smile and waved to the empty chair. “Graham was just telling me how busy you and Nick were at the desk. Is she able to cover things all right?”

“Yeah, it was busy, but we handled it. Nick’s got it covered right now.”

“Oh, I had no doubt about that.” Edward sat back and looked between them. “Well, gentlemen, you’ve both done some good work these last few days. You’re both quite capable and outgoing, and at each activity I’ve observed, you both did quite well keeping the guests engaged. And now, the time has come for you to learn your final activity. Each of these activities are much larger in scale than the previous ones.”

Reece’s stomach tightened even more at that, but he forced himself to focus on what Edward was saying.

“They will be larger in scale and time consuming to organize. And, to make things even more challenging, I’m intentionally not giving you much time to assemble things. These activities will be run on Christmas Eve. This is a test not only on engaging the guests and creating a fun experience for them, but one on time management and thinking outside the box. You’ll hate me as you go through these instructions, and that’s okay. As the front desk Shift Manager and Activities Director, I’ve gotten used to that.”

“Jeez, Edward,” Reece said. “Sounds like you’re sending us off to our doom or something. You going to have us carry a magic ring to a volcano or something?”

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Edward said with a laugh.

“Nerd,” Graham muttered just loud enough for Reece to hear.