The Best Bet Read Free Page A

moment, she was probably checking him out.
    Groaning, he silently cursed his brother. Why hadn’t Damián warned him about the unique welcome he would receive, prepared him, so he wouldn’t come off as a rank greenhorn? Rafael answered his own question: because that wasn’t his twin’s way. His brother cruised through life on autopilot, oblivious to the mundane details that concerned everyday mortals.
    He paced the length of the living room and glanced several times at the door, willing his luggage to arrive, as promised. Checking his watch, he found it had been almost an hour since he’d come up.
    Rubbing his eyes, he realized the contact lenses were bothering him. He wasn’t accustomed to wearing them, and the change in pressure on the plane hadn’t helped. He wished he could take them out and give his eyes a rest, but that wasn’t possible. The contact solution and holder were packed in his bags.
    He snatched up the nearest phone and called down to the bellman’s desk. After giving his name, he was put on hold for several minutes. Then he was informed that his luggage hadn’t arrived. There was some mix-up with the airline and the hotel was working on it.
    Exasperated, he hung up the phone. He crossed to the coffee table and picked up Adriana’s card. But he replaced it on the table and grabbed his cell phone, keying in a query for his airline’s local phone number. After he’d hit “call” on his cell phone, the number rang at least twenty times before a clerk picked up.
    After a frustrating series of muddled conversations, he was patched through to the airline’s lost luggage department. Just when he thought he was getting somewhere, the baggage clerk asked for the numbers on his luggage tags.
    He didn’t have them. The limo driver had taken them. Irritated by the ridiculous situation he’d been thrust into, he tried to chill out and asked for the representative’s name and a direct line to the lost luggage department. Jotting the information on a hotel pad, he hung up.
    He walked over to the coffee table again and gazed at her card for the third time.
    The bank of phones shrilled in Rafael’s suite, making him jump and drop Adriana’s card. He grabbed the closest receiver, hoping it was the bell captain saying he’d found the luggage.
    “Yes.”
    “This is Adriana de Los Santos. Your luggage was lost by the airline. But you already know that, don’t you? The bell captain told me you called down.”
    Was it his imagination, or did she sound nervous? That was good because she made him feel as jumpy as a paratrooper without a parachute.
    “I need the baggage claim tickets for the airline.” He hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but he felt powerless. “I gave them to the driver and he—”
    “I know. I found the driver and got them.”
    “Do you want me to come down and get them?”
    She exhaled. “Mr. Escobedo—”
    “Please, call me Damian.” He congratulated himself for remembering to use his brother’s first name and not his own.
    “Damian, then. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and I don’t want you to waste another minute of your vacation. I’ll be more than happy to go to the airport and find your bags, even if it means waiting all night for them. The staff of the Xanadu Resort is here to serve you.”
    “Sounds like above and beyond the call of duty to me. You don’t want to waste your evening, either.” He could think of a lot of other ways to waste her evening—ways that made his blood race.
    “Not at all. It’s part of my job. Any way that I can be of—”
    “Service,” he finished for her.
    She was beginning to sound like a broken record. Not that he minded. He could listen to her recite the Gettysburg Address all night and be as happy as a frog in a latrine. She had a low, husky voice, especially resonant over the phone. But he wished he could rid her of this employee and guest hang-up she had. Get to know her on a more personal level, a lot more personal, if he had