The One Real Thing
Page 11

The businessman owned Paradise Sands Hotel next to Cooper’s. The hotel was swankier than anything that had come before it on the boardwalk. Vaughn had bought the old hotel and completely renovated it, turning it into an upscale hotel and conference center. Some folks in town said the hotel was too swanky for Hart’s Boardwalk; that the people who vacationed here didn’t come for contemporary luxury but a little piece of tradition. Somehow, however, Vaughn had made it work. The conference center was always busy and the guy had made a success out of the hotel.
Cooper wasn’t too surprised. The Manhattan-born businessman owned a number of hotels and was the son of a hugely wealthy CEO of an international real estate and construction company.
The boardwalk community hadn’t exactly warmed to the New Yorker. No one could understand why a guy like him would choose Hartwell as his home. He wouldn’t explain himself and people around there didn’t like that much. Frankly, Vaughn didn’t do much to make them like him. But he’d been coming into Cooper’s every week for that shot of whiskey for the past year and Cooper had gotten to know him better. There was definitely more to Vaughn Tremaine than met the eye.
“Thanks,” Vaughn muttered. “I need it this morning.”
“Rough night?”
“Dentistry conference yesterday. Those assholes can party. One of them assaulted my night manager. It was a late night.”
“Jesus. Your manager okay?”
“Fine. Just a swollen eye, thankfully.”
“And the dentist?”
“Out on his ass. Fuck knows where he went.”
Cooper grinned. “Did—”
A knock at the front door cut him off.
Dana?
“Coop, it’s Bailey!”
Noting the way Vaughn tensed, Cooper smirked.
Idiot.
Ignoring Vaughn’s reaction to the sound of Bailey Hartwell’s voice, Cooper hurried over to let her into the bar.
“Coop, Dana is on the boardwalk,” Bailey said a little breathlessly. Her hair was windswept, suggesting she’d been running. “I was walking to my place and I was just nearing the bandstand and I saw that bitch marching this way so I took off. I’m pretty sure she knows I was running to give you a heads-up that she’s slithering around the boardwalk.”
He laughed at her rambling, but he did it while he shut his blinds and locked his door.
When he turned back he nearly laughed again at Bailey’s reaction to finding Vaughn in the bar. Her whole body had gone rigid.
“Miss Hartwell,” Vaughn said with a mocking salute of his scotch glass.
He never called Bailey by her first name. Cooper knew it drove Bailey crazy and he more than suspected that Vaughn knew that, too, and that was exactly why he did it.
The two of them had clashed from the moment they met. There couldn’t be two people more different from the other. If Vaughn Tremaine was the Prince of the Upper East Side, Bailey Hartwell was the Princess of Hart’s Boardwalk. A descendant of the city’s founders, Bailey had inherited Hart’s Inn at the north end of their stretch of the mile-long boards. The inn was the last remaining piece of real estate owned by the once incredibly wealthy Hartwells. But the family Bailey was born into wasn’t wealthy. They’d worked hard to run the inn, and when her brother and sister went off to live their lives elsewhere, Bailey’s parents had left the running of the inn to her and took off for their retirement in Florida.
Nothing had come easy for this particular princess and she wasn’t exactly gearing up to make friends with the arrogant, wealthy businessman she saw as her competition.
And, Bailey being the boardwalk’s sweetheart, most people came down on her side of this particular war.
Cooper found the whole thing damn funny. The pair was a comedy act and didn’t know it.
“Mr. Asshole,” Bailey replied.
Vaughn just laughed and finished off his scotch.
Bailey whirled around to glower at Cooper. He assumed for having the audacity to serve Vaughn, especially while the bar was closed. “Don’t tell me I’m stuck in here with this idiot, Lawson.”
The door handle of the bar turned and rattled. A loud knock followed it. “Cooper! I know you’re in there!” Dana yelled.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “You’re stuck.”
“I have to get back to the inn. Can I sneak out the back?”
He nodded. “Go ahead. If you see her—”
“Oh, I’ll take that bitch down before I let her in here,” Bailey assured him and turned to go.
“I’m going with you.” Vaughn slipped off the stool, slapping money down on the bar. “Cooper.”
“Vaughn.”
Bailey threw a horrified look over her shoulder at Vaughn. “Wonderful.”
“You know, you really need to stop flirting with me, Miss Hartwell,” Vaughn said as he strode toward her. “It’s a little inappropriate.”
She narrowed her eyes, ready to spit fire at him, but Cooper distracted her.
“Thanks for the heads-up, Bailey.”
“Anytime. And remember, my bitch-slapping services are always available.”
“How much do you charge?” Cooper heard Vaughn say as they walked through the staff door.
“Oh, I’ll slap you for free.”
“Kinky.”
“You are such an asshole.”
“I think you need to find a new word.”
“Turd!”