He rode down to the lobby and strolled through a sea of white leather and past shining windows. Gorgeous as the Chicago home base for Crane Hotels was, Tag preferred his home office, where he could focus on something other than the purring of the receptionist’s phone and the pompous chatter of the suits occasionally prowling the floors. When he wasn’t there, he was visiting one of the hotels to oversee a grand opening or cut the ribbon on a new restaurant.
The Windy City was living up to her name today, the cold slapping him in the face as he strode out onto the sidewalk. He pulled up his collar and plunged his hands into his black coat’s pockets, welcoming the chilly bite of February.
Crane Tower stood exactly three blocks west of the Crane and was Tag’s proudest accomplishment. His brother may own a mansion, but Tag had purchased an entire damn building. He’d bought it from his father quietly so as not to draw too much attention to the sale a year ago. His penthouse was at the top floor, forty-nine, and overlooked a sea of buildings. He liked the vantage point. He loved being on top. Ask any of his past girlfriends.
Well, dates. Girlfriends was a strong word.
Crane Tower’s doorman, a middle-aged guy whose name Tag did not remember, pulled open the door as Tag was angling to walk inside. The respite from wind was brief though, blowing his hair over his face and temporarily blotting out the vision of a woman exiting the luxury apartment building.
He swept his hair behind his ear and stopped dead in his tracks.
She was blond.
Petite, which put her at least a foot shorter than his almost six-and-a-half feet tall, and wearing high-heeled, knee-high boots that met the edge of a long dark coat, belted at the waist. The wind chose that moment to bless him, parting her coat and revealing gray leggings beneath a super short black skirt. She closed the coat over her like Marilyn Monroe trying to push down her dress and then she caught him looking.
And looked back.
Shiny lips. Thick, black lashes. Cute nose.
A pair of black leather gloves rose to tug a few stray hairs from her sticky lip gloss, and Tag felt a definite stir of interest in his pressed-for-work pants.
Then she was gone, hoofing it to a car waiting at the curb. He watched the maroon sedan pull away, a woman in the driver’s seat, and blinked as the taillights dwindled in the distance. Then he turned for the door again.
“Mr. Crane,” the doorman greeted.
“Hey…uh. Man.” He should know this guy’s name. “Who was that?”
A brief look of panic colored the other man’s features like he might be fired for not knowing. “I don’t know, sir. Would you like me to find out?”
Tag looked in the direction where the car had vanished, thinking for a second.
“No,” he decided. He liked not knowing. Liked the idea of running into the blonde by chance. Maybe in the gym or the lobby.
Or the elevator.
Yeah, he’d rather stumble across her. Preferably into her.
“Thanks.” He nodded to the doorman and strode in, stepping onto the elevator a few minutes later. On the ride up, he realized he was leaning in the corner, smiling like a dope, the bar upgrade issue and the frustration of the board the furthest thing from his mind.
Chapter 2
A sharp bark startled Tag, and his arm jerked, dragging the tip of the Sharpie across the Post-it and onto the photograph he had been trying not to ruin. He scowled at the jagged red line, then lifted his face and scowled at his blurry reflection in the window, beyond which was a lit Chicago skyline and pale half-moon.
For most of the evening he’d mentally blocked out the barks that had punctuated the air approximately every ten seconds before narrowing to every two or three seconds. Now they were almost constant.
Woof! Woof! Woo-oof!
He could not freaking work in these conditions.
Judging by the direction of the sound, and the deep, barrel-chested baritone, he guessed the barker none other than Adonis, Oliver Chambers’s giant white-with-black-splotches Great Dane. Adonis was generally a quiet dog. Tag only knew him because he often ran into the pair (Adonis and Oliver on their way to a morning stroll, Tag on his way out) when he rode the elevator down with them.
Tag had been patient—Adonis was a dog, and dogs barked—but the dog had never barked this much, and never this late at night. He’d been determined to ignore it, but he needed every ounce of concentration he could muster.
He was reviewing the setup for the main candidate for a recent bar redesign: the pool bar at the Crane Makai in Hawaii. He’d been there several times, having overseen the grand opening of the hotel and the restaurant run by an acclaimed chef Tag had handpicked. Tag had taken the blow personally when he reviewed the spreadsheets and determined that the Makai boasted the lowest bar sales profits.
He didn’t get it. The bar was in Hawaii. People went there to drink. And the weather was damn near perfect. What the hell? After ruling out theft and pricing, and a staff he had complete confidence in, he’d determined the shortcoming was the design. They’d built onto the Makai over the last decade, and as a result, a secondary pool was an afterthought. What it did have was an ocean view and plenty of seating choices, including cabanas. Theoretically, they should be drowning in profits. Even during the slow season—
Woof!
“All right, that’s it.” Tag shoved the stack of photos aside and moved through his penthouse, out the door, and punched a button in the elevator. He had nothing against dogs, and he liked this one in particular, but either something was wrong or Oliver had gotten lax with keeping the pooch in line. With so much at stake, there was no way Tag could concentrate with constant—
Woo-woo-woof!
The moment the elevator doors opened, Adonis’s barks echoed through the entryway.
The top three floors of Crane Tower were reserved for private apartments. Tag’s took up the entire top floor, while the two floors below his were split into two apartments per floor. These were the luxury suites, but given that the other apartment on Oliver’s floor was empty, Tag was the only neighbor who was hearing Adonis’s yapping.
At the door, Tag knocked. Barking followed scratching, and he winced as he thought of the dog’s nails marring the wood. Bending at the waist, he spoke through the door. “Adonis.”
Silence, then one more bark.
“Adonis, hey, boy.”
The barking stopped.
“Are you a good dog?” A small whine was followed by a more desperate bark.
“There you go. Calm down, okay?” He kept his voice pitched to soothing, feeling like an idiot cooing to a dog through a door, but hey, whatever it took. “I have shit to do,” he crooned, “and you’re making me insane.”
Sniffing at the door preceded silence. Tag stood and waited. No barking. No whining.
Satisfied, he smiled to himself. He had just turned to the elevator when the scratching came again—more desperately this time—followed by a cacophony of pathetic yelps.
Tag ran a hand over his face and climbed back into the elevator.
He wasn’t the kind of guy who freaked out over anything. Easygoing, easy to get along with, he was going to let this go for now and talk to Oliver—wherever the hell he was—in the morning. No doubt Tag would run into him in the elevator.
Back in his apartment, he opted to drown out the dog’s barks with music, cranking Adele to ear-bleeding decibels. For a guy who viewed his dating life through a lens of common sense, Tag would admit he admired the kind of love she sang about. The kind of love his parents had. The kind of love his oldest brother had found in the most unlikely of places. As much as he admired it, however, he was too practical to be stupid.