A Very Important Guest Read Online Free PDF

because she seemed to have lost hers. He was too smart, too charming, and most off all, too kind. With a quick kiss on the cheek, she said, “Good-night” and turned to get into her car.
     
    * * *
     
    The following morning, Abby leaned against the elevator wall as she traveled up to the eighth floor to start her day’s cleaning. She always began by scanning the daily list of departure dates for the rooms on her floor so that she could best plan her cleaning schedule. When she saw the date by room 828, she patted every pocket in her uniform for the previous day’s list and pulled a crumpled paper from her apron pocket. She compared the two lists.
    “Oh my God,” she said to the empty elevator. Looking at the paper again, she confirmed one more time that Will had indeed changed his departure date. He’d been scheduled to check out of the hotel the next day, but he was now leaving two days later.
    She placed her hand on her chest to stop her heart from racing ahead of reason. Intuition told her he’d extended his trip to spend more time with her, but she couldn’t believe it. Yet nothing else made sense. The man was a junior congressman from a working class district in Ohio . A federal judicial conference in Hawaii was a major junket for him, but it was still work. She knew he wasn’t here with friends or family for a vacation, and he hadn’t mentioned any fellow travelers arriving later in the week. What made him want to stay in Hawaii longer? She grinned at the possibility he’d done it for her.
    A few hours later, she was again tidying room 828, only this time she thought of it as Will’s room rather than just another stop on her rounds. She’d never before cleaned the hotel room of someone she knew personally, and certainly not someone she’d kissed the night before. From the moment she walked in, she felt as if she were trespassing in a friend’s bedroom—only worse because she had to touch his things in order to clean. It felt like she was reading his diary.
    As she gingerly made order of his messy desk, she jumped when she heard him say, “You can try and put my things in piles, but I’ll just spread them out again.”
    She looked up to see Will standing a few feet away, holding two cups of coffee and wearing a teasing grin. She gasped. “You scared me.”
    “I didn’t mean to.” He held the coffee out to her. “Here. I brought one for you.”
    “How did you know I’d be in your room?”
    “I may have occasionally come up here to check out your progress on the floor,” he said and shrugged.
    “Ah.” Her mouth opened in shock, but she took the coffee from him and smiled. “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.” He pointed to the bathroom. “You haven’t been in there, have you?”
    “No, not yet,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
    “I told you I don’t want you cleaning my bathroom.”
    “I’m supposed to.”
    “Come on. You have to have guests who tell you not to clean.”
    “That’s true.” She nodded.
    “Good. Then the discussion is over.”
    “If you say so.” She laughed. “The guest is always right.” The mirth in his expression made her want to join in the teasing. “But I guess in your job, you’re used to having staff always do whatever you say.”
    “Not always.”
    “But usually, right?”
    He held up his hands, as if admitting defeat. “You’ve got me. I promise I didn’t used to be this way, but something about being in Congress has made me a little self-centered.”
    “I wouldn’t say you’re self-centered, and I think it would be natural for someone in power with a hectic job to expect staff to make things go smoothly.”
    “Yeah, but …” He shook his head. “I think about what an ass I was to you the first day. My parents would’ve been horrified.”
    “I told you not to worry about it.” She didn’t say how touched she was that she actually had caused some self-reflection on his part. She smiled as she changed the subject. “So how did your