Some Like It Hot Read Online Free PDF Page B

of what it cost a restaurant like that to simply shut down business for days, brought it home to Danny for the first time.

    This was really happening.

    It was another half hour before they were installed in their rooms. Jules and Max were holed up in what everyone was already calling the Honeymoon Suite, even though it was just a regular room.

    Danny, Beck, and Win were bunking together.

    The Gold Coast’s sponsorship did extend to comping the contestants’ rooms—but hotel management had definite ideas about how many people fit in one of their two queen-bed deluxe superior rooms.

    “Thank the sweet Lord we’ve got a chick on our team,” Winslow said fervently, slinging his oversize packing case onto one of the beds. “Until they saw Jules, I think they were fixing to cram all five of us in here, two to a bed and one in the bathtub.”

    “Hey, at least we’ve got a great view of the Water Tower.” Danny held the gold-striped curtain back to point at the very top of Chicago’s most famous historic landmark, just barely visible from their window.

    Win sucked his teeth and squinted in Danny’s general direction, but Beck, who’d efficiently unpacked his one small bag into the three narrow drawers in one of the bedside tables, stood up and said, “It’s fine. Lots more space than some places I’ve slept.”

    So evidently Beck’s claustrophobia didn’t extend to slightly cramped luxury hotel rooms.

    “The Water Tower’s kind of cool, I guess,” Win grudgingly admitted, stepping over to the window.

    “It’s one of the few structures that survived the big fire in 1871, the only one that’s still standing. Supposedly because it’s made of limestone.”

    Win brightened. “Hey, like the restaurant!”

    “I think there might be a connection,” Beck said. His expression never changed, but somehow Danny knew he was teasing.

    Fondness for his teammates suffused Danny with warmth. “Come on, guys. No point hanging around the room all day. Let’s go down and check out the competition space, see what this Limestone kitchen looks like.”

    “Good idea.” Winslow sat down to put on the pristinely white sneakers he’d removed the instant they got into the room, and nearly slipped right off the slick damask seat cushion. “Maybe they’ll have the ingredients for mimosas lying around. I could really go for one of those.”

    Groaning, Danny threw his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Seriously? Enough with the mimosas!”

    “I just don’t see what would’ve been so heinous about having one,” Win sulked. “Everyone else on the plane got one.”

    “Everyone else let Eva Jansen buy them off for the price of a mixed drink. I don’t want to speak for you, but personally, my time is worth a little more to me than five bucks.”

    “And me drinking my complimentary spicy tomato juice was the perfect fuck you. I guess we showed her!” Win’s snarky tone usually got a smile out of Danny, but not this time.

    He knew it was ridiculous to stand on principle in a situation like this. So Eva Jansen was a spoiled brat who threw money at her problems to make them go away. So what? That was her business. The smart move would’ve been to shake her hand, sit down and enjoy his tasty champagne cocktail on her dime, and let it go.

    But something about her got under his skin, in the most inconvenient way possible.

    He’d been off his game to begin with, Danny comforted himself, because he was worried about Beck. Danny cast a glance at his normally stoic friend. Looking at him now, all stern face and bulging muscles, no one would guess Beck had spent the first hour of the flight putting ten finger-shaped dents in the plastic armrests between their seats.

    But Danny couldn’t quite forget how messed up the guy had looked while they waited and waited for the plane to take off, and he added Watch out for Beck to his mental list of responsibilities as they trooped out of the room and down the plush