Cynthia didn’t say a word. She just nodded and headed for the entrance.
Chapter 6
Kurt was standing in his office, staring out the window and thinking about the last couple of weeks when Blake interrupted his thoughts.
“Here’s the bill of materials you were asking for.” Blake slapped a thick spreadsheet on Kurt’s desk. “It’s been scrubbed by the operations team. Think we’ve got as low of prices on the components as we’re going to get. Means our margins will be up to almost 60%. You should be happy…”
He paused when Kurt didn’t react. “You okay, Dude?”
Kurt tried to focus on Blake’s face, his thoughts still a mile away. “Huh?”
“You’ve been after me to get this BOM to you for weeks. I thought you’d be jumping up and down.” Blake picked up the spreadsheet and dropped it back down on the desk with a thump. “Instead you’re miles away. What’s up?”
Kurt motioned to Blake to shut the door.
Blake gave him a salute, but complied.
“I know you’re loyal to your wife, but what I say here stays in this room.” Kurt gave Blake a hard stare. “Agreed?”
“Not going to lie to my wife, Kurt.”
“Wasn’t asking you to. Just want you to keep a confidence.”
“What the hell?” Blake gave Kurt an incredulous stare. “When have I ever broken your confidence?”
“Well there was that time involving Missy Bender.” Kurt grinned at Blake.
“And we were what, thirteen, fifteen?” Blake pulled up Kurt’s visitor chair, straddled it. “Geez, Kurt.”
“I know, I know.” Kurt dropped into his own chair. “It’s just that this involves Cynthia, and you know how close she and Sharon are.”
“Bond runs way deep.” Blake nodded. “But I thought you couldn’t stand the woman.”
“Thought so too.” Kurt picked up a pen from his desk, started fiddling with it. “She’s always gotten under my skin. Don’t have a clue why. And I seem to get under hers. She’s never been as friendly to me as she seems to be with you all.”
“Then why the hell did you insist on her working out with you twice a day?”
“Heard about that did you?” Kurt leaned back in his chair, looked away for a moment then looked Blake in the eye again. “Thought she should pay for coercing me into doing that damn photo shoot.”
Blake squirmed in his seat a bit. “About that photo shoot, Kurt, and remember when you hear this that you love your new sister-in-law and she’s kind of partial to my face looking the way it does.”
Kurt raised his eyebrows.
“Wasn’t Cynthia’s idea. Was mine.”
“What!” Kurt shot to his feet. Blake followed suit, eyeing him warily across the desk.
Kurt’s assistant, Holly, knocked on the door, started to enter, took one look at the two of them and changed her mind. “Think I’ll come back at a better time.”
Kurt turned from glancing at the doorway to look back at Blake. “Did you see the look on her face?”
Blake grinned, hands unclenching. “Yeah. She’s remembering the dust up we had over the new office design.”
“New office design?” Kurt snorted. “I don’t think so. It was because you were mooning over Sharon and you’d had that fight with her over the land lease.”
“I needed to let a little frustration out.”
“So you rearranged my face.”
“You’re still too pretty, even with the broken nose.”
“Up yours.” Kurt sighed and plopped back into his chair. “And sit down. I’m too tired from all these workouts to return the favor.”
“Thank God.” Blake took a seat. “You’d cream me. I haven’t been to the gym in ages.”
“Too busy being the happy husband?”
Blake leaned back, a satisfied smile on his face. “There are some great perks to being married.”
Kurt put up a hand. “Don’t want to hear about it. Especially not from the guy whose dingus was close to falling off from disuse before you met Sharon.”
Now Blake gave Kurt the finger.
Kurt grinned. “Just saying.”
“Haven’t had any in a while. That your problem?”
“I know it sounds hard to believe, but I wasn’t really missing it. Wasn’t anyone I connected with in a while.”
“This my little brother talking?” Blake sat up, put both feet on the floor, hands hanging loosely between his knees. He leaned forward to peer at Kurt more closely. “The guy who has had whomever he wanted since high school?”
“Exaggerating just a little, aren’t you?”
“Not really. No.”
Kurt grinned. “Okay, I admit. I like women. Doesn’t mean I sleep with everyone I date.”
“Even a small percentage of the total women you’ve dated would be mind boggling to me.”
“Can we get back to the point here?”
“Go ahead.” Blake responded to the serious note in Kurt’s voice. “What’s up?”
“So I’ve got Cynthia staying at my place now.”
“What the hell?” Blake’s brows drew together.
Kurt put up a hand. “Not what you think. She’s working out with me and kind of got the impression that she was supposed to cook for me too—”
“Now I wonder how she got that idea?”
Kurt quelled him with a look.
“So as I was saying, she’s staying at the house.”
“And the problem?”
“I don’t know.” Kurt ran a hand through his hair, looked away.
Blake considered him silently for a moment. “You into Cynthia?” His voice held a note of incredulity. “Not your typical choice, is she?”
“I said. I. Don’t. Know!” He put both hands on his head, then grimaced when he felt the pull of his sore muscles. “I find myself looking forward to our workouts. Why, I haven’t a clue. It’s not like she’s given me any kind of indication that she’s interested in me. If anything, she sort of acts like she dislikes me. But she’s smart. Keeps me on my toes. And funny, when she’s not trying to put me off.” Kurt frowned “Or flirting with every guy in sight.”
“And I take it you’ve tried all your patented moves.” Blake sat back, stretched, a slight grin coming to his face.
“It’s not funny.” Kurt glared at him, thinking about how often he’d tried to move in on Cynthia to no avail since the start of their ultimate togetherness experiment, and knew he looked guilty to Blake.
“On the contrary,” Blake said, not even trying to hide his amusement now. “I never thought I’d see the day when you met a woman you couldn’t get. To see you lowered to the level of the rest of us who have had to grovel is hilarious.”
“Maybe I should rethink my reluctance to rearrange your face.”
“I don’t think so.” Blake got to his feet, still laughing. “Because I might get a punch in, and then where would you be with Cynthia? She can’t have a Business Hunk of San Diego with a black eye.”
“Oh, damn it, you’re right.” Kurt reluctantly started laughing too. “I’ll get you back for this.”
“Don’t doubt it.” Blake said. “But right now, you’d better go where ever it is you’re supposed to be going.” Blake inclined his head toward the window between Kurt’s office and his assistant’s desk. She was urgently gesturing to Kurt, pointing to her watch.
Kurt glanced down at his calendar. “Aw hell.” He was a half hour late to his meeting with a new customer.
Chapter 7
Cynthia stood in Kurt’s kitchen, chopping vegetables, thinking about the past couple of weeks. She hadn’t seen the creep from high school at the gym again, thank goodness. It had been bad enough to have him pin her to the wall, and expect that she would welcome his advances, just because she’d been foolish in the past. But the fact that Kurt had witnessed it, and evidently thought the worst, well that was downright humiliating.
And why wouldn’t he think the worst, she thought, as she diced th
e celery with a vengeance, after she had openly flirted with all the other guys to cover up her mounting attraction to him? When would she ever learn?
“What’s the delicious treat for tonight? More dry chicken? Tasteless fish? Bland vegetables?” Kurt wandered into the kitchen, shirtless, shorts riding low on his hips, still toweling his hair dry.
He seemed to walk around shirtless a lot these days. It was rather disconcerting. Especially since the imagined donut had long disappeared. She’d held him to Carl’s diet, which he groused about daily. He’d already lost nine pounds. She’d lost four. Life wasn’t fair. But four pounds in two weeks was a new experience for her. She wasn’t complaining—too much—even though every muscle in her body screamed from the twice-daily workout schedule. She was sore in places she hadn’t even known she had muscles.
And Kurt had a serious six-pack emerging. Cynthia looked up from examining his incredibly hot body to see Kurt watching her, amused.
She felt her face flush, and talked quickly to cover it up. “I’ve got a confession to make.”
Kurt stopped drying his hair, draping the towel instead around his neck. “Do tell.” He grabbed a carrot, started munching.
“This,” Cynthia said, bringing a notebook over to show Kurt, “is the cookbook I’ve been using to cook for us.”
Kurt glanced at the unbound notebook and raised his eyebrows. “Thought you said you had Carl’s cookbook?”
“That’s it. Carl’s cookbook.” She plunked it down on the counter. “Before he brought it to me for marketing help.”
“This is what he started with?” Kurt flipped through the pages of typed recipes and pasted photographs.
Cynthia nodded. “His recipes were seriously bad. He knows a lot about protein, carb and fat ratios. A fair amount about nutrition too, but cooking tasty food? Not so much.”
“Mediterranean chicken.” Kurt scanned a recipe’s ingredients. “What makes it Mediterranean, the sprig of basil resting on top in the picture?”
“Evidently,” Cynthia said. She pulled a hardbound book with bright photographs of food on the front cover from under the shelf. “And here’s the recipe as it was published.” She flipped to the appropriate page.
“Garlic, oregano, basil, thyme,” Kurt rattled off ingredients. “Now that’s sounding more like it.”
“We went through recipe by recipe. I helped him make them better.”
“If what you’ve been feeding me for the last week is better, I’d say stick with marketing.”
Cynthia made a face. “Like I said, I’ve been cooking from the before recipes.”
Kurt looked at her in surprise. “Why would you do that? You’ve had to eat this crap too.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or have you been eating the good stuff?”
“Sadly, no.” Cynthia pulled a few bunches of fresh herbs from a shopping bag. “But tonight, we’re both going to.”
Kurt snagged a piece of mint, leaned against the counter, his face inscrutable. “Mind telling me why you decided to torture us with that cardboard food?”
“Same reason you decided to torture me with workouts.” Cynthia moved to the refrigerator, took out a package of chicken.
Kurt burst out laughing. “And why didn’t I even consider that? I should have known better. I’ve been up against you before.”
Cynthia grinned. “I did do better for Sharon than you did for Blake during their land contract dispute, didn’t I?” She waved a sprig of thyme at him.
Kurt gave her an enigmatic smile. “You’re good, I’ll grant you that. But Blake pretty much tied my hands on that one. My marching orders were to give you guys whatever it took to let your business continue, because he was so crazy about Sharon. I was told not to screw things up.”
“At least it ended well,” Cynthia said. “A happier couple I haven’t seen.”
“It all worked out,” Kurt agreed. “But I had some serious explaining to do to my board of directors. They thought I was an idiot.”
“Poor baby.”
“Was hard on my ego,” Kurt acknowledged. “And there are not many people besides Blake that I would have done something like that for.”
He gave the chicken the evil eye. “We are NOT having chicken again tonight.”
“Then you’re cooking.” Cynthia scowled at the kitchen in general. “Because I’m sick of this place.”
Kurt got up, put his arm around Cynthia. “I don’t blame you. And I have a confession to make too.”
Cynthia jumped a little at the unexpected contact. She craned her neck up to try to see Kurt’s face. Damn it was annoying being so short sometimes. “About?”
“I never expected you to cook. Was actually a little surprised when you came over with the bags of food. And it was so awful, but I didn’t have the heart to tell you after you worked so hard making it. I’ve got to admit the results are pretty dramatic.” He patted his stomach. “But my office staff is about to shoot me, because I’ve been such a bear these past couple of weeks.”
Cynthia took a deep breath, and moved away from his arm. Whatever product he used for soap or cologne, the source of that heady scent, put her hormones on overload. The stuff shouldn’t be legal. She wondered what he’d do if she suddenly turned and started licking him. “I’ve heard rumors.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow.
Cynthia shrugged. “I have my sources.”
“I’ll bet.” Kurt picked up the chicken and put it back into the refrigerator. “We’re going out. My treat.”
Cynthia looked up in surprise. “I thought you wanted to be all hard-body for the photo shoot?”
“At the rate I’m losing weight, I’m going to be a skeleton. I want some beef.” He gave her workout shirt a little tug. “You’ve got anything to wear besides spandex?”
Cynthia looked down at his long fingers pulling on her neon green halter top. Who knew that such an innocent touch could set her pulse racing? But it means nothing to him, she reminded herself. “I haven’t even showered yet.”
“No rush. Lucky and I will catch some sun on the deck while you do.” He poured himself a glass of iced tea, grabbed some treats for Lucky and ambled out to the deck, whistling.
Cynthia stared at him. So was this a date? Wouldn’t seem so, seeing as he hadn’t exactly asked her out. More like told her, which maybe she should have taken offense at. But what the hey? Wasn’t every day she got to go out on the town with an uber-eligible bachelor. And she deserved it after all that cooking, right?
Now if she could just have had access to her wardrobe at home instead of the handful of garments she had grabbed for the short stay at his house.
~ ~ ~
Kurt took a sip of his Cabernet and gazed at Cynthia, while she talked animatedly to the waiter. She apparently knew him too. Was there anyone in this town she didn’t know? And why didn’t he get that sort of response? With him, there always seemed to be a wall up. Of course, he thought, given the fact that he’d sort of coerced her into being around him pretty much twenty-four/seven whether she wanted to or not probably didn’t help. Still, there was a level of friendliness around everyone else that he didn’t receive. It was puzzling.
“Another admirer?” He asked when she finally turned back to him.
Cynthia’s face lost a little of its animation, a bit of the wall coming back. “Client.”
“At Grandma’s Antiques?” The thought of the burly waiter frequenting his sister-in-law and Cynthia’s antique emporium amused him.
“A marketing client,” Cynthia said. “Of my consulting business I run on the side.”
Kurt’s ears perked up. RentBro could use an infusion of new ideas. His marketing director had a lot of good qualities, but thinking outside the box wasn’t one of them. “Grandma’s not keep you busy enough?”
Cynthia shrugged. “Sharon’s a good friend. Has been for years. I work there, because otherwise she would have no business. She’s an artist, not a business woman.”
“But it’s not enough.” Kurt recognized
drive, and he was beginning to realize Cynthia possessed it big time. “And yet you’re too loyal to quit.”
Cynthia looked him in the eye, her posture softening a bit, nodded. “You get it, don’t you?”
Kurt angled his wineglass toward her. “Kind of in the same boat.”
“But RentBro’s huge compared to Grandma’s. And you and Blake already had two successful startups, didn’t you?”
“Checked up on me, did you?” Kurt smiled to take any sting out of the words.
“More that I checked up on Blake when he and Sharon were negotiating their deal. Had to know the opponent and all.”
“And it certainly helped.” Kurt took a bite of his Caesar salad, waited a bit before answering. “It’s not the money, although that’s nice.”
“You do have some pretty awesome perks,” Cynthia said. “Like that beach house, for one.”
“Lucky and I like it,” Kurt acknowledged. “For me it’s the challenge. The creating something new, thinking of new angles, bringing a product to market that’s game changing. Life changing. That’s what does it for me.”
“And RentBro?”
“Is a good, solid company, don’t get me wrong.” Kurt waved away the waiter who wanted to pour more wine for him. “But let’s face it, our products don’t have that sexy factor. They’re just the background industry work horses.”
Cynthia thought of the racks of communications equipment Kurt’s brother, Blake, had once shown her on a tour, and nodded. “Yep, didn’t do much for me.”
“So lately, I’ve been restless.” Restless in more ways than just at work, he thought. Cynthia disturbed his equilibrium too. And he had yet to figure out why. It was a little strange seeing her dressed up after the daily workout outfits. She wore a red dress tonight that did some sort of complicated wrap thing around her amazing breasts. He had a hard time keeping his eyes away. She wasn’t a tiny woman, by any means, but she certainly knew how to dress to her advantage. She looked good. Damn good.
Loving Mr. July Page 5