“I’ll call my professors,” she agreed after a moment’s thought. “They probably know people from the closed mills in Kannapolis and elsewhere.”
He could see she desperately wanted to hire her friends. Thankfully, she had the good sense to admit when she couldn’t. Such honesty in a world of greed and deceit appealed to his inner nature, although his business head told him that her easy capitulation was no way to get ahead.
“Jacques, mon amour,” an operatic soprano called from across the echoing length of the enormous building. A mixture of Italian and French followed, and Zack sighed. He’d known this scene was coming. Instead of hiding up here in the mountains where everyone blanketed him in the excitement of questions about the mill, he should have gone back to the resort and soothed fraying tempers.
Cat wiggled her miniskirted hips across the planked floor, trailing a lace shawl down her back. Her spiked heels left dents in the soft pine planks. She wore her cascade of silver-blond curls down today — a Britney Spears look she was really too old to carry off. He couldn’t remember why she was in his life. Rome. He’d picked her up in Rome because of her designer connections. She liked having an escort to the best parties. That seemed a lifetime ago.
“Chérie,” he called cheerfully, feeling Amy stiffen and edge away. “Have you come to help me choose our décor?”
He was exceedingly grateful their audience couldn’t translate Cat’s histrionic response. While she rattled on, Zack raised questioning eyebrows at Pascal, who had been blatantly unavailable these past few days. Unlike Cat, Pascal worked with him. Zack relied on his financial expertise and investment money.
It looked as if he would have to find a new investor. When Zack didn’t reply with placating apologies, Cat flung her long, lithe curves into Pascal’s arms to weep torrentially. Pascal didn’t flinch but held her as one would a lover.
Why had Jacques ever thought life was amusing with a drama queen like Cat around?
If he carried that thought too far, he would squirm in discomfort. With just her steady presence, Amy sheered off another layer of his shallow life to reveal the nothingness beneath.
Instead of looking at him with the disgust he deserved, Amy sidled back to his side to whisper, “I don’t suppose she just called you a horse’s ass, did she?”
Zack laughed aloud, startling his already stunned audience. Amy’s refreshing bluntness righted the kaleidoscope world he occupied. “She called me a despoiler of dreams, a man who cannot see beyond the nose on his face, a cad who expects the world to turn around him, among other things. Your translation is much more succinct.”
She nodded knowingly. “Women don’t like being dumped.”
“Especially for a mill,” he agreed. He’d had no idea how refreshing it was to have a woman who talked sense instead of having hysterics. In his foolish youth, it had made him feel strong and masculine to console weeping women. Now, age and experience just made him impatient.
“But it is her own illusions that are shattered and they’re none I have created,” he reassured her.
Zack crossed his arms and glared at Pascal. “And you, old friend? Have I shattered your illusions as well?”
Still clad all in black, Pascal shrugged and continued patting Cat. “We thought we were here for a short visit. We do not mean to live here, where we don’t belong. Where you don’t belong,” he added meaningfully.
Zack went cold. Pascal was right. He glanced around at the production designers and entourage Cat had dragged in with her. As if they were spectators in a zoo, her companions studied their primitive surroundings and the jeans-clad and T-shirted mechanics. The gap between rich and poor, rural and city, was enormous enough without throwing in the differences of language and culture.
What the devil was he thinking? That he could belong here where just his choice of vehicle raised eyebrows? Where he couldn’t speak without causing heads to turn?
“Is this where we all sing ‘It’s a small world, after all’?” Amy murmured with laughter in her voice, apparently unaware of his frozen shock. She was a little angel sitting on his shoulder, flapping her wings to swat him in the right direction.
The ice forming around his heart melted in a hot rush of desire, and Zack grinned, recovering from his momentary paralysis. “Pascal, old friend, you are a bigot, albeit a brilliant one. Go home. Take Cat.” He glanced at Brigitte, who had lowered her head and huddled her arms around herself. Bad body language if he’d ever seen it. “Brigitte, my right hand, would you leave me, too?”
She cast him a frowning glance and nodded curtly, once.
He winced. She had been at his side for years. It wasn’t as if he meant to live here forever.…
He looked over everyone’s heads to the entrance, where Luigi leaned his bulk against a doorframe and studied the situation with a stoic expression. Luigi was more friend and father figure than employee. He would hate to lose him. At Zack’s glance, Luigi offered a crooked grimace and shook his head. Zack sighed in relief. Luigi had known him long before he had entered Cat’s glittery world. He was loyal to the man, not the money.
“You can run this operation from home,” Pascal insisted. “You have other interests that need your attention. There is the Galway project waiting.”
The castle, the magnificent Irish castle. He loved Ireland, the lyrical voices, the outrageous tales, the music. Ireland was close to home and all his friends. He could fly to London in a heartbeat, party all night, and be back at work in the morning. He and Gabrielle had celebrated their first anniversary in Dublin….
He’d lost himself in partying to eradicate those memories.
He didn’t need to lose himself in partying here, and Zack recognized his immense relief at that knowledge. Since arriving, he’d lived a real life of sorts. None of the people in Northfork reminded him of Gabrielle. He did not see Danielle playing in the corners of the dirty mill, or hear his wife’s voice calling from the woods she would never have entered. He could be himself here, his current and future self, and not the old self that had died with his small family. He felt as if he was moving forward, at last.
He could not expect his staff to feel the same.
“Brigitte, you can research the Galway tapestries as well as I. You do not need me to research rushes for the floor. We have done castles before. Go. I will not keep you. But I am needed here, for now.”
Needed, literally. It had been a long, long time since anyone had actually relied on him for more than his opinion on wallpaper and the latest software.
It had been a long time since he’d felt strong enough to be relied on.
Brigitte solemnly handed Zack her PDA of notes and addresses. Cat wept hysterically and tried to throw herself at him, but Pascal held her back. Cat didn’t try very hard, Zack noted cynically.
“Let us know when you return,” Pascal said, letting Cat cry on his shoulder. “How long do you think it will be before we can start referring offers to you again? A week?”
He felt Amy tense beside him, but he did not dare look her in the eye. He had no idea where he’d be a week from now. A week alone in these mountains, without most of his friends and staff — it seemed an eternity just now.
“We’ll keep in touch,” he answered noncommittally.
Watching his traveling companions — the only life he had these days — file out, leaving him behind, Zack wanted a stiff drink. No one in Northfork sold alcohol.
What in hell had he got himself into? These weren’t the civilized environs he knew. He couldn’t even have a martini unless he made it himself, after driving an hour to obtain the ingredients. He was seriously tempted to run after his friends.
“We can do it ourselves,” Amy said stiffly, apparently reading his body language as well as he’d read Brigitte’s. “We have the skills and knowledge. Take your design cards and go.”
He glanced down at her shiny brown mane. “You would like that, would you not? You’d have everything you wanted, at my expense.”
&nbs
p; Propping her hands on her oh-so-businesslike skirt, Amy glared back at him. “You’re the computer expert, not me. What do you think?”
“That you can’t do it without me,” he retorted without hesitation, only recognizing the truth of his response after he’d said it.
“You’ve got that right,” she said, to his surprise. “So, Mr. Know-it-all, where do we find the computers and who applies for the government grant if Brigitte is gone?”
“You?” he suggested, arching an eyebrow with interest.
She swiped the PDA from him. “Damned right, just as soon as someone transcribes the contents of this gadget to paper.”
Zack winced as the expensive gadget emitted the machine equivalent of a squeal of terror. To his relief, Luigi rescued the whimpering BlackBerry and stashed it in one of his capacious pockets.
“Consider it transcribed.” Shedding his doubts in favor of his confident façade, Zack took Amy’s elbow and steered her toward the exit. “Gentlemen,” he called to the mechanics, “You will start Monday. I expect to have the plant fully operational by month’s end.”
Mainly, because his company’s cash flow couldn’t pay salaries much longer than that without some influx of revenue. Pascal’s fascination with Zack’s European contacts had made him one of his main investors. Zack had a feeling that source of cash had just dried up.
* * *
“Technically, you can’t do anything to this place until you sign the closing papers.” Stepping gingerly down a mossy brick path, Elise followed Amy around the cottage.
It had been over a week since Zack’s friends had departed. The mill machinery was operational. Computers were arriving daily.
Now all they needed were the designs, and Zack and the new computer person had been working night and day, feeding the cards into the machines, performing their magic.
She knew the mill was bleeding cash with no immediate hope of return.
“You have another week before you can close on your place and complete the purchase on this one,” Elise reminded her.
“Look, there’s a rhododendron under the honeysuckle!” Amy exclaimed, pulling the tenacious vine off a hedge of shrubbery in the cottage’s backyard. She couldn’t stand waiting any longer. She had to do something, despite Elise’s logic. “Can you imagine how gorgeous this could be in spring? I could put a little brick patio over by the back door.…” She swung around to fix the yard’s dimensions in her mind. An ornamental cherry in that back corner perhaps….
“Amaranth Jane, are you paying any attention to me at all?” Elise asked in exasperation.
“Nope,” she replied. “I’ve worked myself half to death all week and I want some reward. It’s not as if I’m breaking and entering. The yard needs work right away. I can’t do it in snow. And the labor will be cheap,” she finished wryly, referring to herself.
“Didn’t you get paid yet?” Elise demanded. “Is he working you to death for nothing?”
Amy thought she’d best not tell her lawyer she’d work for Zack for free just to hear his outrageous compliments and enjoy those few brief interludes when he’d take her hand and send her thoughts spinning off their tracks. Knowing Elise, she’d be filing charges for sexual harassment.
Insanely, she wanted to be harassed. She hadn’t felt so alive in years. Maybe in her whole life. And even though she knew she was mad to feel this way, it seemed safe enough when surrounded by friends and family. It wasn’t as if she were going out alone on a date. She had to be wary with her heart, but that didn’t stop her from admiring her new boss more with each passing day. He knew everything involved with creating fabric from the inside out. He tackled his projects with refreshing enthusiasm, and actually listened when she spoke. She was in desperate danger of losing her wary heart to a man who could be gone next week.
“I’ve been writing for government grants. I don’t have the payroll system set up yet.” Amy ripped out vines by the roots, uncovering the skeleton of an enormous rhododendron and a few small azaleas. “Evan’s old secretary, Emily, is giving notice at her job in Asheville. Emily said she’d help me set up the bookkeeping next week. We’re a very small operation at the moment.”
“And you’re confident he has the cash to make this work?” Elise asked suspiciously.
“He had the means to convince the court. That’s enough for me. I’ve given up fretting over what I can’t control. Now, this yard, this I can control.” Happily, she dug through layers of old leaves and pine needles to discover autumn cyclamen peering up from the rich soil. Slug-eaten hostas promised a gorgeous ground cover under the trees in summer, once she set out some beer bait.
“I need to look into his background,” Elise decided, poking at the leaf debris with the sharp toe of her shoe. “Rich men don’t let their staff desert them like that. It’s highly suspicious.”
“You’re highly suspicious.” Amy laughed. “Investigate away and let me know what you find. All I know is that he’s hired the personnel I recommended, and he’s feeding info into computers around the clock. I’d be more suspicious if he was flashing cash and doing nothing, but he’s practically living at the mill. If I didn’t take him meals, he’d starve.”
Changing the subject, Elise examined the back of the run-down cottage. “Have you had an exterminator check for rats and roaches in this place?”
“Oh, I’ve already set out traps. The Realtor is a friend of mine and he gave me the keys. He said I ought to bill the court for extermination.”
“There are times I almost envy you.” Elise studied the cottage’s mildewed siding. “This isn’t one of them.”
Amy grinned. “Well, I have the imagination you lack.” Normally, she admired Elise’s practicality and can-do assertiveness, but right now, she felt sorry for a friend who couldn’t see beyond the obvious. “This place will be grand in a few years. It’s the home I’ve always dreamed of. I’ll have roses growing up a screened porch by next year. A fountain and a patio in year or two. Benches tucked in among the shrubbery so guests can slip away for privacy when they want. Louisa and Josh will have an attic playroom for winter and an outdoor one in summer. I could even walk to the mill if I like. It’s just over the hill.”
Amy straightened her shoulders uncomfortably under Elise’s gimlet gaze. “What?”
“You know that man of yours will be returning to Europe and his fancy cars and houses one of these days, don’t you?”
She did, but she didn’t want to hear it. “He’s not any man of mine,” she protested.
Elise snorted. “Who’s been feeding him all week? It’s a good thing he has that driver to run his laundry to the dry cleaner, or I’d bet you’d be doing that, too.”
“He’s paying me a fortune to stay in my house!” Amy argued. “Fixing his meals is the very least I can do. Besides, the kids adore him. When he’s not at the mill, he sits down on the floor and plays with them while I cook.” She fought a shiver of fear when she realized just how much her children adored a man who paid attention to them. She might be able to live through another heartbreak, but she didn’t want her kids thinking all men packed up and left like their father had.
“And who does he play with after they go to bed?” Elise asked, arching her eyebrows.
“I take them back to the loft,” Amy said indignantly. “He’s my boss. We’re just good friends.” Except for those stolen kisses. And the way Zack looked at her that made her go up in flames and had her tossing in her bed at night. And the way he found time in his busy day for her. She wasn’t so blind that she didn’t notice she was the only one who could force him look up from his fascination with his computers. Yesterday, she’d done it because she was tired and discouraged and needed the thrill his heated gaze gave her. Evan had never given her a second glance when he was working. She was giddy with feminine power these days, and she was letting the fantasy go to her head.
But Zack was her boss, and he wouldn’t be staying, and they were both grown-ups who knew the rules. Sometimes, she wishe
d she could be just a little less grown-up.
Car tires crunched in the gravel drive, and an old-fashioned car horn ah-oogahed. Zack had let Luigi take the Hummer back to the rental dealer in Charlotte after he’d discovered an antique Bentley for sale in the newspaper.
Amy felt a blush creep into her cheeks even before Zack’s cheerful voice called out.
“I’ve done it, I’ve done it! Amy, come see!”
“He won’t be staying,” Elise reminded her, keeping her voice low as Zack circled the house and approached them. “Have fun, if you like but remember fun is all you are to him.”
Amy knew she was right. Zack had never made any pretense otherwise. He simply waited for her to accept him on his terms, and so far, she couldn’t.
Watching the excitement dancing in her employer’s square-cut features, she didn’t know how much longer she could resist.
Twenty
“A bit touchy, isn’t she?” Jacques asked, watching Elise swing down the drive, blessedly leaving them alone.
“Elise? Elise is a mystery. She has this fabulous city life on the other side of the mountain, yet she spends half her time out here in the country these days. I think something is tearing her in two.”
“And what do your wise eyes see in me?” he asked.
He almost held his breath when she turned her wicked green gaze in his direction, but he managed a jaunty smile and a wink at her solemn expression.
She snatched the papers from his hand. “I see a wealthy businessman with a brilliant mind and too little to occupy it.”
She was too damned close to the truth for comfort. As Amy examined the computer-generated designs, Zack bounced impatiently on his heels, waiting for her reaction. He had expected shouts of jubilation and praise, not this narrow-eyed study of every detail.
Sweet Home Carolina Page 18