by A. C. Arthur
He’d stood in the door watching her walk away, watching the anger and pride carry her through the beginnings of a nasty snowstorm in bitterly cold temperatures. She didn’t want to believe what he’d told her about there being no more rooms left—he shouldn’t care. She’d silently rejected the thought that her sisters had set her up—again, it wasn’t his concern. She didn’t matter.
Until she fell.
Cursing, Alex darted out into the snow, not even aware that he had no coat on. She hadn’t gotten that far so he reached her in no time. By then she was already struggling to stand on her own. Grabbing her beneath the knees and around the back, he lifted her up.
“Put me down. I can walk,” she protested, squirming in his arms.
“Yeah, I saw how well you were managing that,” he replied. Deciding to ignore the words coming out of her mouth now, Alex headed straight for the cabin. He deposited the seething, stubborn woman on the couch then turned back to go outside and get her bags.
When he returned she was standing right beside the door, hands on her hips, snow dripping from her eyelashes and the tip of her nose. She was angry and looked ready to spit fire at him when he took a step closer, cupping a hand over her mouth.
“You don’t have to like it, but there are no other rooms in this resort. There’s a storm just kicking up outside and it’s freezing out there. I’m going to add some wood to this fire and see what we have in the kitchen because I’m starving. If you want to continue with this brilliant temper tantrum of yours, go right ahead. But I’ll tell you right now, it’s not going to change anything. I would take you for a smarter woman than to try and change the unchangeable.”
After snatching his hand away from her mouth, Alex walked away, missing the choice words she mumbled, and headed straight to the kitchen.
Chapter 3
“I don’t eat mayonnaise,” she said when she entered the kitchen.
He didn’t look up. “Fine.”
She sighed. Eating crow was not an attribute listed on her résumé, either. Still, Monica knew futile actions when she saw them. She was stuck in this cabin, in the middle of a storm, with him. There was no way around it and rebelling against it was nothing short of stupid. He was right about that. And she was big enough to admit it.
“Thanks for coming out to get me,” she said, moving to one of the cabinets above the sink, looking to see what was there. Two cabinets away she found bags of potato chips and took the barbecue and plain ones down.
“No problem,” he said. “There are some bowls in that cabinet next to the refrigerator.”
She moved in that direction, found the bowls and dumped both bags of chips into them. “These cabins don’t usually come with fully stocked kitchens, do they?”
He was fixing sandwiches—ham-and-cheese from what she could see. The only condiment he had on the marble island counter was mayonnaise. So she decided to check in the refrigerator for something else. Or rather the low rumbling of her stomach decided it was time for her to suck it up and eat something.
“I think we can thank our meddling family members for the food, as well. There’s enough in here to feed us for a week,” he said as simply as if he were giving her the time of day.
After she found the mustard she moved to the counter to stand next to him. Not too close, but close enough. He pushed the tray with sandwiches on it toward her and she lifted the bread off one to squirt mustard on it.
He moved away from her then and for a minute Monica thought it was because she’d finally, totally turned him off. Not that she should care either way. The refrigerator door opened again and when she looked up Alex had two sodas stuck in the front pockets of his jeans.
“Bring the chips. We can eat in front of the fire,” he said, taking the tray of sandwiches.
She followed without a word.
Monica thought they’d sit on the couch so she was surprised when Alex plopped down right on the carpeted floor in front of the fire and began tearing off paper towels. Shrugging, she again followed his lead, crossing her legs and sitting across from him. She even managed a small smile when he handed her a paper towel. She put the bowls next to the tray of sandwiches and accepted it.
“You want to bless our food?” he asked and sounded more sincere than she’d ever heard him before.
Momentarily speechless, she shook her head and he instantly began speaking a prayer. Impressed was an understatement.
“So how’d they get you up here?” Alex asked when he’d finished one sandwich and was working on his second.
She’d been taking small bites of hers because watching him was much more appealing. “Karena said she’d missed a conference call with one of the main sponsors of our Black History Exhibit. When I tried to call Bruce Mendleson back his secretary said he was here for the week so Karena booked me on the next flight out. I should have suspected something. Mendleson’s secretary was too free with the information of his whereabouts. A good assistant doesn’t give that information out to just anybody.”
“And you’re just anybody?”
“No, I’m not. But what I mean is unless I give my assistant permission to tell my whereabouts, she doesn’t. All she’d say is I’m unavailable and she’ll take a message.”
“Have her trained just right, huh?”
There was a sting to his words but he looked as laid-back as if he were lounging in his own living room. Picturing him in the comfort of his own home was a bit disturbing. “Anyway, I didn’t pick up on it right away because I was focused on saving the exhibit.”
“You and Karena have been working with the gallery for years now. It’s a great place. I’ve been there once or twice and my parents and their friends talk about it a lot. Both of you seem more than capable of doing a great job in the art world.”
“Thanks.” She sighed. “That’s why keeping this connection with the Mendlesons was so important. After that close call with the stolen artwork from Brazil, I want everything to go as smoothly as possible. I need Karena to be more on point in her department.”
“And you don’t think she is? On point, I mean?”
“She’s so focused on her new husband, their home and now this pregnancy. After she has this baby I don’t think I’ll see her at the gallery at all.” And that was a fear she’d been harboring since the moment Karena announced she was having a baby.
“That bothers you. Why?”
“She has a job to do. She committed herself to the gallery long before she met Sam and his dogs,” she said, peeling the crusts of her bread.
“Yeah.” Alex smiled. “I’ve met Romeo and Juliet. Cute. Big, but really cute,” he said referring to Sam and Karena’s Great Danes. “But you know women can have a family and work.”
He’d spoken so lightly, she figured so as not to offend her this time. Still, his words were as condescending as ever. This was the way their conversations always went. “I know women can do both, but not from a different state. Sooner or later the commute’s going to hinder her ability to come into the gallery. I’m betting on that as soon as the baby is born.”
“The commute’s an hour away.”
Pinching more off the bread than she wanted, Monica wiped her fingers, now smeared with mustard, on the paper towel. “She used to live ten minutes from the gallery.”
“How far away do you live?”
“Ten minutes.”
He chuckled. “Is that the prerequisite for all employees?”
Chewing on a bite of her sandwich, she narrowed her eyes at him, seeing exactly where this line of questioning was going. “I hear you run a tight ship over at Bennett Industries, as well.”
One of his thick, dark brows lifted in question or amusement, she couldn’t tell. But the action had something in the pit of her stomach shifting, her thighs throbbing. She lifted her can of soda to take a big gulp. And prayed she didn’t choke.
“Do you, now? Been researching me and my company?”
He grinned and that shifting went a little lower,
resting in her center as she swallowed the last of her soda, wishing like hell it could quench whatever thirst was building inside her.
“No. Sam speaks very highly of you and your family. Although I don’t know why he keeps telling me about you.” She paused. “Wait a minute, you don’t think—”
“That this was an elaborate setup to get us together? That’s exactly what I told you earlier.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped. “And insulting. We’re adults. If we wanted to get together we would have. We didn’t ask for their little push.” Her temper was steadily rising, heat infusing her cheeks even as her fingers clenched and unclenched. Then she noticed he wasn’t saying a word. “Or did we?”
He looked momentarily confused, but Monica didn’t believe that reaction one bit. Alexander Bennett did not confuse easily; he couldn’t run a multimillion-dollar company with stocks as high as Bennett Industries’ if he did.
“Did we what?” he asked.
“Did you know about this?”
His lips, a medium thickness with a dusting of mustache that fell neatly into the silky-looking goatee, thinned a bit before he spoke. “No. I didn’t. Renny suggested we get away before we launched our new product the first of the year. And because I know how busy I’m going to be in the upcoming months, I took him up on the offer. Thought it would be nice to relax a bit after all the hard work me and the R&D team put into the Excel. Does that explanation satisfy you?”
“I just asked.”
He’d begun cleaning up the space where he’d eaten and cast her a wary glance just before he stood.
“No, you accused and you suspected because that’s how you are. You don’t trust anybody because somebody betrayed you. It’s a shame that for as beautiful and truly intelligent as you appear, you don’t listen worth a damn.”
Monica wasn’t used to being spoken to in that firm and no-nonsense manner, even though she was quite comfortable using it herself. And she wasn’t used to being walked out on, but Alex had done it twice. Actually, he’d done it at Deena’s wedding and the first time they met at the gallery a year and a half ago. What really irked her was how well he walked away. Said what he had to say then left before she could rebut. Well, she had something to say, as well.
After scooping up her own mess, she went into the kitchen to dispose of it and knew he’d be there, as well.
“Look, I just asked you a simple question. Why you feel the need to dissect everything I say into some deeper meaning is out of my control. In fact, it’s beginning to annoy me. You don’t know me, Alex Bennet, and I don’t know you. For whatever reason we’re stuck in this cabin together. I think it’s in our best interest to set the ground rules now.”
“Ground rules?” he asked, turning to her.
He had just placed a bottle of water on the counter. As they’d discovered earlier, this kitchen was very well stocked, by a guilty group she’d deal with later. But for now, even the very attractive Alex Bennett wasn’t going to change the uncomfortable situation.
“Yes, ground rules. You can have the living room and I’ll take the bedroom. We’ll stay out of each other’s way until the storm passes and I can get another room. Deal?”
He stared at her for what seemed like forever, a look that had her shifting from one foot to another. Her nipples began to tingle—an action that coincided with the persistent pulsating in her center. It was stupid and basic, a punch of lust so hard and fast she could barely swallow after speaking. Furthermore, it was degrading to have such a physical reaction to a man that managed to annoy and slap at her each time he opened his mouth. But Monica wasn’t a virgin nor was she a stranger to the urgings of a healthy sexual appetite. What she was not going to do was let any of that distract from the matter at hand.
Then he took a step toward her and her heart stuttered. Another step and the staggering thumping paused. She inhaled, trying to steady her breathing, and caught the scent of his cologne, or was it his body wash? Either was intoxicatingly sexy, male and enticing. Instinctively she took a step back, only to find herself stuck, backside against the counter.
He stood directly in front of her, moving forward until she had no choice but to lean back, tilting her neck to look up and keep eye contact with him. Eye contact was important—it meant they were on the same level, that she wasn’t intimidated and that whatever he said or did she could handle. Which was a bunch of bull she fed herself about a millisecond before his lips descended upon hers.
Chapter 4
As kisses go, this one rated well beyond Monica’s high standards. She struggled to figure out exactly where in the stratosphere it compared, then gave up and simply sank in. Wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, made it more a present pleasure than one just swirling around in her mind. Beneath her arms she felt the strength of his broad shoulders. Pressing against her with heated persistence, the delicious warmth of an aroused man. Her heart hammered as his tongue slipped fiercely into her mouth. He was consuming her, that’s what she thought when coherent words surfaced. He was sucking and tasting, savoring and enticing. She was simply falling, falling until she didn’t think she could feel the floor beneath her feet.
Then, as quickly as this pleasurable funnel cloud had swooped her up, it dropped her. Hot to cold, light to dark, beginning to end. Alex pulled back, stared down at her, then walked away.
Again.
About ten minutes ago she was ready to curse him up and down the snow-lined path outside the door for walking away from her. But right about now, it was all she could do to remain upright. Lifting shaking fingers to her still-throbbing lips, she braced herself, searched for her normal calm and prayed this momentary lapse hadn’t just screwed up her plans of a peaceful existence in this cabin.
“That’s not—” Her words were cut short when she walked into the empty living room. Where was he now?
Concluding it would be simply too embarrassing to go look for him just to tell him that little demonstration in the kitchen wasn’t a part of the plan and that it wouldn’t happen again, she stayed in the living room. She sat on the couch, figuring she’d just play it cool. If he didn’t say anything about the kiss then neither would she. Although she was wondering what had made him do it.
Not five minutes later she could hear him coming again and sat up straighter.
“Now, about your ground rules,” he was saying. He was carrying a box in his hand.
Trying to see what was in the box meant looking at him and she wasn’t sure she could handle that, so she pretended to pick at a piece of lint on her pants. “They’re simple—you stay in the living room and I’ll stay in the bedroom.” She stood and was about to get her bags and be the one making the grand exit, but he grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
“You can’t just make the rules here, Queen,” he said with a grin. “We’ll have to play for the bedroom rights.”
“What?” Asking him to repeat what he’d just said wasn’t going to make her like it any better.
Then he moved his other arm, the one that had the box tucked beneath it. “We’re going to play this game and whoever wins gets the bed.”
“That is so juvenile,” she said, then glanced at the box he was holding.
Twister.
“I am definitely not playing that with you.”
“Scared?” he said, shaking the box so that the contents inside rattled.
Alex had made a grave mistake. A colossal error in judgment he wasn’t sure he’d be able to overcome.
He’d kissed the Ice Queen.
And she’d kissed him right back. With a heated fervor that had him instantly wanting more, he might add. The first good thing that had come of the kiss was that he’d proven one notion to be true. Since the first day he’d seen her walk into Karena’s office at the Lakefield Galleries there’d been this heat, this carefully banked inferno he’d sensed simmering just beneath her cool exterior. And damned if he didn’t blow the top right off that assumption. She kissed like a woman
full of desire and sensuality just waiting for the right man to caress it. But he wasn’t that man. Or at least he didn’t want to be.
Therein was his mistake. While he wanted to know what she tasted like, what she’d feel like in his arms, he was in no way prepared for the blast of desire that would rock him to his very core. In those few precious moments he’d literally felt consumed by her.
In business Alex knew to expect the unexpected and to always be prepared for new developments. In his personal life he sort of adopted the same rules. In the case of Monica Lakefield, he didn’t really know which road to walk. Lightening the mood seemed to be the better idea.
When he’d first arrived at the cabin and had begun unpacking some of his things he’d come across the board games in the bedroom closet. Looking at the childhood favorites of his—Twister, Battleship and Sorry—had him thinking that maybe a family with children had stayed in the cabin before him and had forgotten their games. Fleetingly he’d thought the staff should have cleared them out before the next guest. But after the new developments of the afternoon he’d begun thinking that his family and Monica’s had a droll sense of humor in their matchmaking scheme. Fill the kitchen with food and the closest with juvenile games—how that paved a road for seduction, Alex had no clue. Maybe it wasn’t their intention for him to seduce Monica. Maybe they just really wanted both of them to take some time to relax and get away from their businesses. Monica would prefer to think the latter, he was sure.
The way she was looking at him now was proof that the last thing on her mind was seduction.
“Look, we have to pass the time or we’re just going to drive each other crazy. I found some games in the closet and thought it might be fun.” Her gaze kept going from the game box to his with growing agitation…and interest.