And that he was not interested in.
Yet, even knowing all that, he wasn’t sure what had come over him that night at the wedding. The tequila had probably gone to his head, or maybe—maybe—the way the loose tendrils of her hair fell over her delicate cheekbones, framing her heart-shaped face…or her expressive dark eyes. They were amazing, too, so large and round they practically swallowed up her face.
He cleared his throat and stood. Wrong thoughts. Wrong woman.
But he did need to go and find her. He needed more information about the hotel for his report. Business. That was all. He had a lot of work to do if he was going to right this transaction with his father and the board, which was the only reason he decided to seek her out now.
The only reason.
Chapter Four
Kinsley scrolled through her appointment calendar. She was on a roll. She’d just had a fantastic meeting with the executive director and the marketing director of the Chamber of Commerce. Not only did she reinstate the hotel’s membership but was also assured that they could get help and publicity from the Chamber as well. Kinsley’s mind was already buzzing with new ideas. Which was all great, because keeping her mind on the hotel and work kept her mind off the man threatening to take it all away.
She knew if she had a little more time, she could turn things around. Wade should have said something to her earlier. Looking back on the situation now, she should have come home to help her brother with the finances and property a lot sooner. But she’d been too wrapped up in Paul and what he wanted at work and in their private life. No wonder she became so uninteresting to him. She had been a puppet. Someone associated with Paul, with no real identity of her own. The vanilla ice cream in a Neapolitan container. She needed to find her passion again. Find herself.
After their breakup, that was one of the reasons she decided to move back home. The town of Cape Harmony was safe and grounded, and she knew she could find the pieces of herself that went missing when she’d left and somehow put herself back together. Put her life back together. She knew the hotel would help her do that because, when she was a teenager and her mom passed away, the hotel saved her father. The retail merchant friendships and the visitors who’d come back year after year and had become like a second family gave them a purpose and a passion to move on. It was the glue of happy memories and a bustling time that had saved all of them. It could save her again.
“Knock-knock.”
Kinsley looked up from her desk and flinched at the handsome presence of Damon St. James. Darn it, she could kick herself. Every single time his gaze met hers, her heart turned over in response. Real smooth and professional.
“Mr. St.— I mean, Mr. Da— I mean Damon,” she said, quickly standing. She banged her knee against her desk drawer and stars clouded her vision from the pain. More smoothness on her part.
He quirked an eyebrow. “Just Damon is fine. However, if the moment should strike you, I would also respond to ‘number one boss’ or ‘world’s greatest employer.’”
She rolled her eyes. “Are you here for another reason? Is there a problem?” Besides my knee, besides you destroying my family’s business, besides you being so attractive, besides me waking up in your hotel room…
“Unfortunately yes, there does seem to be a problem.”
“Oh…well, I’m sure whatever it is can be taken care of right away.”
Damon stepped farther into her office and closed the door behind him with a quiet yet menacing click. “No, Kinsley. I’ve combed over the financials. As it stands right now, things aren’t looking good. You’re fooling yourself into thinking this hotel itself is worth more than the property it’s sitting on. I’m sorry.”
Kinsley’s legs felt about to give way. She braced a hand on the chair behind her. “You’re not giving it a chance. I just spoke with the Chamber of Commerce. I plan to speak to my friend Arden. She’s a wedding planner. There’s so much untapped potential.”
“The board is probably not going to want to tie money up in a small seashore hotel that may eventually do okay in a few years, when instead they can knock it down and make serious upfront money on the land, selling it to any variety of beachfront developers.”
“So it’s all about a quick buck for you and your company. Forget what it means to the town, to my family, to the employees?”
Damon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I know this is hard for you to believe, but I’m not trying to hurt you on purpose. I’m not the bad guy.”
Her chin wobbled. “No, you’re not the bad guy. You’re the worst guy,” she told him, her voice thick with emotion. She had the satisfaction of seeing him blanch at her words.
“I can’t believe I ever thought differently about you,” she said. “When we met at the wedding, you were…you seemed so… I can’t believe I…” She shook her head, afraid she’d burst into tears, and decided to leave before that happened.
One less thing to give to Damon St. James.
He held up a hand as she took a step forward. “Wait. Please. You need to sit down. We still have to talk. About that night. I don’t want it affecting our business relationship going forward.”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Damon. Is it really necessary to bring this up now, of all times?” Did he want to further humiliate her while she was at her lowest? “Are you the type of guy who won’t be satisfied until you draw blood or something? Well, pardon me if I’m one of the few women who does not want to be reminded that she slept with you.”
Anxious to escape, she rushed across the room. But as soon as she placed her hand on the knob, Damon’s palm slammed against the door. Shocked, she could only stare at it.
Several beats went by before he spoke.
“Nothing happened,” he finally said.
Her heart stilled. Huh?
She blinked then turned to look up at him. “What do you mean nothing happened?”
“That night we met.”
Kinsley heard the words, but her mind could only spin them around instead of processing them. She released her grip on the knob, but Damon’s hand remained planted on the door, obviously still not trusting that she wouldn’t run out on him. “You mean we didn’t…?”
He shook his head.
She paused. “Are you sure?”
“Kinsley,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Believe me, I’m absolutely positive. When I said I remembered every minute of that night, I wasn’t lying. After the reception was over, we decided to head to a jazz bar across the street. But you wanted to change out of your bridesmaid’s dress first. You’d brought a change of clothes, so I took you to my hotel room to change. Unfortunately, you didn’t make it past your shoes when you collapsed and passed out on my bed.”
Could that be true? “B-but I saw my pantyhose on your lampshade.”
Damon’s face colored, and he had the decency to look slightly guilty. “Right. There might have been a very short attempt at a strip tease on your part.”
She raised her hands to her face and groaned into them.
“It was kind of cute. Honestly.”
Cute but only kind of. She groaned louder.
“Then you fell back onto the bed and that was it. Well, then you rolled off the bed, so I had to pick you up and place you back on the bed. I think your dress became twisted in the process.”
Dear Heavenly Father. She continued to bury her burning face in her hands. Did he really think any part of the information he’d just told her would make her feel better about that night? Because—spoiler alert—it didn’t. Not by a long shot. In fact, it only reaffirmed every insecurity she’d ever had about herself and why her fiancé broke up with her, thank you very much.
But since he was still her boss, she had to somehow manage to paste together the tattered remains of her dignity and face him. She could do this. She had to remain professional.
She lowered her hands and struggled for calm. “So you didn’t try anything?”
“I’m a lot of things, but a rapist
is not one of them. I left you to sleep, then after I checked some emails and got changed myself, I went to sleep. And since it was my bed and my room, that’s exactly where I stayed. A poor decision on my part, considering you had yourself wrapped up like an eggroll in all my blankets.”
Suddenly a lot of what he said came seeping back into her memory, and she frowned. Huh. This certainly put a bit of a different spin on things. No wonder he hadn’t been embarrassed the next day. Why would he be if the night had ended as unremarkably as that? In fact, if she had to analyze it further, he had actually been rather…gentlemanly. Huh again. That wasn’t an adjective she’d have normally assigned to him, and an uneasy feeling overcame her.
“Where is the change of clothes I brought with me?” she asked.
“You ran out the next morning and I didn’t have your number or even your last name, so I just left your bag with the front desk in case you came back.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. Made perfect sense. Of course it did. Why wouldn’t it? Because only perfectly sensible things ever happened to her.
Damon finally dropped his hand from the door, and his mouth quirked. “You seem disappointed.”
Maybe a little.
“What? No, I’m not disappointed.” She stared up into his handsome face, startled to realize how close he was standing to her and how his blue eyes had the prettiest flecks of gold in them.
She took a step back. “Thank you for telling me. This is good news. In fact, wow, this makes things so much less awkward. Especially with you being my boss and all. My boss for the time being, anyway. Phew, what a relief.” She made a show of wiping the imaginary sweat off her brow.
Yep. A total relief… So why was she so upset? She knew deep down that she didn’t attract rich, handsome playboys. She just happened to embarrass herself in front of them. Repeatedly. But gosh, she couldn’t even seduce a man right! How pathetic. It was a deflating feeling, and little did he know that if she could do it without drawing any attention to herself, she’d curl up in the fetal position with Colette the cat at that very minute.
Damon studied her, his expression turning inscrutable. “Yes. A relief. Because of work and all, right?”
“Right. Getting involved with coworkers is a mistake. It makes things so awkward and weird.” That she knew well, too. Things got extremely hairy at work with Paul after they’d broken up. So awful, she ended up quitting and then moving back home. And, gee, what a great decision that had turned out to be.
“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t want the awkward,” he agreed, his eyes dancing. “Terribly inconvenient working conditions.”
“Exactly. And now there’s no awkward,” she lied. “Whatsoever.” Ugh. Saying it made it sound even more awkward.
“Good.”
“So…why tell me all this now? You could have said something earlier.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, I tried, but you’ve been ducking me all day, and I hardly thought an email was appropriate. Plus, with the bad news about the hotel I had to spring on you just now, I figured I could ease your mind with at least one thing today.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.” She let out a mirthless chuckle.
“You’re welcome. Now things will be a little less weird when I shadow you tomorrow.”
She blinked. “Shadow me? What does that mean exactly?”
“I observe you on your daily operations of the hotel. Like a shadow.”
“You mean like a stalker,” she said, folding her arms. “And what if—with all due respect—I refuse to be shadowed by you?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Then I’ll just have to formulate any decisions about the hotel based on the accounting report I’ve been given.”
“Hey, you can’t do that,” she said with a gasp. “You can’t possibly get a sense of the hotel from a piece of paper. You just…can’t.”
His smile was slow and teasing. “Can’t I?”
“No, absolutely not. You’re going to shadow me tomorrow and that’s that. Then you’ll see firsthand what the hotel has to offer.”
“A fine idea, then,” he said, clasping his hands and rubbing them together. “I accept. I would be happy to shadow you tomorrow. We’ll meet here in your office, say around eight thirty in the morning?”
“Eight o’clock sharp,” she blurted, feeling the need to gain the upper hand she had just lost.
“Perfect. I will still need to look through a few more balance sheets and also talk to payroll, so until any official decision or announcement is made by the board, I’m going to have to ask you to keep what I’ve said about the hotel confidential. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but things could always change.”
She nodded. His words offered some hope, but a ball of nausea grew and began to bounce around like a ping-pong ball in her stomach. “Help yourself to the accounting files over there,” she murmured, pointing to the corner of her office. “If there’s anything else you’re looking for, there are more files in the attic. Elena has the key.”
Damon’s expression stilled and grew even more serious. Without warning, he leaned closer. He looked about to reach out and touch her, but then seemed to think better of it. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
The gentleness in his words almost undid her, but she refused to be fooled by his false concern. She lifted her chin and defiantly met his gaze. “I’ll be fine.”
Just fine. She only wished she believed her own words.
…
Damon stood in the doorway of Kinsley’s office the next morning, ten minutes ahead of the time they’d agreed to start. She hadn’t noticed him standing there yet, and since he was in no real hurry, he simply took a sip of his coffee and studied her.
Kinsley looked like the ultimate professional today. Neutral makeup. Reading glasses perched low on her nose as she typed. Even her dark-brown hair was pulled back in a tidy bun, which he had a sudden and irresistible urge to reach out, unpin, and run his fingers through.
And…on that note, time to get down to business.
He cleared his throat. “Ready and willing to shadow,” he said in way of greeting.
Kinsley glanced up from her computer, her mouth forming a grim line. “So I see,” she muttered.
“Oh, come now, Kinsley.” He walked over to where she was sitting and placed a large to-go cup of coffee on her desk. “I promise it will be painless. I’ll be on my best behavior and only observe in silence. Plus, I come bearing coffee. What bosses do you know who do that?”
Kinsley merely grunted.
Damon raised his own cup to his lips to hide a smile. “So you’re one of those types, huh?”
“What types?” she asked with a scowl, pulling the cup toward her greedily.
“No talkie before coffee.”
“Yeah, something like that.” She raised the cup to her lips and took several sips before closing her eyes and sighing. “It feels like my brain was just high-fived. Thank you.”
He chuckled. “You can thank Elena. She suggested I bring you coffee to get on your good side. She might also have said something about it being for my own protection, too.”
“She knows me well,” Kinsley said with a slight smile.
Damon sat down in a chair facing her desk. “So what’s on the agenda today?”
Kinsley glanced at her computer screen. “Let’s see. Usually I have early morning meetings with the staff, check on the overall cleanliness of the hotel. But Elena is going to run the meeting for me today. I figured it was time for her to take on more responsibility in case I need to be elsewhere.”
“Good thinking. Better to add on responsibility to a few people instead of hiring a whole other position.”
“Right. Not that I’m opposed to hiring if we feel we need it. It’s more of a trial and error kind of thing.”
“So what will we be doing instead?”
“I want to check on the kitchen. But first we’re going to take a walk to the store a few doors down.”
“Why?”
Kinsley rolled her eyes. “Newspaper run. We usually get a daily delivery but one of the guests must have walked off with them, so I need to buy a few more for the seating area. Trivial, but it is part of my job. Most of our guests like to linger in the main seating area with their coffees and read the paper first thing in the morning.”
“A real newspaper?” He shook his head. “That’s not necessary. Most people get their news from their phones or tablets nowadays.”
“Maybe that’s true in the city, but most people who come here on vacation actually want to unplug from all their electronics.”
He stared at her. “Seriously?”
She cocked her head. “Damon, when was the last time you were on a true no-work vacation?”
Vacation? He’d been on several, but he had always brought some form of work with him. He couldn’t fathom the idea of not having access to his computer 24/7. Did people actually enjoy that kind of thing?
Kinsley grinned. “Your silence speaks volumes, boss. You’re just going to have to trust me on this particular issue.”
Damon met her smile, getting to his feet. “Lead the way, then.”
He stood by the door, allowing her to pass first, and caught the light, refreshing smell of her perfume as she went by. His mind went blank for a split second. Not being able to think around this woman when she got close was going to be a major problem. He further realized the error in his judgment in following her around today when his gaze inadvertently dropped to her perfect backside.
“It’s a great view, isn’t it?” she said.
His eyes snapped up. “No, I—” Then he saw she was pointing toward the beach through the main glass doors. “Er, I mean, yes. Great view.”
Get your mind in the game, St. James.
An elderly couple walked into the hotel, holding hands. When they saw Kinsley, they both waved.
“Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Southcott,” Kinsley said with a bright smile. “Did you try that new breakfast place I mentioned?”
“We did, dear,” the old woman said, patting Kinsley’s arm. “It was delicious and so much food for the price.” She elbowed her husband. “Wasn’t it good, Joe?”
Bargaining With the Boss Page 5