by Kim Karr
When I got out of the car, I trudged over to an older man holding a clipboard. His head was down, and he was reading something, so to get his attention, I tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me.”
In an instant, he whirled around. He looked familiar but I couldn’t place him. His dark hair was wisped with gray at the temples and his skin was tanned from the sun, yet it was still smooth despite the wrinkles. He had a handsome, squared-off chin with a center dimple, and he peered down at me. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I have a few questions,” I told him.
The quick up and down glance he gave me was an assessment of sorts. As if he were in agreeance with my jeans, plaid flannel shirt, and Converse, he said, “Great, you’re here. You can start pruning over on the westside and work your way east.”
My hands went right to my hips. “Excuse me, but I own this property, and what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
He lowered his sunglasses. “Oh, I’m sorry Ma’am, I thought you were one of the viticulturists. I’m Buck Wallaby, the vineyard manager, and I’m getting the fields ready for spring, like Mr. Holiday instructed me to do.”
I raised my hand as a visor over my eyes and glanced around. “So you work for California Jane?”
“No, Ma’am, I’ve worked for Mr. Fairchild for more than twenty years now.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” I smiled. “I didn’t realize any of the employees were back to work, that’s all.”
“Yes, Ma’am, Mr. Holiday called me first thing this morning, and I got the crew together as quickly as I could. I hope starting this late in the day isn’t a problem?”
“No, not at all. And what is all that for, exactly?” I asked, pointing to the large pile of wood.
Unfortunately, I knew the wood wasn’t there for me to burn Mr. Holiday at the stake.
The vineyard manager wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm. “They’re for the new vertical trellising system, Ma’am. They will ensure the vines receive optimal sun and air exposure, which is excellent for achieving, round, full fruit flavors, especially for this vineyard.”
Yes, this vineyard. These vines were once full of Sauvignon Blanc grapes. That much I knew. But he might as well have been speaking Spanish when it came to the rest. My Winemaking for Dummies book really needed to be a bit more thorough. “Perfect,” I said. “And thank you, Buck,”
“Anytime, Ma’am.”
Back in the Rover, I gripped the wheel tightly and let out a scream that I managed to keep silent.
I was going to kill my temporary husband.
Rummaging through my purse to call him and let him know he was not in charge, I realized I didn’t have my phone. In fact, I hadn’t had it most of the day yesterday.
Crap.
I must have left it at the St. Helena Courthouse.
Driving as fast as I could the two miles to the office, I plowed through the open gate at the entrance and sped past the giant cypress trees. The fog was gone now and the bright sun nearly blinded me. I pulled into the Highway 128 office parking lot to find it no different than any other day, empty.
The grand stone château office building was designed to mimic small wineries found in the south of France, and although it did, it was in very poor condition. Creeping strands of ivy crept along the tall arched windows and the once bright yellow paint was dulled after years of neglect.
The place was a mess.
With my temper triggered, I got out of the Rover and slammed the door. I took a quick moment to gaze out at the property to see if there was anything else I needed to know about, anything else my temporary husband had forgotten to mention, before heading inside.
Unable to see anything out of the ordinary, I stomped inside, kicking up dirt with my Converse as I did.
The offices were all empty because I’d had to let everyone go last month.
I sighed when I passed the sample room, and when I noticed the lights were on, I stopped to take a look at what remained.
Not much.
All the packaged product had been moved from the winery storage room to here when the fires started heading south.
The production facility was located at the very bottom of the valley for easy access to the main road, and although the fires did reach the building, they were extinguished before completely consuming it, however not before severely damaging it.
At least the fires never spread up the mountain and into the vineyards.
The problem was my father didn’t pay the insurance policy on the building, and at the time, I hadn’t gotten through everything he’d left undone, so I’d had no idea. That left us having to cover the expense of the damages, which obviously was impossible.
My gaze wandered the once full room, which wasn’t so full anymore. It was now littered with wooden pallets that were perched haphazardly on the floor and cardboard boxes with Styrofoam inserts that had been tossed against the walls. And then, in the corner, were the last two pallets of shrink-wrapped wine. 1,300 bottles of Highway 128 was all that remained to send out for distribution.
Hating that I hadn’t been able to turn things around quicker, I closed the door and leaned against it. All I could do was hope I’d made the right choice—by marrying Tyler.
The hallway wasn’t in much better shape than the storage room. I stared at the boxes and boxes of old records that had been carried out of the wine cellar at the winery and brought over here long before the fire.
It was an off-cuff order my father had executed before I had realized the time that had been spent on the meaningless task.
Old boxes lined the sides of the hallway that dated back to the beginning of time.
What on earth did we need those for?
Turned out, my father had kept every single piece of paper to do with Highway 128, but why was beyond me.
They needed to be shredded.
It was on the list.
My gaze landed on a large box that read, “Surveys.”
Curious, I lifted the lid. The inside smelled like musty, but the topographic drawings were intact. I picked them up and studied them, trying to read the words that were scratched out. It looked like, Highway something, I couldn’t read the word after but it wasn’t 128.
Strange.
Hmmm . . .
Setting the lid back on the box, I started down the hall for my office, and as soon as I did, I heard voices. I froze for a moment, panic rising through me, until one voice became crystal clear.
Tyler Holiday.
Tyler Holiday was here.
Perfect.
Just who I needed to see.
With my fists clenched, I marched his way and stopped dead at the door. In my office—okay, my father’s office—sat my temporary husband.
In my chair.
Behind my desk.
Arrogant. Cocky. Rude.
Balling my fingers into fists, I glanced around. The cabinet doors were opened and everything from inside them was all over the place. It was as if the room had been ransacked—by him.
There were folders. Files. Boxes.
And what was that? A box of condoms?
Was he for real?
I glared at him. “You really are disgusting.”
His brows furrowed and he muted the phone. “Excuse me?”
I pointed.
“Sorry, Love, hate to disappoint you but they’re not mine.”
Oh, God, I felt sick. My father kept condoms in his office? Gross.
While Tyler went back to whatever it was he was doing, my eyes scanned the man who was in my chair. He was wearing a three-piece suit with a white shirt, and even with all those clothes on, I could see all the muscle beneath them.
Bastard.
Did he really have to look that good?
For the first time since I started working here, I wondered if maybe I should wear something besides jeans and my chucks.
I tapped my foot on the floor.
Tyler had his computer on his lap. His cell phone was
on speaker beside him. And there was a frown on his face. Glancing up, he met my angry stare but didn’t acknowledge it. “I’ll have Paris put everything together and send it over,” he said. “When do you need it by?”
“Yesterday,” said the guy over the line.
Tyler glanced at his watch and motioned for me to sit down—in my own office, on the other side of my desk, in the guest chair.
He really was an arrogant prick.
“Good to be working with you again, Lawson.”
Lawson?
Lawson?
I knew the name, but I couldn’t place it.
Lawson laughed. “Yeah, right, that’s what you say when you’re about to get screwed by a hooker but a high-class escort saves the day.”
“Only if it’s a good fuck,” Tyler mused, glaring at me.
Glaring at me. What the hell? I wasn’t the one taking charge of someone else’s business without permission.
“True. So very true,” Lawson quipped.
Stewing, I sat down and then shoved my purse and keys on whatever space I could find on the desk. There was an old key tossed on it, and I picked it up, staring at it for a long time before dropping it in my purse.
“Lunch next week to discuss Vince Gable?” Lawson asked.
“Most certainly. Call my secretary. She can set it up for us. Later, man.” With the pleasantries, or unpleasantries, out of the way, they disconnected.
“What was that about?” I barked, lurching forward in my chair and squeezing the edge of the desk with my hands.
Setting his laptop aside, he rolled the chair further back and had the audacity to kick his feet up on the surface. Mere feet from my face, I might add. And then he took an extra moment to place his hands behind his head. “I think you forgot to tell me something, wife.”
My own rage was bubbling inside me. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and I didn’t really care. Temper flaring, I got up from my assigned seat, and stepped a bit closer to where his big, shiny shoes rested, and then proceeded to shove them right off. “What might that be, husband?”
With a muttered curse, Tyler jerked forward and yanked open the desk drawer. Pulling a stapled document from it, he tossed it where his feet had just been. “Imagine my surprise when I was looking for the company charter and found this.”
Something told me this was not good. Slowly, I plucked up the sheets of papers and skimmed over the top one. It was the company charter with my father’s name, my mother’s name, and London’s name on it. Okay, so what? I flipped the page, and my heart leaped to my throat. This was a legal document bequeathing Highway 128 to my sister upon my father’s death. My dead sister. “Oh, crap,” I said.
Tyler got to his feet and leaned forward on the desk “No, not, oh, crap. More like, oh, shit. You have no legal authority to run this company. Do you, Paris?”
Having to eat a piece of humble pie was definitely something I wasn’t a fan of. “I guess it depends on how you define . . . legal,” I said, scrunching my face when I did.
As if his smirk wasn’t arrogant enough, he had to go and show all those white teeth. “I define it as having the legal authority to make managerial business decisions in a company. Is there another way I should know about? Did you, I don’t know, go to law school overnight?”
Flicking my eyes up in anger, I met his pissed off blues across the desk. “Screw you, Tyler.”
He leaned even closer, and damn, he smelled so good. “No, Paris, you got that wrong. I wanted to screw, you, but I don’t have time for that now, and do you want to know why?”
“I think I might know.”
“Go on.”
The fury coursing through me dissipated, and as I fought past my physical reaction to him, I came to realize I had to explain my actions. “Because I am not legally in charge of Highway 128. However, Tyler, my father hadn’t been getting the job done, so I ended up doing everything for him. I already told you that. But yes, in the process, I just sort of took over without ever asking anyone the legal way to do so.”
His brows kicked all the way up. “Sort of? No, Love, you did.”
I eased back. “I didn’t do anything wrong on purpose. I never realized my father was actually incapable of doing his job until last week. And then there was everything with you and I just never had time.”
“You didn’t have time?”
I nodded my head.
His knuckles turned white as they gripped the edge of the desk, and I was starting to wonder if he’d stopped breathing because his face was turning so red.
I wanted to loosen his tie for him, but I thought better of it.
“You didn’t have time to make sure you were the legal representative of Highway 128 before you made a major company decision and signed a contract with California Jane to merge assets?”
Unable to take the scrutiny, I wrenched my eyes from his. “When you put it that way—”
He cut me off. “Considering you’re not London Fairchild or your mother, we’re both a bit screwed here. And if dear old daddy dies anytime soon, then we’re fucked. Fucked.”
Why did his use of profanity turn me on? This was in no way a situation where sex would help. At all. Well, maybe a little. It might help calm him down.
His eyes were trained on my face. “What you’re going to do is spend the day gathering every single transaction you’ve made in a legal capacity since coming to work at Highway 128, and then you’re going to send them all to Lawson.”
Feeling like a student and he was my teacher, I found myself raising my hand in question. “Who’s Lawson?”
He leaned so close now his lips were almost touching mine. “Lawson Brick. I went to school with him. Now, he’s Albert Dane’s junior partner and he’s going to make this so everything you’ve done up until now is legal.”
“Brick the prick?” It just came out.
Tyler’s anger ramped up to murderous. “This is serious, Paris. We could both lose everything.”
So I’d asked a question.
No need to get all alpha male over it.
My hand went up again. “Why can’t you take care of this for me?”
“Because legally, I can’t represent you now that you’re my wife.” His teeth were showing again.
Wife.
I was his wife.
A strange feeling shot through me at the way he said the word, wife, and my gaze dropped to my ring.
Tyler snapped his fingers and I blinked before glancing up and looking at his hand.
He didn’t have a ring.
He really needed a ring.
“You understand, we can’t do a Goddamned thing around here until you’re declared CEO. And right now, your old man is incapable of doing that.”
My gaze followed his every sexy jackass step as he paced around, looking through the documents scattered here and there.
“I have a quick question,” I said.
His gaze tore from where it was to me. “And that would be?”
“Why am I wearing a wedding ring and you aren’t?”
He peered at my hand and then at his. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, it does.”
Spotting something, he stalked over to a box on the credenza and after reaching in it, he tossed another set of papers on the desk. “We can pick one up later. Focus, Paris, focus.”
“Okay, yes, you’re right. Now, what’s that?” I pointed to the paper that had landed perfectly.
“While I was considering our options earlier, I thought the quickest way to take care of things would be to go to the Board and have them sign-off on the management change.”
Clapping my hands together, I felt a tick of excitement. “Yes, why don’t we do that?”
Storming over to the desk, he picked up the document he’d just tossed there and glared at me “—because they’re all dead!”
My knees felt weak, and after I took this stapled stack of papers from his hands, I sat back in my
chair.
The guest chair.
Whatever.
“Okay,” I hurried to explain. “I swear, I had no idea about any of this. I didn’t even know my father had sold shares of stock to anyone. As far as I knew, the company was private and he owned it completely.”
The air around him swelled with annoyance as he took slow, measured steps around the desk and in my direction. “As far as you knew? As far as you knew!”
I nodded.
Quite abruptly, he put his hands on the armrests of my chair and shoved it back, so his long, lean body could bend to my eye level.
I held my breath at how close he was.
Thoughts of grabbing him by the tie and pulling those lush lips to my mouth to make him shut up passed through my mind.
“You were about to marry a billionaire who doesn’t even know the difference between Cabernet and Chablis in order to save Highway 128, and you hadn’t done your research on your own company?”
“W . . . well, I’m pretty sure he can tell a red from a white,” I stammered. “But I understand what you’re saying.”
Something like worry flickered across his face. “No, Paris, I don’t think you do. This is serious. And until we get it fixed, you have to abandon your role as head of the company or risk going to jail.”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “Jail?”
He nodded. “If any of those stockholders’ families start looking for a return on their dead family member’s investment and discover you’re running things but have no legal authority to do so, they could slap a lawsuit on you that will make your head spin.”
“I was only doing what was best for the company. I didn’t even realize I was doing anything wrong.”
He stood straight, looked around, and then ran his hands down his face. “What is it exactly you’ve been doing?”
This I could explain easily enough. “Aside from the boring stuff like paying bills and avoiding debt collectors, I’ve been trying to come up with a new marketing plan.”
His eyes fell to my lips. “A marketing plan?”
Said lips parted and in a breathy whisper I said, “A pretty good one, actually. I plan to—”
His gaze returned to mine as he cut me off. “You can’t market a product you don’t have, Paris. And right now, aside from the work I have Buck doing in the vineyards, you aren’t any closer to having one.”