“Yes, Bill, calculate the income from the sale of the pattern cards into the plus side. We may as well make the bottom line look good.”
Amy brushed a strand of hair from her perspiring forehead, balanced the cordless between shoulder and ear, and returned to rolling up her crystal wedding glasses in sheets of newspaper.
Saturday night, and she was wrapping up her life instead of enjoying it. She really needed that shrink Jo had told her to get.
“They are only valuable to one buyer that I know of,” she replied to Bill’s question. “If we don’t get this bid, Jacques will walk off with the mill’s most valuable asset and leave the place empty.”
She wasn’t ignorant. She knew what Jacques intended to do to the mill. She was too tired to cry over it. And too mad to go down without a fight. The town had to beat his bid.
She’d all but begged the man to listen to her. Instead, he’d told her she was amazingly stubborn. Fine, that’s what she would be.
The mayor was huffing and puffing about it being preferable for a professional to run the mill rather than a lot of unemployed mill workers, and she considered driving to town and cramming the receiver down his throat. Learning to throw dishes would be just as useful.
“You have to pay professionals, Bill,” she said calmly when he wound down. “Read the newspapers. Look around. CEOs are emptying corporate bank accounts with golden parachutes worth millions of dollars. We can’t afford that. We have experienced people. It just means a few minor changes in the figures. We’ll be ready by Tuesday.”
She hoped for once in her life someone was listening as she clicked off the phone. Maybe she should have Jo speak for her. When Jo talked, the whole town listened. Amy really wished she could learn that trick.
Her back ached from kneeling on the floor, bending over boxes. Her ribs ached from the beating they’d taken from the air bags. She was lucky she didn’t have a broken nose or collarbone. Enduring unquenchable lust for her competition added insult to torture.
She ought to take a long soak in the whirlpool. It might be the last time she’d have that luxury. She needed to be out of here by the last Friday of the month. That gave her barely three weeks to pack years of accumulated junk.
She rolled another delicate glass in inky newspaper and set it on the fancy guest-bathroom towel she was using as padding between layers. Glasses packed, box full, she sealed the carton with packing tape and used her Sharpie to mark the contents of a life she was leaving behind.
To save electricity, she had opened the windows instead of turning on the air conditioner, but the day’s accumulated heat hadn’t dissipated. She used a kitchen towel to wipe the grime and perspiration off her face and debated which of her cooking items she could spare for the next few weeks, and which she absolutely had to have at her fingertips until they moved.
An insistent buzz interrupted her reverie. The doorbell hadn’t actually chimed since Evan had slammed out last year.
Who the devil would be at her door at nine at night? Running her fingers through her dusty hair in a vain attempt to straighten it, she crossed the living room and checked the side window.
Jacques?
Her heart did an excited little skip, then sank to her knees as reality set in.
He stood under the one working porch light looking as if he’d stepped straight from a magazine ad. Wearing a sporty European-cut jacket and clean trousers, he had one hand in his pocket, pushing back his jacket, while he rested the other on the brass handle top of his ebony cane and studied the geranium hanging in her recessed entry.
Curiosity forced her to open the door. Or else she feared her racing heart was the first sign of a heart attack and she didn’t want to die alone. Six of one, half dozen of the other.
His attention swerved instantly to focus on her, and he beamed with the charming delight that left her defenseless.
“It is Saturday night, You are supposed to be at the café!” He stepped inside before she could slam the door.
“We had no customers. I left early.” She stepped back, feeling grubby in the face of his groomed sophistication.
“But the food doesn’t taste the same unless you are serving it.” He studied her weary face, glanced around at shelves devoid of ornament, and caught her elbow with the authority of a man accustomed to having his way. “We will sit and drink some of your delicious tea.”
“I don’t have time to sit and chat.” She slid her elbow from his grasp and led the way to the kitchen, trying to put as much distance as possible between them. It didn’t help. She could feel his gaze through the shirt on her back. Her arm still tingled from his touch.
She should get rid of him. Now.
But she couldn’t ask a guest in and not offer refreshment. He’d have to drink iced tea out of plastic glasses. “I have to wait until the kids are asleep before I can get any packing done.”
“Where are you moving?” he asked casually, poking with his cane at a box marked tea set and glancing around instead of taking one of the matching golden oak kitchen chairs she offered.
“To the apartment over the café for now. We close on the house at the end of the month, so I’ve been moving things down there every time I go in.”
He didn’t argue when she set a plastic glass of ice and tea in front of him and poured more for herself. Hot tea on a hot night was obscene. He was learning their ways.
“Sit.” He gestured imperiously at a chair.
A few hours ago, he’d been swallowed up by his staff, plotting the demise of the mill at the judge’s house. She’d gone to work as usual, feeling gut sick that she’d just given him the excuse he needed to steal the mill, instead of talking him out of it, as she’d hoped.
She was amazing all right. Amazingly stupid.
Figuring he wouldn’t sit unless she did, Amy took a chair, trying to relax. She’d needed a break anyway. When he finally sat opposite her and, at her pointed look, obediently propped his bad leg on another chair, she unleashed her curiosity. “I assume you’re not here just to tell me I’m not at the café.”
Jacques flashed his devastating smile. “Direct and to the point. I like that. I could say I was bored sitting in the motel, pining for your company. We are very good together.”
“Hmmm, amazing,” she murmured, avoiding his wicked gaze. Just the image of Jacques on a motel bed was enough to raise her libido to full throttle, without putting herself into the picture. “And I could say,” she said, mimicking him, “that you have Catarina to visit, and I’d rather climb in my whirlpool and pretend today never happened. I don’t know why you’re still in Northfork now that you’ve found what you want.”
“But I want many things, and Catarina is not one of them. Your bath sounds tempting though.”
His boyish grin sent her hormones spinning even though she could swear she was too tired to even think of sex. If nothing else, she was comfortable handling little boys. “Stop that,” she told him crossly, irritated with herself more than with him. “We had an overreaction to the accident this afternoon. That’s all. So if you came up here looking for more of the same, you can go away now.”
“While admittedly,” he continued as if she hadn’t said a word, “sharing a bath with you is one of my fondest desires, I would settle for just the whirlpool,” he said with such fervency he almost sounded sincere. “My room does not have one. You have a marvelous house. I have never seen so many modern conveniences.” He studied the flashing clock in the built-in microwave and the stainless fixtures that had been cutting edge when she’d had them installed. “In Europe, all is old, old, old. This is as modern as my late Porsche.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, it’s not working. You can afford the resort in Asheville. I’m sure if you ask, they’ll let you admire their kitchen.” She wouldn’t ask what he wanted again. She didn’t think she could face the humiliation. Mama had warned that men thought divorced women were easy, and Amy had certainly made it seem that way by her behavior earlier. She still cringed in embarrassment.
And burned with the desire for a human touch again. She refused to believe it was just Jacques’s touch she craved. That would be too desperate. She studied her glass instead of the mouth that had driven her wild in one-point-two seconds, faster than his Porsche.
“I am trying to find a way to beg you to take me in,” he said, forcing Amy to jerk her head up and stare at him in incredulity.
When she said nothing, he continued, the expression in his dark eyes intense, as if willing her to cooperate. “The motel is old and musty and has no whirlpool. My leg cannot bend so easily for the long drive down the mountain to the resort. It would be a kindness if you can find a place for me here until I find something else. I will pay generously.”
Amy could only stare at the confident idiot. If she let herself fully comprehend his request, she would burst into tears. “Do I look that desperate?” she asked before she could bite her tongue.
“I am that desperate,” he replied. “It would be a kindness, and I will try very hard not to impose upon you in any way.”
If he’d tried to deny her question or answered with flattery, she wouldn’t have taken him seriously. Instead, his look of discomfort seemed real, and her stomach hurt as if she’d been punched. He was sitting here like a very human man, not an object she could classify as Enemy or Fraud or Foreign or all those other classifications she’d used to keep a distance between them. She had never been able to deny someone in need.
He glanced at her packing boxes. “I could even help you pack. And haul furniture.”
She wanted to laugh at the thought of the elegant Brit lugging her antiques up the stairs to Jo’s tiny apartment on his bad knee, but tonight, she was too tired and embarrassed. “How did you get up here?” she asked, feeling her determination to keep him at a distance dissolve.
He shrugged in an attempt to look nonchalant. “In the Hummer.”
“Did you drive it?”
He scraped his cane back and forth on the slate floor. “It’s an automatic.”
“Does Luigi know?”
He scowled, and she knew she’d finally scored a point. “You couldn’t stay here without Luigi,” she insisted. “He’d have a stroke. I have two kids who will be up at sunrise.”
“I like your children. I need a whirlpool. I will deal with Luigi. I wish to stay a mountain away from Cat and friends. Money is no object.” He swung his cane dismissively.
“You realize your accent gets stronger when you want something?”
He widened his eyes in surprise, then grinned, destroying the intense seriousness he’d built earlier. “Does it work?”
“I hate you, and yes, it does. It turns women into putty, and you know it.”
His smile would have done a Cheshire cat proud. “No other woman has ever admired my accent, but it’s only you I wish to turn to putty.”
“Putty is messy. And then it gets brittle and cracks,” she reminded him, before swallowing the rest of her tea and sitting back. To her amazement, she was actually weighing the argument. She seriously disliked being steamrollered by a man who didn’t know how to take no for an answer, but she could use the cash. Babysitters for Louisa were expensive. She couldn’t ask Jo to do it all the time. Josh needed more school clothes, they both would need new winter coats, and she couldn’t count on Evan for anything extra.
Besides, a day of this madhouse, and Jacques would run for the door. Why deny herself a little extra money just because she couldn’t control her responses to him?
She was being logical, reasonable, practical — and she’d defend to the death her right to believe her own lies. “Until Tuesday?” she asked.
“For as long as is feasible,” he corrected. “I will pay daily, like the motel.”
“I’m not offering maid service,” she said decisively. “I have way too much to do as it is. If you want me to feed you, you have to eat when we do and eat what we have. Otherwise, you’re on your own.”
Instead of laughing in triumph, Jacques nodded seriously. “I can make my own bed. Boarding schools teach a few useful things. In the morning, I will have Luigi help you, and I will pay what I was paying the resort, plus extra for meals. Will that suit?”
No, it scared her absolutely to death. But then, so did moving and looking for a job. If she were really truthful, the entire world terrified her. She didn’t know the entire world, but she was coming to know Jacques. She liked him, against all better judgment. They even had more in common than mutual lust, although she was reluctant to admit either, because it was dangerous to her emotional well-being. She knew she could trust him — to a point.
“You will be my first B and B customer,” she stated, adding one more reason to agree to the absurd. “It will be a learning experience.”
For a moment, Jacques looked as apprehensive as she felt, but then he wiped away the expression with a smile. “Excellent. I have a bag in the car.”
The dirty rat fink. He’d known he could sway her. She could see it in his laughing dark eyes. But she wasn’t backing down now that she’d made her decision. She’d spent ten damned years learning to be a proper hostess.
He held out his hand for her to shake.
Touching him would be a serious mistake. Amy did it anyway. Jacques’s clasp was warm, hard, and reassuring, and his gentle squeeze was meant to convince her she was doing the right thing.
All she had to do was convince him that she made the rules.
For once, she intended to be in charge of her life.
* * *
Jacques turned on the water faucet in the enormous ivory tub surrounded by sumptuous limestone tile and decided he’d lost his mind. Gardenia candles and jasmine bath salts in delicate rose-crystal containers were grouped artistically next to luxurious rose-colored towels. If that wasn’t feminine enough, Amy had added a bouquet of pink roses and ferns to an antique Waterford vase.
The bathroom was so very sensual, so very much the hidden side of his sensible Amy that he grew hard just looking at it. Or smelling it. Even her perfume lingered in the air. It wasn’t often that he felt out of place, but he felt like a stallion in the mare’s barn right now.
A light rap at his door confirmed he’d lost his famed elusiveness. He usually used crowds as a defense against intimacy, and now he’d opened the gates to a woman so vulnerable he couldn’t ignore her.
Well, he supposed he could ignore her right now. She tapped so lightly he assumed she hoped he wouldn’t hear. He shrugged on his robe over the slacks he hadn’t removed yet.
He opened the door, catching her in mid-knock. “I was just thinking I should ask you to join me in your lovely tub.”
She blushed and stared at the V of his robe rather than look up and meet his eyes. She’d brushed out the layered brown curls of her hair, letting it fall loose about her face, and pulled a pretty turquoise tunic over her tank top, effortlessly creating her own understated style. He admired a woman who didn’t feel compelled to spend an hour in front of a mirror to be comfortable with her appearance.
“I just wanted to warn you to lock your door. The kids are used to running in and out without knocking,” she said hurriedly, as if ready to run once the words were out of her mouth.
“Will they worry if they cannot find you? I will be happy to take another room if this is an inconvenience.” Jacques refrained from smacking his forehead for his stupidity. Of course the whirlpool was in her room. He’d seen her things in there. But he’d been equating them with a candlelit bath for two and not thinking about the mundane — like children who jumped on their mother’s bed every morning.
“No, I know how to distract them. Locking the door is simply a precaution. I put clean sheets on the bed this morning. I hope you’ll be comfortable.”
She backed away, and Jacques grabbed her wrist before she could escape. “Amy, wait, please.”
He didn’t know what he meant to say. He simply knew that he didn’t want her to leave. She finally lifted her gaze to his face and waited patiently for him to speak.
“I want to talk to you but don’t know how,” he admitted, surprising even himself. Talk wasn’t what he wanted, was it? “I look in your understanding eyes and want to say things I haven’t said to anyone, but I cannot.” He thought that might actually be true, but he would try not to dwell on it too much. “You back away like a frightened doe every time I try.”
“That’s because I am a frightened doe, with two fawns to protect,” she said bluntly. “You will find someone understanding among your own crowd. Brigitte seems a very intelligent listener.”
Brigitte was an astute cynic with a heart of ice. He did not want Brigitte. He was discovering he preferred a backbone of steel well padded by feminine curves and a loving nature.
“Perhaps I should go, after all,” he said, surprising himself. “I did not think this through. I would not upset your children. Routine is very important to them.”
“You say that as if you’ve had experience,” she said with a shade of suspicion.
He had to work at flashing a grin. “I was once a child.” He arched his eyebrows, challenging her to argue the point.
Amy tilted her head to study him, and it was all he could do not to avoid her too perceptive gaze.
“Take a look around, Jacques,” she replied with a gesture at the stacked boxes in the hall. “Their lives are already in complete chaos, and they’re handling it just fine. Stay. You’ve convinced me it will work.” Amy pried his fingers loose from her wrist and escaped.
This time, Jacques let her go.
Shutting the door, he locked it, but no lock would shut out his raging libido.
Or the echoing loneliness of the empty room after Amy’s departure.