Dodging Temptation (The Retreat) (8 page)

“Don
’
t you two have somewhere else to be?” He shoved Griff
’
s feet off his desk and circled around to sit in his chair.

“Who peed in your cornflakes?” Griff plopped his boots back up on the desk.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “
Harper Conner.
” She of the perfect pink lips, low alto moans, and mile-wide stubborn streak.

Griff
’
s boot heels hit the floor with a loud thunk as he straightened in his seat. “
Oh, do tell.
”

So he did, starting with their discussion over ice cream last night in the kitchen and ending with her unprovoked hissy fit outside of the library this morning—leaving out what had happened in the hall last night. By the time he finished, his youngest brother was grinning like a fool who thought he
’
d won the lottery, and the middle Loving son had gone back to pretending to sleep on the couch.

“So she thinks that you only hear what you want to hear?” Griff asked, sarcasm as thick as molasses in his voice. “I
’
m fucking shocked. Aren
’
t you totally surprised, Stone?”

Stone shrugged his shoulders but kept his eyes closed.

“
Look.
” Griff tipped his head toward Stone. “He is so blown away that he
’
s speechless.
”

As if Stone had ever been called a chatterbox in his whole damn life. Dodge rammed his hand through his hair and flipped on his computer monitor, the screen showing several emails with the subject line:
Media Inquiry
.

Fuck me.
He did not have the time nor the patience for this shit plus his brothers.

“Don
’
t you have an outing to take guests on today?” Dodge checked his watch and rounded on his other brother. “And aren
’
t you supposed to be giving riding lessons in twenty minutes?”

Neither moved.

“Now if I didn
’
t know any better, I
’
d think that Harper hit a nerve of our dear big brother’s,” Griff said as if Dodge hadn
’
t all but ordered them out of his office.

Stone blinked his eyes open and nodded. “Yep. I
’
d say she took a sledgehammer to it.”

They both turned to face him, grinning like a pair of deranged cowboys.

Dodge averted his gaze to his computer screen, focusing with such intensity that if he
’
d been a comic book hero, lasers would have shot out his eyes. “She didn
’
t hit a nerve, she
’
s just wrong.”

“So she
did
agree to giving an interview?” Griff asked, practically rubbing his hands together with glee. “She batted those big brown eyes of hers, leaned forward to give you just a little more than a peek at those great tits of hers, and said ‘Yes, Dodge, you hot hunk of man, please violate my privacy and set up an interview that I
’
ve made perfectly clear I don
’
t ever want to do.
’
That
’
s how it happened, right?”

The little nugget of doubt, the one quietly insisting he
’
d twisted Harper
’
s answer for his own benefit, grew three sizes. Closing his eyes, he pictured her in those skintight yoga pants and tiny little tank top that did nothing but better frame her luscious tits. They
’
d sat across from each other, then he
’
d moved to her side and did his little song and dance. She
’
d said she
’
d think about it. He asked her if she really would. She said she would do that. Realization poured over him. He heard she would do that and then filled in “do the interview” all on his own.
Fuck.
He’d blown his opportunity to find out more about his grandfather’s plans by jumping the gun for the interview. Now he had to figure out how to win her over…again.

“Get out,” he snarled at his brothers.

Griff stood.
“Come on, Stone, let
’
s give bossy big brother an opportunity to lick his wounds in private.”

They shuffled out the door. Dodge may have been alone in his office, but guilt sure was taking up a lot of space in his chair, so he did what he always did in times like this when a business deal was at a tipping point—he researched his opposition.

Chapter Seven

A
fter several days without even
a flash of red hair, Dodge had almost convinced himself that Harper had literally locked herself up in the family library surrounded by musty old books. Not that he
’
d been looking for her. He just kept happening to find himself in the parts of the lodge where she
’
d be. His steps slowed as he walked down the back hallway leading past the family kitchen.

Light filtered out from underneath the
kitchen door
—not enough for the overheads to be turned on but just enough to give whoever was inside the ability to walk around without hammering her hip on the stainless steel prep tables on her way to the freezer. Harper? He checked his watch. Not midnight yet, but who else would it be? The kitchen staff had left hours ago, and the rest of the family had tucked into their rooms for the night while he
’
d been in his office thanking God and the universe for the media
’
s short attention span.

Every last photographer and media truck had departed from The Retreat
’
s front gates this morning after a teen pop star had been busted on the state line with a suitcase full of Colorado-legal pot. The reporters might be back but, until they were, he had more time to concentrate on other things, like perfect pink lips and soft moans, the nagging feeling that he was missing something in his research. Turns out his grandfather was a big campaign contributor to Harper’s dad’s campaign war chests. It was a tenuous tie but that, along with her coincidental meeting with his mother that led to her coming to Wyoming and her refusal to do the interview, should have set off his alarm bells. But they didn’t.

He’d talked to nearly every staff person at The Retreat and no one reported being questioned by Harper. She hadn’t been near his office to take a sneak peak at his files, he knew because his security system was topnotch. Really, she hadn’t shown any signs of spying, so she was either really damn good, or he’d made a seriously dumbass assumption.

His hand rested on the brass plate of the kitchen’s swinging door. He should go in to double-check to make sure nothing had been left on that shouldn
’
t be—or that there wasn
’
t a stray reporter hiding inside. And if he happened to find a particular redhead licking her ice cream spoon clean, well then she
’
d have to talk to him instead of avoiding him, which had been her MO for the past few days. And then he’d be able to figure out if she was working undercover for his grandfather.

His pulse picked up as he pushed open the door and walked inside.

“Hey there, Dodge.” His mom sat at the little table against the north wall, flipping through a yoga magazine and holding a cup of chamomile tea, judging by the scent.

Dodge
’
s fine-tuned mom-o-meter started dinging like he was the Titanic and she was the iceberg. So far, she
’
d been pretty low-key about her matchmaking designs, but he
’
d known it wouldn
’
t last forever. He couldn
’
t backpedal out of here yet or she
’
d know he
’
d been looking for Harper.

His step lost a little oomph, but he continued forward. “You
’
re up late.”

“I knew I needed to be if I was going to catch at least one of you in here.” She took a sip from her blue cup that read
Namaste
. “She
’
s not here.”

“Who?” Keeping his gaze away from his mom, he scanned the kitchen for an excuse. The freezer. Harper wasn
’
t the only one who could get late-night munchies. He could play this off and get out before the world
’
s most icy inquisition could begin.

“Who? Harper, of course.” Light and breezy, her voice followed him across the kitchen.

His ass tightened. “Who said I was looking for her?” He yanked open the freezer door. “I was looking for—” He grabbed a pint of ice cream from the freezer and held it out toward her. “This.”

“Got a sweet tooth all of a sudden, huh?” May asked, the arch to her eyebrows and tilt of her head screaming out “bullshit.”

“It
’
s not all of a sudden.” Just since Harper arrived, a fact he just barely managed to keep to himself.

“My mistake.” May closed her magazine and shoved it to the side before turning her full attention on him. “I guess it seemed like you
’
d been doing things a little bit differently since she got here.”

He
’
d been spending a helluva lot of time in the kitchen lately, but otherwise it had been business as usual. “
I don’
t know what you mean.”

“Don
’
t lie to your mother, Dodge. It
’
s a fool
’
s errand.
” May got up and carried her teacup to the sink where she hand-washed it with her signature speed and efficiency.

“Okay then, how have I been different?” he asked.

She twisted the washcloth, squeezing out all of the excess water, shook it loose, and folded it neatly across the bar dividing the double sinks. Nothing unusual in her actions, but it was as if she
’
d taken almost too much care with each move, drawing it out and losing her signature alacrity. The last time she
’
d acted so hesitant had been after he
’
d found his grandfather
’
s letter, right before she
’
d sat a sixteen-year-old him down and explained why they never heard from or saw her side of the family and why the color of his skin meant he never would. His gut twisted with a sick sense of anticipation. Whatever came next, he wasn
’
t going to like it.

She smoothed her hand across the washcloth one final time and turned to face him, an unusual sadness shadowing her familiar green-eyed gaze. “You
’
ve been acting like my father.”

“That
’
s not true. I
’
d never act like him.”

“What? Like a man who is beyond determined to force the world to reflect his vision of how things should be even if that means disregarding others’ wishes and pleas for privacy? Even if it means thinking the worst of folks on only a thread of information?”

Where his dad had railed loudly and with exuberant hand motions, his mom had always delivered censure clothed in a velvet glove of brokenhearted disappointment. It drained all the bluster and bullshit right out of him.

“Griff has a big mouth,” he grumbled.

“
True.
” She laughed. “Look, I know how you feel about your grandfather. I know all about the real reason why you want to take The Retreat global—to show your grandfather all that he lost by cutting off contact with us when I married your father.” Her knuckled hand turned white in her tight grip. “But the universe doesn
’
t work that way, Dodge. Everyone has to learn for themselves at their own speed and at the right time. Just like I can
’
t do a thing to persuade you to stop wasting your energy trying to prove a bitter old man wrong, you can
’
t force him to change his thinking, either.”

Maybe not, but that wasn
’
t the point. It never had been. “That
’
s awfully Zen of you, Mom.”

She smiled, the natural sparkle returning to her eyes, the same shade as his own, maybe even the same shade as his bastard grandfather. He
’
d never asked, and he wasn
’
t about to now.

“It
’
s not Zen,” May said. “It
’
s what loving your father taught me—to see which battles really mattered and which ones weren
’
t worth the fight. You need to figure that out for yourself before you turn into the one person you hate the most.”

That hit too close to home, the truth of it reverberating up his spine. But he wasn’t about to turn into his bastard grandfather. He was going to make him pay by taking away the thing he loved more than he did his own daughter.

“I
’
m going to make the deal with The Brasch Group happen.” The declaration came out strained, as if the words were strangling him.

She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “You probably will, but that won
’
t change the universe
’
s plans for you.” She held up her left hand and fiddled with the simple gold band on her ring finger.

That was his mom, all right, as subtle as a bull in a china shop. Still, the move back to familiar territory allowed the bitterness he wrapped around his shoulders whenever the topic of his grandfather came up to slide right off him. It lightened his shoulders and allowed him to feel other things like the wet condensation from the pint of ice cream pooling in his palm.
Harper.
In the span of a week she
’
d become his charmed tormenter or cursed angel of distraction. If his mother wouldn
’
t take this news and run straight to the paper to place an engagement announcement, he would
’
ve asked her advice about the chances of Harper being a spy. Figuring out the truth of that had been his real reason for skulking around the kitchen—mostly.

“And the universe told you to put Harper in the honeymoon suite?”

“Oh no. That was motherly interference.” She gestured toward the ice cream with one hand as she removed two spoons from the drawer with the other hand. “You better take that up to her before it melts.”

“I told you already, this is for
me
.” That didn
’
t stop him from taking both spoons, though.

“Well then.” She straightened to her full height and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Get your epinephrine pen ready for when you go into anaphylactic shock.”

Blinking in confusion, he glanced down and read the label on the carton: pistachio crunch. The little green nut of doom mocked his insistence that the ice cream was his. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

His mom shook her head and patted his cheek with her paper-soft palm before leaving him in the middle of the kitchen with a melting pint of ice cream and the certain feeling that his mother and the universe were conspiring against him.

H
arper
didn
’
t sulk. She plotted.

Marching from one end of her ginormous suite to the other, she dredg
ed up every Machiavellian scheme to get back at an enemy that she
’
d learned at her father
’
s knee and—just like she had for the past few days—came up with bubkes.

When it came to teaching Dodge a lesson about bulldozing over everyone else in order to get what he wanted, she just didn
’
t have the heart. It wasn
’
t like it had been with her ex-husband. Dodge hadn
’
t invited the reporters over to save his own skin; he was looking out for his family business and his guest
’
s privacy. If she were in Garth
’
s just-out-of-rehab shoes, she wouldn
’
t want to have to worry about photographers skulking about trying to catch him holding a glass of clear liquid that
could
be vodka. If it wasn’t for the threat of losing her only source of income, she would have done the interview the first day he’d asked. When he’d offered to help her find another job…well, that had her thinking. But after how he acted, she had to admit the job finding help was probably another manipulation to get what he wanted.

So since her heart wasn’t in finding a get-even-fast plan, she
’
d retreated to Old Harper
’
s avoidance habits that would do an ostrich proud, and that old familiar hemmed-in feeling that picked at her very last nerve had her twitching and fidgeting like a kid in church.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired, she threw out her arms and fell backward onto the oversized four-poster bed. Sinking down into the fluffy, sinfully soft duvet, she stared up at the sheer white fabric forming a canopy above the bed—it was one more thing in the unabashedly romantic room that made her think of Dodge, and not in the manner in which she should. The fantasies she had of watching his sinewy forearms as he slid his hands up her parted thighs had kept her awake and staring at that damn princess canopy more nights than she cared to remember since he walked into the library a week ago and tried to fire her. The memory of the fantasy alone made her nipples pucker against the worn
Book Nerd
T-shirt and dampened the cotton center of her sleep shorts.

Ideas big enough for an orgy ran through her mind about what she
’
d do to that man if he were spread out before her on the bed, as she slid her fingers under the elastic waistband of her shorts. She could lick a path from his hip to the base of his cock, following the
V
line of muscle on his lower abdomen. She
’
d watched him arrive back at The Retreat after a long run, seen him lift his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, and gazed in wonder at the lean, muscular lines on display. Sucking hard on her bottom lip, she pushed her fingers through her slick folds to her sensitized clit. The merest touch made her spine bow and started a buzz in her thighs that promised a mind-melting orgasm. How even the idea of touching him did this to her, she had no fucking clue.

Someone knocked on her door and she shot up, heart hammering against her ribs. She yanked her hand from its warm home. “Who is it?” Damn, her breath sounded ragged.

“Ice cream delivery.” Dodge
’
s voice came through loud and clear.

Dodge!
The man she was pissed at but mentally fucking stood on the other side of her door. Now that wasn
’
t awkward at all.

Drawing a blank on the proper etiquette for this situation, she went with the first response that popped in her head. “What kind of ice cream?”