Hot Property (10 page)

He sounded serious and Betsy couldn’t help
but start to laugh. “I should hope so.”

A big smile broke over his face. “It is a
bit much. We’ll ask for a doggie bag. Though I don’t have a dog and
I don’t recall seeing one at your place.”

Betsy gently slapped his hand because she
was laughing too hard to speak. The laughter seized the instant his
fingers wiggled between hers on the tabletop and gently squeezed.
Once again he brought her hand to his lips and kissed her
knuckles.

Blissful silence.

Minutes passed before Skylar gently placed
her hand back on the tabletop and released her fingers. “Our coffee
is getting cold.” His eyes never left hers until he finished his
sentence.

For the next half hour they ate, drank and
talked business. Skylar did most of the talking. Betsy listened
intently. Her eyes seldom left his while she nibbled on a
cream-filled donut she couldn’t remember tasting. But she
remembered vividly every word Skylar spoke. The most important were
when he proclaimed the house on the hill would be completed before
Christmas. He seemed adamant she have the house sold before the New
Year.

“I will try,” Betsy assured. “But with the
holidays, December is not a good selling month.”

“I’m planning a big celebration New Year’s
Eve.” He snickered. “I may need the proceeds from the sale to cover
the expenses.”

“Must be some celebration.”

Skylar tossed her a mysterious smile, then
glanced at his watch. “As much as I hate leaving you, I must. My
crew should be at the house and I have some changes to discuss with
them before they get too far along.”

“Yes, I have tons of paperwork waiting for
me before my first house showing,” Betsy admitted grudgingly as she
slid across her seat and stood.

Skylar followed her lead and picked up the
leftover plate of donuts. “Let me get a box and I’ll walk you
out.”

Betsy waited at the door while the waitress
placed the donuts into a take-out box. The entire time, Betsy noted
the gorgeous creature batting her long thick lashes at Skylar. She
winked at him when she handed him the box.

“A friend of yours?” Betsy snapped as she
went through the door ahead of him.

“You mean Georgia?” he asked with a look of
innocence in those big blue eyes.

“If that’s her name.” Again, Betsy’s tone
had been short. But she really hadn’t intended it to be. After all,
she had no reason to act jealous. But she was.

“Georgia’s a nice girl. But hardly someone
I’d call a friend. She’s more an acquaintance.”

“Whatever that means,” Betsy grumbled under
her breath and started to open her car door.

Skylar stepped up and pushed the door shut
with his knee. Betsy sensed his gaze. But she focused on the ground
until Skylar’s fingers cupped her chin tilting it upward.

“You can’t leave without a kiss.”

Betsy saw his lips heading for hers. The
instant they landed, she closed her eyes. Stars before the
explosion of magnificent fireworks going off in front of her as his
tongue parted her lips and explored inside. Touching and tasting
everywhere before he withdrew and dragged his lips off hers.

“Are we still on for lunch?” he murmured
against her ear before tormenting her more as his lips tiptoed down
the side of her throat.

Betsy’s breath grew heavy and she wasn’t
sure anything would come out when she attempted an answer. But the
words did come, barely above a whisper. “I don’t know if I can wait
that long.”

“Me either,” he whispered between
kisses.

“Where?”

“I’ll pick you up at your office.”

His lips returned to hers, sucking on them
as if he wanted to draw her breath into his lungs. She gasped for
air when he pulled back.

He opened her car door. As Betsy started to
duck inside, he dropped the donut box on the roof and took her in
his arms, hugging her so powerfully that it almost hurt. When he
let go, Betsy felt like he’d squeezed out all her body juices; then
another kiss, giving back twofold all that he had taken.

“I’ll be there for you at twelve sharp,” he
murmured after slowly prying his lips from hers.

He headed for his truck, leaving Betsy drunk
from the passion his touch had unleashed. She wasn’t quite clear
how, but had pulled out of the parking lot ahead of him and driven
to her office.

She was still smiling when she turned the
key in the front door.

It seemed a bit odd not seeing Mary hard at
it behind her desk. But then, Betsy rarely made her way into the
office before nine when Mary appeared promptly at her desk.

As Betsy climbed the stairs to her office,
she began looking forward to the next hour of solitude. She opened
her window blind to fill the room with some of that radiant
sunshine breaking through the early morning fog, then sat behind
her desk. Still smiling, she leaned back and closed her eyes. The
sound of Skylar’s voice seeped into the silence surrounding her.
His image was just beginning to come to her when Stephanie Rogers’s
voice intruded.

“Betsy. Are you up there, Betsy?”

Betsy flipped open her eyelids and shot
forward. She knew she’d forgotten something when she stepped inside
the front door. Now she remembered what it was. She’d forgotten to
lock the door behind her.

But not even Stephanie Rogers could spoil
the best day of Betsy’s life. She wouldn’t allow it.

“There you are,” declared the perky woman
who seemed to fill the doorway to Betsy’s office. Her radiant smile
showed off her sparkling white teeth.

Nobody’s teeth were that perfect. With the
quickness of lightning, it struck Betsy they might be false teeth.
For a second she visualized a clattering pair of teeth falling out
and Stephanie’s gums clamping together in her state of humiliation.
Betsy nearly broke out laughing but caught herself just in the nick
of time.

“Steph, isn’t it a little early for you to
be up and about?”

“I like someone with a sharp memory.”

Betsy watched her gracefully ease into one
of the two chairs in front of her desk, while trying to guess what
the manipulative and cunning beauty queen wanted.

Stephanie sighed. “Actually, I’ve given our
prior meeting some thought since my house is still on the
market.”

Betsy arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yes. The gentleman who was interested--well
he’s changed his mind.” Now that was odd. Betsy could’ve sworn she
saw her blush just before she referred to her lost buyer as a
gentleman. “Anyway, Skylar seems to think I should re-list the
house with you.”

“Skylar?”

“We talked about it again late last night.”
She smiled wickedly. “Actually, it must’ve been early this morning.
Anyway, I’ve decided to give you a second go at it.”

Dead silence.

“You can drop by the house tomorrow with a
new contract,” she said as she stood. “Tomorrow’s okay, isn’t
it?”

Betsy couldn’t believe her ears. It wasn’t
that Stephanie finally asked instead of giving an order that
temporarily knocked the wind out of Betsy. It was the way she
rubbed it in about being with Skylar.

God only knew how she ever managed to speak
when she said, “I’ll check my schedule and call you.”

“Good girl.”

I’m not a girl. I’m the same age as you and
a woman. Betsy wanted to scream.

She glared at the picture perfect woman
posed in the doorway and positively beaming. “Is there something
else, Steph?”

When Stephanie first held out her hand and
flashed the huge sparkling rock, it didn’t mean anything. After
all, the woman was always wearing diamonds. Around her neck,
wrists--wait a minute.

“You’re engaged?”

Stephanie beamed. “He gave it to me last
night. We haven’t made an official announcement so I’d appreciate
you keeping it to yourself until we do.” She turned to leave and
stopped. “You might want to check your calendar. We are tentatively
planning the big day for New Year’s Eve.”

Chapter Seven

Betsy managed to remain in one piece until
she heard the front office door close behind Stephanie. Time to
fall apart. Scream. Cry. Trash the room. But she did none of
it.

She was too broken to budge from her seat.
The slightest twitch of a muscle would be too unbearably painful to
tolerate. If her mind had not temporarily shut down as well, Betsy
would’ve thought she’d gone into shock.

The sound of the front door opening and
closing triggered some mechanism inside that returned her motor
skills. The pain of returning to life was like none she had ever
known before. Her heart felt like it was being stabbed over and
over again with the shiny point of a dagger. This brutal attack on
her heart was quickly draining the blood and oxygen from her and
Betsy feared she might be dying.

“You’re in early,” Mary greeted from the
doorway. Her pleasant smile vanished the second Betsy looked up at
her. “My God, what’s wrong? You’re as white as a ghost.”

Betsy had no way of knowing if anything
would come out if she tried to speak. But she made the effort
anyway. “I don’t feel good, Mary.” She heard her voice and sensed
Mary did too.

Panic sprung from Mary’s face and eyes.
“Should I call a doctor?”

“No. But I think I need to go home.” As
Betsy said the words she attempted to stand. First attempt failed.
Second time she willed there to be feeling in her legs there
was.

“Do you want me to drive you?” Without
waiting for a response, “I’ll just lock up the office--”

“No. I can manage,” Betsy insisted as she
started down the stairs.

“Don’t worry about your appointments. I’ll
handle them. And be sure and call if you need anything.”

Betsy listened to Mary’s nervous chatter as
she walked her to the door. But she didn’t remember a word of what
she’d said after stepping out beneath the suddenly overcast
sky.

The drive home was a blur. But she was
there, sitting behind the steering wheel staring at the large
raindrops beginning to splatter against the windshield.

By the time she opened the car door to go
inside, it was pouring. Maybe it was the way the rain began belting
her face that awakened a new set of emotions inside her. By the
time she stepped inside her apartment her face was soaked with more
tears than rain.

She headed straight for her bedroom. Without
bothering to kick off her heels, she threw herself face down on the
bed. A thousand tears poured from her eyes before easing to a few
trickles and she rolled to her side. Sobbing, her vision blurred,
she listened to the thunderstorm raging outside. The rumble of
thunder was followed by rain slashing against the two bedroom
windows.

Betsy continued to listen and blink to clear
her vision as she rolled onto her back. The slight movement sent
another excruciatingly painful stabbing sensation through the
center of her heart. As she lay motionless, there was pain
everywhere, especially in her big toe she thought had healed from
the picnic basket landing.

“Check your calendar. Tentatively the big
day is scheduled for New Year’s Eve.” Stephanie’s words swirled
inside her head.

“I’ll check my calendar all right. And I’ll
be sure to fill it so full I won’t have time to think straight.”
Certainly too full to attend a wedding, she said in silence.

No way could she listen to Skylar pledge his
love to another.

“Oh, God, how could I have been so naïve?”
Betsy demanded of herself.

She’d been badly hurt by a man twice before.
Third time’s the charm, Miss Sensible reminded sarcastically.

“Oh shut up,” Betsy snapped.

Charm was hardly the word Betsy would use to
describe her third betrayal by a man. Burned, humiliated, and
shattered into a million little pieces. And still, she doubted all
of them combined described the pain ripping through her.

“To tell you the truth, I didn’t sleep a
wink last night.” Skylar’s words from earlier filled her head.

“Of course you didn’t. You were too busy
proposing marriage to Stephanie.”

Betsy drew her knees to her chest thinking
it might relieve her upset stomach. She believed the relief that
came was a result of the anger beginning to burn through her,
bringing back a steady increase in her strength.

“I might need the proceeds to cover the
expenses of the New Year’s Eve celebration I’m giving.”

Betsy knew they weren’t Skylar’s exact words
at the donut shop earlier, but that’s how they were coming to her
now.

“Skylar Blakewood, the sly one,” Betsy
quipped in a mocking manner.

You wanted me to feel like you couldn’t live
without me. His way of getting me to work at peak performance
selling his house so he can pay for the wedding reception. Throw in
one last fling before fully committing to Stephanie.

Betsy’s anger grew in leaps and bounds,
restoring her with more strength than she had ever known. She was a
mountain of solid rock. A blockade so sturdy that she felt
confident not even Skylar Blakewood could penetrate.

By eleven o’clock she returned to work
assuring Mary she was fully recovered from whatever she’d been
stricken with earlier. Fully recovered and prepared to tackle the
remainder of the day and the rest of her life head on. Beginning
with the luncheon date she had promised Skylar.

At eleven fifty five Betsy watched Mary
leave the office to go to lunch. There was no need for Miss
Sensible to insert her two cents while Betsy mentally prepared for
Skylar’s arrival. She was determined to stand on her own two feet
and have the encounter with the courage of a decorated war hero.
After all, she had escaped the torturous battle of pain that had
taken her body prisoner. In Betsy’s eyes making her a veteran of
war. A war against the heart.

The sound of the front office door creaking
open sent a chill racing up Betsy’s spine. She managed to shrug it
off, then willed her stomach to settle down when he appeared in the
doorway to her office.