Private Parts (7 page)

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING,
Kendall considered her reflection in the mirror of her private bathroom at the B and B. She took a deep breath, wondering if the navy blue suit was a little severe. But it was still raining and anything lighter would show every drop. She straightened her wraparound white blouse and wriggled her shoulders to get it to fall right, then sighed.

She seemed to be doing a lot of that since Troy had dropped her off last night.

“You should be happy,” she told herself, checking her eyeliner. “The negotiations are coming to a successful close. You’ve done your job and then some. Every reason to feel good.”

Then why didn’t she?

Because you won’t have an excuse to watch Troy’s magnificent ass in his tailored business suits anymore.

She grimaced and went back into the other room. She couldn’t decide whether she should stay for the open house tomorrow or not, so she’d half-packed her things, figuring she’d see how she felt at day’s end. If everything went well—and she had every expectation that it would—then she’d stay. If not…

She wasn’t exactly sure how things might not go well. But she was nothing if not cautious. She always looked both ways before crossing even a quiet street. Locked her windows at night. And when it came to business, she waited until the ink was dry before declaring a contract signed. It was just the way she operated.

Of course, business really didn’t have anything to do with her uneasy thoughts. She wanted to see what was going to happen between her and Troy before she decided whether to stay or go. Nothing more. Nothing less.

She opened the last drawer she had to clear out and then closed it again, leaving the undergarments there.

On the bed, her cell phone rang.

She picked it up.

“Good morning,” an accented voice greeted.

“Mr. Philippidis,” she said with a smile. “I was just leaving now to drive to the mill. Will you be there?”

Silence.

Kendall experienced a moment of dread, afraid of what was to come…

T
ROY WAS IN THE MIDDLE
of one call, had another on hold, and accepted yet another message from Patience, who was aptly named because she had proven time and again that she had an abundance of it.

He listened as the supplier complained about a returned check even as he curved his hand over the mouthpiece to prevent the caller from hearing him. “I hate Fridays,” he muttered.

His secretary smiled. “That, my dear Mr. Metaxas, would make you the only one. Everyone else lives for the day. Myself included.”

“That’s because you don’t have to deal with every disaster that’s destined to happen.”

She waved a sheath of bills. “Don’t I?”

She put the papers in his in-box as he turned toward the window and spoke into the mouthpiece. “I understand. And I apologize. Of course, we’ll cover the associated charges…”

He took the receiver from his ear. “Patience, be a dear and tell the other line I’ll have to call them back.”

“Oh, no. You’ve been putting Mr. Simpson on the back burner all week.”

“Invite him to the open house tomorrow.”

“All the way from Connecticut? I don’t think so.”

“Maybe he has family in the area that might like to come.”

She gave him a long look and then walked toward the door. “You owe me one.”

“I owe you more than that.”

“Yes, well, just remember that when you’re reviewing salaries next week.”

Next week.

He finished up the conversation and then hung up the phone, standing there for a long moment. Just think, this was the last time he was going to have to apologize for a bounced check. Deal with an unhappy supplier. Take lip from his longtime secretary.

Okay, maybe the last one was asking for too much. But he could dream, couldn’t he?

He looked at his watch. Only a few more minutes to go. A glance at the conference room told him almost everyone was already there. Almost.

Movement outside his door. He knew an instant of lightness.

Kendall.

He raised his hand to wave at her, only she wasn’t looking his way. Not only that but she appeared a little too serious for today’s upbeat event.

He frowned, hoping that she hadn’t folded in on herself as she had last night in the car.

He gathered his papers together, wondering if he’d ever understand the complicated nature of a woman’s heart…

“W
OO-HOO!”
A
RI POPPED THE
bottle of champagne he’d brought to celebrate the official signing of the contract and the conference room erupted into cheers, everyone in the surrounding offices coming in to join them in the celebration.

The only one who didn’t look happy was Kendall.

Troy looked up from where he’d penned the final flourish, having initialed or signed every page in the one-hundred-and-ten page contract and then closing the document with a satisfied whoosh. He placed a hand on top, reveling in the feeling for a moment. This bit of processed wood pulp and ink represented so much to him, his family and the town of Earnest. The end of hardship. The beginning of revitalization. Upon receipt of the final contract bearing Philippidis’s signature, along with his wire transfer of working capital, they could move forward with plans over a year in the making.

He accepted handshakes, man-hugs and back pats from everyone in the room…with the exception of Kendall.

Ari was pouring the champagne into paper cups and handing them out to employees. Patience even rolled in a congratulatory cake he hadn’t known she’d ordered.

To his surprise, he found Kendall putting the two copies of the contract that she would personally take to Philippidis for final signatures into her briefcase, and snapping it shut, her face drawn and pale. She
didn’t raise her gaze as she made her way toward the door.

Troy quickly slid in her direction and blocked her way before she slipped out of the room.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked with a smile.

He felt like a heavy boulder had been lifted from his shoulders. As if the sun had come out to shine after a too long absence. And he couldn’t think of anyone he’d like to celebrate with more than Kendall.

But unless he was reading her wrong, the pinched look on her face said that she wanted to be anywhere else but there.

“I’m needed back home,” she said.

He grasped her arm when she tried to maneuver her way around him. “Is everything all right? Your parents? Your sister? Nothing’s happened?”

“What? Oh. No.” She shook her head. “It’s not that kind of need.”

“Then what kind is it?”

She stared at him for a long moment, then looked down at her where she tightly held her briefcase.

“You know,” Troy began, taking in the soft curve of her lips, the shape of her calves. “Now that business is no longer involved, we can take this public.”

“Oh?” she asked quietly. “What do you propose
we do, Troy? Shall I move into the B and B? Or will you be coming to visit me down in Portland?”

He drew back, surprised.

“What, no champagne?” Ari asked, coming up and handing his brother a paper cup, and holding out another to Kendall.

Troy wondered if she’d take it.

She did, barely sipped from it, and then handed it back. “Congratulations. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

Troy handed his cup back to his startled brother as well, and followed Kendall out.

“Hey, wait.”

She stopped but didn’t turn around.

“Is that it, then? You’re just going to leave?”

“There’s no more business here to discuss. I’ll get these contracts to Philippidis, and the finalized version will be forwarded to you next week along with the agreed-upon capital.”

He rounded to stand in front of her. “I want you to stay.”

“I can’t.”

“Fine. If you don’t want in on today’s celebration, at least come to the open house tomorrow.”

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Please. I’d really like to have you there.”

“Why?”

He leaned in closer to her, touching the side of her face. “Do you really need to ask?”

She fell silent.

“I want you there because I…like being around you. Because I feel better than when I’m without you.” She didn’t respond. “Because I’d like to see where this takes us.”

“Let me save you the suspense—the bedroom.”

He chuckled. “Beyond that.”

She seemed to soften slightly.

“Say you’ll think about it?”

She looked down at the front of her blouse.

“It wouldn’t be the same for me without you there.”

“I… We’ll see,” she whispered. “Now, please, Troy. I’ve really got to go.”

Troy reluctantly stepped aside and watched in helpless confusion as she hurried down the hall as if the devil himself snapped at her heels.

W
HAT
T
ROY COULDN’T
have known was that the devil had already taken a large chunk out of her. And Kendall was afraid she would spend a lifetime trying to earn back the missing piece.

She returned to the B and B, determined to pack and head home. Now. But once she reached her room, she was out of breath and a little too shaky to consider driving across the street, much less the one hundred and forty miles to Portland.

She collapsed against the door and then slid down the wood to sit on the floor next to her briefcase.
She couldn’t believe she’d done it. Couldn’t convince herself that what had just happened was real. She prided herself on being tough but honest.

Now she was neither.

Her cell phone rang from the side pocket of her briefcase. It might as well have been a mile away for all the impact it had on her. She merely sat staring straight ahead at nothing, at everything, trying to get control over her breathing.

Thankfully, the phone went silent.

So many images screamed through her mind. Troy’s surprised face mere minutes ago. Ari popping the champagne cork. Her father sitting behind his desk. Her sister holding her children.

She lifted her hands to the sides of her head, wishing there were a button somewhere to make it all cease. To stop her brain from reminding her what she’d done that bothered her so. And repeating why it was so despicable that she had.

The cell rang again.

Troy?

Possible, but not probable. He was likely still back at the mill celebrating his great victory.

Or what should have been one.

Kendall blindly searched her case for the damn chirping bit of technology and answered.

“Is it done?”

She cringed at the familiar sound of Manolis Philippidis’s voice. “It’s done.”

She could almost hear him smiling. “Good. Very good. You will be well rewarded for your excellent service.”

Kendall stared sightlessly at the cell phone and then dropped it without saying goodbye.

Rewarded…excellent service…

She hadn’t done it for either reason. She’d done it to save her father. To prevent Philippidis from closing his company and cutting off his livelihood and hopes of one day buying the place back.

In order to save her family, she’d had to screw Troy’s by altering an important page in the contract he’d just signed. One line that gave the wealthy Greek fifty-one percent of Metaxas, Inc. A number that put him in control.

Control he planned to use to shut down the Metaxas brothers. For good this time, because there was a “do not compete” clause that would prevent them from making so much as a bagel if Manolis decided that’s what he wanted to do.

An airtight clause that she had worked out.

Troy had believed it was there to protect him.

He hadn’t realized it could also be used against him.

She now understood why she’d been asked to close this deal. Now saw why Philippidis had sent her, a virtual outsider, someone who didn’t work directly
for his company, in to see to a job that any of his people could have done.

She was his Trojan horse…

T
ROY WOKE THE FOLLOWING
morning feeling different somehow. Lighter. He almost didn’t recognize the emotions, it had been so very long since he’d experienced them. Sensed that everything was going to be all right.

His hard work had finally paid off and his business plans were coming to fruition. First thing Monday morning he had meetings set up with the local union rep, a couple of foremen Palmer had lined up for him to conduct final interviews, and the engineers would begin implementing the blueprints that had existed only on paper until now.

Now, if he could just figure out what had Kendall so worried yesterday, he’d be all set.

He’d tried contacting her, but she wasn’t answering her cell, even though a call to Mrs. Foss had confirmed that she was still staying at the B and B. He’d nearly gone over there to toss a few more stones
at her window, but Thekla and Frixos had arranged for a celebratory dinner that had gone late into the night.

As he’d passed the evening with Palmer and his wife Penelope, Bryna and Caleb, and Ari with Elena, he kept thinking about how nice it would have been to have Kendall there. She’d gotten on so well with everyone during contract negotiations, he knew she’d fit right in at the Metaxas dinner table, giving as well as she took.

In that regard, it wasn’t her that he’d be worried about, but rather himself and whether he’d be able to make it through a meal without wanting to maneuver her into a shadowy corner and ravish her, no matter what course was being served.

With quick efficiency, Troy took his morning shower, dressed and then headed downstairs for his first cup of coffee of the day, and to see how the preparations were going for the open house later that evening.

When he entered the kitchen to find utter chaos, he wondered if he could slip back out again without anyone seeing him.

“Troy!” Bryna exclaimed. “Thank God you’re up. You’re not going to believe what’s going on…”

A half hour later, Troy wanted to put out an all-points bulletin for the truck that had just hit him.

How was it possible for so much to go wrong in such a short period of time?

First, half the lights the Bermans had hung weren’t working and no one could seem to scare up either one of the brothers. Second, Miss Thekla had sprained her ankle, necessitating a trip to the clinic in the next county where they’d told her to keep all weight off it for at least forty-eight hours, leaving trays upon trays of food to be cooked in the double ovens the kitchen boasted, not to mention the fresh food that needed to be washed, chopped and assembled. Third, the caterer they’d hired had called to report delays of her own, and no contract was going to change that.

And if that weren’t enough, while Bryna was busy outlining what had happened, another problem cropped up: only half their order for alcohol had been delivered.

Troy stood sipping his coffee, sifting through the developments, deciding what needed to be handled first.

“Where’s Ari?” he asked no one in particular.

Bryna had put on an apron and was shooing the injured Thekla to a nearby chair when it became obvious she wasn’t going to leave the room. Frixos looked harried and wet, as he’d just come in from the rain after pounding stakes and attaching red tape around them on the south lawn for extra parking.

Troy noted that only his father looked completely unperturbed as he chose a Danish from a plate on the counter.

“I don’t know,” Bryna admitted. “He got a call
earlier and shot out of here without explanation. But Elena should be coming in any minute now. She can help with the cooking and prep work.”

He nodded.

“Okay, this is what we’re going to do…”

“Y
OU’RE GOING TO BREAK
your neck!” Bryna shouted from the foot of the ladder. “Screw the lights. Half of them work. That’s enough.”

Troy set his jaw and rebalanced himself, wiping the cold rain from his brow as he followed the section of bulbs that appeared to be disconnected from the rest. There. The string was unplugged.

He grimaced, wondering if it was a great idea to connect them in this weather.

“Bryna, go flick off the power switch to all the lights,” he shouted.

“What?”

He repeated his request and then waited. The lights that were working went black. He dried off the prongs with part of his shirt and plugged them in just as the electricity came back on, giving him the jolt of his life as he was releasing the cord.

“I thought I told you to turn them off!” he shouted at his cousin.

“I did!” Bryna was under him again.

“I’m sorry,” Frixos said. “I saw that they were off and switched them back on.”

Troy carefully descended the ladder. “No worries.”

He just hoped he didn’t have contact burns from the jolt.

At any rate, things could have been worse. He could have been making the wet connection at the same time the switch was flicked and ended up one very large bulb in the middle of the string.

“There,” he said, standing next to Bryna and considering his handiwork.

“There’s a burned-out bulb over there.”

He stared at her.

“Right. I think I’ll be going now to pick up the liquor at O’Brien’s Pub that Bobby Schwartz promised.”

“You do that.”

While he saw to the half-dozen other things he needed to before they opened up the doors in seven short hours…

“L
OOKS LIKE YOU HAVE MORE
than that baby in the oven,” Percy said to Elena as he came into the kitchen, dressed for the party in a natty black smoking jacket.

Troy grimaced at this father, who had been little help all day and then back at Elena, whose face looked waxy and pale. Given the way she was sweating, and the heat of the room with both ovens running, shouldn’t she be flushed?

He wiped his hands on the apron he had on as the
two of them, along with Bryna, worked hard to get the first of the evening’s finger foods ready.

People were already arriving and Troy sent his father to welcome them.

“Are you all right?” he asked Elena when she not so much rubbed her baby bump as grasped it, as if trying to hold it in.

She nodded and tried for a smile that somehow didn’t quite hit the mark. “I’m fine.” She waved him away. “You’d better get those out of the oven before they burn.”

Bryna beat him to it, exchanging the two trays of Greek cheese pastries inside with two fresh ones.

Caleb arrived and came into the kitchen with his mother, Percy following behind them. “Look who’s here,” he announced.

Troy frowned at the way his father fawned over Phoebe Payne, taking her coat when one of servers they’d hired for the night offered to see to it. He handed it to the girl who went to hang the expensive jacket in the front closet.

Bryna rounded the counter island and kissed her on either cheek before turning to Caleb and greeting him affectionately. While there was nothing overtly carnal about the mild display, everyone in the room glanced away nonetheless.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, taking off her apron. She put the neck strings over his head and then helped him out of his jacket, which she neatly
folded over a nearby chair. “I need you on oven duty while I go make sure the girls have stocked the two bars to specification.”

“I can check the bars,” he protested.

Bryna laughed. “Sorry. I need to get out of this kitchen before I melt completely.”

Then she was gone.

“Has anyone seen Ari yet?” Troy asked again, maneuvering two trays of cooling hors d’oeuvres over Elena’s head, looking for a place to put them.

She glanced at him. “I haven’t heard from him all day. Which is not like him. I’ve left three messages on his voice mail.” She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “I hope everything’s okay.”

Troy’s concern for her notched up. “I’m sure he is. Patience says he called her at home for a couple phone numbers earlier this afternoon.”

He hadn’t taken the message, Percy had. And when he’d tried to contact her to inquire which numbers Ari had been looking for, she’d been out, likely getting her hair done for tonight’s event.

“The gift bags!” Elena sputtered.

Troy gently grasped her shoulders to calm her. “Are being filled by two of the girls we hired. Don’t worry about it.”

Elena’s mother had arrived an hour earlier and was stocking the buffet tables in the other room along with Verna, who had closed the diner early.

The caterer had yet to arrive, but that was beyond
his control, so the guests would have to make due until they brought the two honey-baked hams, large slab of roast beef and two turkeys with sides for which they’d been contracted.

They expected to entertain nearly two hundred and fifty people, and had set up a large tent with tower heaters on the back deck. Through the house’s sound system, classic holiday music would play until the quartet he’d hired arrived to take over in the front room near the fireplace.

They weren’t due for another hour. Why, then, did he hear the piano already?

He glanced to find his father and Phoebe missing and had his answer.

Christ, if Philippidis showed up to find Percy romancing his romantic interest…

Then again, what did it matter? He straightened his shoulders. The contract was signed. The deal done.

“What are you grinning about?” Caleb grumbled, juggling trays around him.

“It’s Christmas, man. What isn’t there to grin about?”

Movement near the kitchen door. He found himself looking for the one person he’d been hoping to see all day: Kendall.

But it wasn’t her. Instead, he found Ari shrugging out of his rain-soaked overcoat. His expres
sion looked as dark as the winter night outside the windows.

“We need to talk,” he said to Troy soberly.

“No talking allowed,” Elena objected, handing her fiancé a tray. “Work now, talking later. Take those out to my mom in the dining room. She’ll know where to put them.”

That’s odd, Troy thought, watching his brother’s serious countenance. He didn’t like the look of that.

He motioned for one of the girls. “Here,” he said, putting his apron on her. “They’ll tell you what needs to be done.”

“But…I don’t cook.”

“I’ll make sure you’re compensated double for the effort,” he said, his mind on finding out what Ari wanted to tell him.

He didn’t wait for her response as he rounded the counter, accepting another tray from Elena on his way out. But by the time he got to the dining room, Ari was nowhere to be seen. He handed the tray off to Elena’s mother and then turned toward the main room, surprised to find it already full of people.

One moment there were just a couple, the next the place seemed to be bursting at the seams.

He caught one of the girls serving a tray full of beer bottles and wine glasses, instructing her to encourage the guests into the library and dining room. He walked a little farther into the main room,
greeting guests as diverse as night and day. There was Mr. Clayborn, whose family was as deeply connected to Earnest as the Metaxases, in a formal tux, while next to him stood Barney, the owner of the only filling station in town, in his barn jacket and red-and-black-checked flannel shirt.

Troy greeted them with equal warmth, enquiring about their families and businesses, his gaze still sweeping the room for his brother. Instead of finding him, he verified his suspicions about his father when he found him at the piano, a smiling Phoebe leaning against the side, a happy audience of one even though several couples were also gathered there, singing along with Percy.

Troy thought about pulling his father away, inventing some bit of business that he needed to see to, but another few guests stepped in front of him to offer their well wishes and compliments and he graciously accepted them.

Then, all at once, the morphing crowd seemed to part and his gaze settled on the door opening to their latest arrival.

Kendall.

Troy’s breath snagged in his throat at the sight of her. She had yet to spot him, her blond hair catching the light as she looked around. She wore a fire-engine red knit dress that was perfect for the occasion, with just a hint of impropriety about it in the short hem and the off-the-shoulder top.

Damn, but the woman did something to him. He instantly felt both calm and excitable. Every other thought was chased from his head to be replaced by an almost overwhelming desire to kiss her. To fold her into his arms and slide his hand up to see if the dark hose she wore ended in garters.

Her gaze finally met his.

For a moment, a brief moment, she looked relieved and happy to see him.

Then the same expression she’d worn the day before darkened her pretty face.

Troy didn’t care. She was here. And that was all that mattered….