The Sweetest Hours (Harlequin Superromance) (24 page)

With the gentle, calming music Rhiannon now had playing in the background, Kristin would have to call this a haven of healing every bit as soothing as the beeswax and botanicals-scented storage closet that Kristin used to retreat to at Aura.

“Rhiannon, do you want to join us for lunch later?” Malcolm asked.

“Sure,” Rhiannon said. “Where are you working today?”

“In the castle dining room,” Malcolm answered.

Interesting. The dining room wasn’t exactly private—there were no doors, and anybody could wander in and out to grab a cup of tea from the sideboard at any time.

As if reading her expression, Malcolm murmured to her, “We can’t get distracted by each other today. There’s a lot at stake for us with this report, Kristy.”

He was right. When it came to...whatever it was that was happening between them, she and Malcolm had everything to gain for it to work.

And everything to lose if it didn’t.

* * *

E
IGHT
HOURS
LATER
, Malcolm sat at the large, bare dining table, stretching his arms overhead. Papers were spread out over the table between him and Kristin, plus a portable printer. Malcolm had a spreadsheet set up on his computer—actually, several spreadsheets. He’d been in a nonstop, laptop-typing frenzy. He knew his uncle’s tastes, and they tended toward numbers and graphs. Malcolm had grabbed everything he could find relating to data.

He’d spent all day creating spreadsheets and reports and filling in projected numbers for the Born in Vermont proposal. The document Kristin had brought to his uncle hadn’t included forecasts—it contained mostly ingredients’ lists, supplier costs and manufacturing costs. Malcolm was doing his best to fill in the blanks for expected sales and profits, coming up with something that would be useful in convincing his uncle.

Kristin was doing her part, too. Nobody could say they weren’t giving it their all. They were moving through Laura’s slim, bound original report, going product by product, deciding what should be included in an initial phase, and what should not.

Kristin was using an old laptop of his and was tapping in her own data that she’d uploaded from home on the Cloud.

He scrolled to the bottom of his screen and looked at his current set of summary totals.

The numbers, unfortunately, were bleeding red. Malcolm was coming up short on all counts, no matter what angle he tried changing.

Kristin took a sheet of paper from the printer. She frowned, too. Even she knew that, so far, it wasn’t looking all that great.

“What are we missing?” she asked. “These numbers aren’t showing a reason for your uncle to invest in this product line.”

He forced a smile at her. No way was he giving her any reason to give up hope. It also didn’t help him that it took everything he had to concentrate on what he was doing. “We’ll just have to keep trying.”

“You’re invested in this as much as I am,” she noted.

“Sure. Why not?”

“No reason.” She had a goofy smile on her face. Again, she held his gaze. Her lips parted, and she leaned back in her chair.

He closed his eyes and scrubbed his hand over his face. He wanted so damn badly to make love to her again. For half the day he’d been aroused. And she was...well...

Her nipples were hard under her thin shirt. Her eyelids were hooded.

But instead of the answers he needed coming to him, his gaze kept drifting back to her. Then when he looked at her, he would find her doing the same to him. Kristin would blush and turn back to the pages. The pattern would be repeated.

For the hundredth time that day, he closed his eyes. “I am so far gone,” he said aloud.

“Malcolm?”

He hadn’t meant to say that. For one thing, it made no sense for him. He worked at
Sage.
His allegiance was to his family.

But, if Aura were kept open, even in a smaller capacity, then he would have reason to visit Kristin in America.

The thought slammed him like a ton of bricks.

He glanced up at her again. She was gazing thoughtfully at him, too.

He
needed
to make this work, for both parties.

“We’re really a team,” she asked him, “aren’t we?”

He smiled at her, just as Rhiannon breezed inside. “How is the Lord of the Spreadsheet doing?”

Kristin snickered.

“Paul said to move you two along,” Rhiannon said cheerily. “He wants to set the table for formal dinner. All five of us tonight.”

Malcolm glanced at Rhiannon. “We’re actually kind of busy.”

“No,” Rhiannon insisted. “You need to bring Kristin to eat with Mum and Dad, Malcolm.”

He glanced at Kristin. He had not invited her to sit with his parents since, well...the first day she’d come to the castle and they’d had tea. And a lot had happened since then.

“Are you up for that?” he asked Kristin.

“Well...” she said. “It probably would be a good thing, seeing as it looks like I’ll be a guest at the wedding they’re hosting.”

She was right, of course. And it was just another reason to put Malcolm on edge. He loved his parents, but at this stage of his life, he probably only shared meals with them a handful of times per year. And never with a woman accompanying him. But most important, he didn’t want this to be just another source of stress that could send Kristin flying away from him.

* * *

A
FTER
DINNER
, K
RISTIN
went searching for Malcolm. “You’ve been gone a long time. Are you all right?” she asked.

Malcolm was in the Laird MacDowall’s wine cellar, formerly a whisky cellar for the old castle. Malcolm was sitting on a low shelf, holding a bottle of port, just staring into the distance.

When he heard the scuff of her shoes on the stone floor, he straightened. “Sorry. Things were going so well with you and my family that I let my mind wander. I actually got a thought that the answer to our dilemma might be to change the pricing model. That would adjust our profit numbers across the board and we could—”

Kristin laughed and put her fingers to his lips. “As much as I appreciate your working so hard on my account,” she teased, “I’m not impressed by the fact that you appear to be a workaholic.”

“I’m really not,” he protested.

“Then prove it to me.” Kristin stepped close to him and ran her hands up his strong forearms, feeling the slight hairs beneath the sleeve of his jacket, and then farther up, to his strong shoulders. She gazed up at him, holding his eyes, feeling so full that she needed to take a deep breath.

Malcolm was a good man. The longer she’d sat with him and his family at dinner, the more she had trusted him, and them. She was probably even falling in love with him a little.

Maybe her feelings were still a bit skittish, but if she was afraid of being tied down, then in many respects, Malcolm was the perfect guy for her. He lived so far away, after all. He was safe.

She moved in, stepping between his legs, pressing her torso to his. He moved his hand to the small of her back. Lightly first, but then pressing.

She stood on her tiptoes, stretching her feet inside the constricting boots she wore, and extended her spine to press her lips to his in a kiss.

She just seemed so full of pent-up passion. He seemed to be, too.

If their kiss outside the ruins of her family’s castle had been chaste, this one was fiery. She couldn’t be sure who started it; it seemed to be both at the same time, but they were deliciously slashing and mingling the kiss with their tongues. “I can’t keep my hands off you,” he gasped.

“Stay with me again tonight,” she insisted.

“Your room. It’s safer. You’re on the quiet corridor.”

“Agreed.” She went back to kissing him.

He ran his hands up her back, to the base of her scalp, his fingers massaging. She made a small moan. She was in heaven with him, this solid, rock fortress of a man.

He broke the kiss. His hands still cradled the base of her scalp and his forehead pressed to hers. He spoke as if he was out of breath: “Kristy, I may be daft for saying this now, but if you keep this up much longer, I’ll have to have you on the floor of this cellar, and I really don’t want that, because anybody could wander in here at any time.”

She laughed, straight from her diaphragm. “That, and we might never get anything else done, including that report that needs to be approved by your uncle.”

“Aye. About that.” He wiped his hand with his mouth. “You know why I’m down here, thinking so much about pricing models? It’s because I really want to pull this off for you. If I can’t—if we can’t pull this off together—are you still going to want to be in bed with me before you leave?”

Stunned, she didn’t answer. Put like that...

In the darkness, he shook his head at her. “Think about that one, Kristy. Think long and hard.”

* * *

K
RISTIN
DID
THINK
about what Malcolm had said, and the answer was simple. And since he hadn’t come to her room as he’d promised, she went to his.

A crack of light shone beneath the door. Earlier, she’d heard the shower running, but now it was silent inside. She had no idea how much longer he would be awake, so if she was serious, then she needed to act now.

She wanted him, physically, at least. She’d felt the need building in her, longer and more intense with each passing hour that they’d spent in the same room together. Looking over his shoulder, so close that she could smell the soap he’d used on his skin. The shampoo she’d given him—her shampoo, in his hair.

Every time his smoldering, intense blue eyes had turned to her, she’d felt herself melting a bit more. It was delicious torment. Sensations that she hadn’t let herself feel in years.

Last night, when he’d said, “You are perfect to me, Kristy,” that had unlocked something in her soul that had seemed to set her free, to give her permission to actually believe it herself.

That belief freed her. And it had changed everything between them, which was more important than either answer to the question he had posed to her.

There was no doubt about it, Malcolm was a good man. She certainly cared about him—at least, she did in this moment. Beyond that, Kristin wasn’t sure just yet how much of herself she could offer him.

But now, tonight, she had made her choice. He could reject what she offered, but she didn’t think he would.

Knocking softly, she turned the door handle. It was dark, and though the light was on in the walk-in closet, from the doorway, she couldn’t see him. She shut the outside door.

At the noise it made, Malcolm stepped into the room. He wore nothing but a white towel wrapped low around his hips.

She stared at the towel, and then she looked into his eyes. They were steady and burning. It emboldened her.

She crossed the room and, when she got to him, laid her palm flat on his chest. His heart beat slowly beneath her hand. His skin was damp and warm from the shower.

“May I?” she whispered.

She held her breath, waiting for his answer.

* * *

M
ALCOLM
STOOD
,
STUNNED
. He had not expected her to come to his room.

“Follow me,” he said. “We’re going to your end of the corridor. I want us to make as much noise as we please.”

She put her hand over her mouth, but he could tell she was smiling. He tossed on a pair of jeans and led the way, barefoot and shirtless.

Once inside her guest room, she turned and locked her door.

Without a word she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. And then, with both hands, undid his jeans button and zipper and slid the pants over his hips until they dropped to the floor.

It was mind-blowing for him.
He
was the natural leader. He’d directed people his entire life. Until he’d met Kristin, this free woman who did as she chose. Who always surprised him. Who utterly fascinated him.

She was the one who slipped a condom on him—new, this time, from a box she must have bought—which made his heart just crash.

This was not the time to think about it, but, in the past, he’d only known women to
want
to get pregnant with him. His last relationship, years ago, had ended when he’d realized what was happening. “You are perceived as being rich, Malcolm,” his uncle used to lecture him, even when Malcolm was a teen away in boarding school in America. “You need to be careful, always vigilant, if you don’t want to be trapped.”

Kristin had no desire to trap him. She didn’t want his money or his notoriety.

She just wanted
him.

* * *

M
ALCOLM
WOKE
FROM
a light doze. The sun hadn’t risen yet but would any minute. Faint light was coming through the window.

Kristin was wrapped in his arms, sleeping on his chest. From head to toe, she was stretched out against him, and it felt damn good.

He ran his fingers through her hair, the strands just tickling his nose. Lightly he kissed her, his sleeping beauty, but she was exhausted and didn’t wake.

Very soon the rest of the house would be waking. Just four other people besides them for the time being, but before long it would be bedlam, with cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents all starting to trickle in for the family meeting and then the wedding. That just gave him extra impetus to work as hard as he could to find the angle toward keeping Born in Vermont open and functioning.

If Kristin couldn’t move to Scotland and work at Byrne Glennie, then Malcolm could at least hope to schedule frequent business trips to Vermont to check on their investment. That was his personal hope for Born in Vermont. Kristin, he knew, had her community and her people for her motivation.

Malcolm had her.

Oh, Kristy.
Everything he’d said to her in these past few days had been the honest truth.

He needed to get a start on the day. They had just a few hours until the castle was invaded—twenty-four hours or so until his uncle arrived for the presentation.