If he wasn’t an award-winning skier, then who was he? The business didn’t count. Heading up Stone River Outdoors was what he did, not who he was.
Unfortunately, the tenets that applied to being an elite athlete didn’t translate to relationships. He’d never known his mother. Though he was tight with his siblings, he had no sisters. His father had governed their family life with authoritarian might. Any inkling of softer emotions had been beaten out of the Stone boys with a belt or a paddle.
Quin had suffered more than he needed to, because he was stubborn and wouldn’t give his father the satisfaction of seeing him cry. Maybe he was screwed from the beginning when it came to understanding the female sex. He didn’t have much to offer any woman in the way of emotional intimacy, which was why his romantic liaisons tended toward the brief and expedient. He couldn’t train for the kind of closeness women wanted.
Katie had been the first female to make him wonder whether he had it in him to fall in love. And look how that had turned out.
He cursed as more sweat rolled into his eyes. This was nuts. He was letting her presence in his house disrupt his recovery. She was temporary. There was no going back to the past.
Only because he refused to be a coward did he shower and return to the office down the hall.
Katie looked up with a smile. “Oh good. I had a pile of questions and couldn’t go much further without your input.”
How could she be so damned happy all the time? Did she really feel none of the desperate need that was consuming him from the inside out?
Ten minutes later Quin found himself sitting elbow to elbow with his former lover, the two of them poring over reports and data that had to be reconciled and disseminated to the appropriate department heads.
Every time he leaned in to check a figure or answer a question, he inhaled her familiar scent. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, he salivated inwardly, his body on high alert. His enforced celibacy, combined with the advent of this extraordinary woman into his monastic existence, made him horny and desperate and despairing.
How was he going to survive an entire six weeks without pouncing on her? It wasn’t a pretty picture.
Katie, on the other hand, barely seemed to notice he was around. She arose early in the mornings and went jogging through the forest. After that, he could hear her showering upstairs. Memories of what she looked like slick and wet tormented him.
When she arrived at the breakfast table every day, they made mundane conversation over their meal and then headed to the office and settled in to work. The teasing, flirtatious woman who sparred with him in the very beginning had disappeared. Perhaps, like Quinten, she had decided that the job at hand was more important than revisiting an old relationship.
By the beginning of week three, he’d had enough. If he didn’t get out of this house soon, he was going to expire from cabin fever.
When he found his temporary admin, she was in the process of scanning and emailing quality control reports to an independent contractor who would be visiting their manufacturing plant in a couple of months.
Katie glanced up at him. “Farrell called the landline. He said you weren’t answering your cell.”
Guilt assailed Quin. He’d been ignoring his phone all morning. “Anything urgent?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I think they worry about you.”
He felt his face heat. “I’m not a child. I’m in charge of the whole damn company.”
“I know that, Quin. They do, too. But you almost died, and you’ve had to give up something you love, at least temporarily. That would be a lot for anyone to handle, plus you lost your dad, as well.”
He scowled. “I won’t be smothered. I won’t do anything else stupid, I swear. But I won’t be smothered.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay. Would it be better if I gave you a break? I could go home and come back in a week.”
The thought startled him. “God, no. You’re not the problem. But I had an idea, and I was hoping you would agree.”
Now her stance was wary. “What kind of an idea?”
“Zachary has Broadway tickets to see Hamilton in New York this weekend with one of his interchangeable girlfriends. His date is ill, and he says he doesn’t want to look for a replacement on such short notice. Farrell mentioned to him that you’re a history buff, so they thought you might like to see the musical. With me,” Quin clarified.
“Oh.” Her cheeks flushed. “I’ve never been to New York. Always wanted to. How would we get there?”
“I’m not cleared to fly the jet yet, but I can hire a pilot to take us down and back. We’d have two hotel rooms, of course. You’d need something fancy for both evenings, and then casual wear in case we decide to go walking in Central Park. We can do some shopping if you’d like.”
She stared at him so long he had to fight the urge to fidget. “Quin?” she said.
“What?”
“Is this a ploy to seduce me?”
“Absolutely not.” He bristled. “I do occasionally think of other people besides myself. I wanted you to have some fun.”
“Calm down. I appreciate the sentiment, but you’re not stupid. You have to know I still want you.”
His jaw dropped before he caught himself and snapped it shut. “You do?” he said hoarsely.
“Of course I do. You’re a handsome man. We share a past. We’re here together in this enormous house with no distractions. Believe me, though, if we ever decide we want to end up in bed again, it will have nothing to do with work. Are we clear?” Her challenging stare made his spine tingle.
“Yes, ma’am. Does that mean you’re up for a weekend in the big city?”
“I love the idea,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
Katie was in big trouble. She’d been striving to maintain a business-as-usual attitude while working with Quin. If he was going to whisk her away to one of the most romantic cities in the world, she might forget to protect her heart. But still she’d said yes. She wanted to be with him too badly to say no.
For the first time, she seriously pondered the implications of sleeping with him again. She was older and wiser now than the last time they’d dated. But she still wanted something that was out of reach. She wanted him to need her. Desperately. Not for a momentary sexual encounter, but in every way that a man could need a woman.
She was clear that she had made the right choice before. He cared more about skiing than he did about Katie or any woman. The truth hurt. And then there was the money thing. She and Quinten Stone didn’t come from different worlds; they came from opposite planets.
Breaking up with him two years ago had been the sensible thing to do.
Most people she knew worried about how often they could hit Starbucks each week without blowing their monthly food budgets. Quentin bought champagne like it was tap water.
His emotional distance and his careless attitude toward money bothered her still.
The big question was—could she let herself indulge in this once-in-a-lifetime trip and not end up sleeping with him? The temptation would be there, undoubtedly. Soon, Quin would no longer require her professional assistance. On a finite day and time in the near future, her work in his home would be done.
When Quinten was cleared to return to Portland and resume his full roster of responsibilities, Katie would be free to go back to her role as second in command of the R & D department as Farrell’s right-hand woman.
That day was still a few weeks away. What about all the lovely unpredictable moments in between?
For the remaining forty-eight hours until their departure, Quin made himself scarce. Katie buried herself in work. She was forced to email Quin her questions, because the frustrating man was tucked away somewhere in this big, lonely house.
By the time Friday morning rolled around, Katie’s mix of anxiety and excitement rose to fe
ver pitch. She had asked Quinten if they could stop in Portland and let her grab a few things she needed for the weekend. He had vehemently refused, insisting that she was on the company dime at the moment and that the CEO’s expense account would more than cover the cost of a couple of cocktail dresses.
He said that last bit dismissively, as if couture clothing was little more expensive than the price of a yoga top and pants or a college T-shirt. To him, it probably was.
At last, they were on the plane and airborne. Katie tried not to gawk. Two years ago, she hadn’t been Quin’s girlfriend long enough to warrant a journey in this sleek, utterly luxurious Cirrus Vision Jet. It was light and fast and nimble, the perfect vehicle for a fantasy weekend.
Quin talked to the pilot for a few minutes before returning to his seat beside hers. From the tiny built-in fridge at his side, he extracted two mini bottles of wine and a cellophane-wrapped tray of cheese, fruit and crackers.
“Have some,” he urged. “LaGuardia may be busy. Who knows how long it will be till lunch.”
“We just ate breakfast,” she protested. But still she took the glass he offered her, along with a selection of snacks.
The jet had large windows. The day was blue and bright. Nothing to fear, even for a novice traveler. It seemed as if they were gliding on clouds.
The wine must have given her Dutch courage. They’d been aloft less than an hour when she blurted out a question. “Is this how you feel when you’re flying down a mountain?”
He actually winced. For a moment, she glimpsed his raw grief. “You could say that,” he said, his shoulders hunched. “It’s the quiet and the freedom. I’ve never found anything else like it.”
After his painfully truthful answer, she was sorry she had brought it up. She didn’t want him to be sad. And she didn’t want to remind herself that skiing gave him something she couldn’t.
Today, he looked every inch the successful billionaire. His sport coat and slacks were perfectly tailored, drawing attention to his fit, muscular body. He’d brought along those tortoiseshell reading glasses. The ones that made her all gooey inside with lust.
“I never knew you wore glasses,” she said. “When did that happen?”
“During all those surgeries, it was too complicated to fool with contacts. I got these, and now it’s a habit, I guess. I see fine at a distance, but farsightedness runs in the family. Or maybe it was all those years of squinting into snow glare—who knows?”
All Katie knew was that she had a burning desire to see him naked in bed reading the Wall Street Journal with nothing but those sexy frames perched on his masculine nose.
They landed in New York and handled the formalities without issue. A private car met them as soon as they were done. Katie had a hard time not gawking. The traffic and the iconic yellow cabs and the tall buildings. Everywhere she looked, the city hummed and buzzed with activity.
The trip from the airport into the city was slow. She had plenty of time to drool over sidewalk flower shops, tiny art galleries, and eventually, on Madison Avenue, the glitzy storefronts of every high-end retail name in the world.
Quin had booked them rooms at the Carlyle on the Upper East Side. Katie adored the building on sight. She knew enough of the glamorous address to remember that Princess Diana had been known to stay here. The iconic hotel was only a block from the park and five blocks from the Met.
The bellman took them up to adjoining rooms on the thirty-second floor. With the drapes open wide, the view of Central Park was breathtaking. When the uniformed employee departed to deposit Quin’s suitcase in his room, Katie threw her arms around her ex-lover and gave him a quick hug. “My first trip to New York. Thank you, Quin. This is incredible.”
His pleased smile told her he was glad she was impressed. “Shopping next,” he promised. “Or maybe lunch first.”
“How about a hot dog vendor?” Katie asked. “I’ve always wanted to do that. And sit on a bench in the sun? What do you think?”
He gave her a wry look. “You won’t find any hot dog vendors in this rarified neighborhood. But I might be able to dig up a gourmet pizza place. Would that do?”
Over thick, tomatoey slices of cheesy goodness, Katie relaxed. Maybe she and Quin would have sex during this trip, and maybe they wouldn’t. She had a bad habit of overthinking things. As a self-confessed type A control freak, surely she could try to relax and see how the weekend unfolded.
It wouldn’t hurt her to loosen up a little.
When she and Quin were dating, they had argued about money a lot. She thought he threw his fortune away too easily, and Quin said Katie let her relatives sponge off her to an alarming extent.
To Katie, money was something a person shared and spread around to do good. Her parents had struggled to get by, but they had helped their neighbors. In Katie’s eyes, Quin—having the Stone fortune at his disposal—should have been a philanthropist.
In Quin’s defense, though, Katie had to admit she didn’t have healthy boundaries with the people she loved. As the only person of her extended family to have gone to college, she had ended up comfortably well off while her siblings and cousins lived paycheck to paycheck. Whenever she felt guilty for her blessings, she invariably let herself be manipulated into giving out loans that somehow were never repaid.
The hugest fight she and Quin ever had happened not long before she broke up with him. She had innocently asked his advice about rehab programs. When he questioned her, she admitted she was thinking about paying for her sister’s boyfriend to go into a treatment facility.
Quin had been both furious and incredulous. He pointed out that the boyfriend—who had been in and out of jail—was never likely to agree, and if he did, he wouldn’t last the course.
Katie called Quin callous. He’d told her she was naive and credulous. The bitter quarrel had colored what was left of their time together.
And then his father had intervened, and Katie’s humiliation had been complete.
Five
Quin had made the best of his passenger status on the jet, but he hated not being the one at the controls. It helped having Katie along.
He’d gotten a kick out of watching her face today as they traveled. She was bubbling over with excitement and not afraid to show it. Her enthusiasm for life was one of the qualities that had drawn him to her in the beginning. That and her limber, soft body.
The memories made him sweat.
Now, while he finished his pizza, he studied her again. She looked beautiful as always. Her pale blond hair was loose around her shoulders. Subtle eye shadow made her beautiful brown eyes sparkle. With her tailored black jacket and pants and a tangerine silk blouse, she looked as if she belonged among the throngs of Manhattan professional women out for lunch.
At the moment, Katie was chatting up their waiter. Quin watched as the handsome young man grew more animated. Katie coaxed him to talk about his theatrical dreams and how he missed his family back in Kansas. After three trips to the table for drink refills, fresh parmesan and extra napkins, the kid was halfway in love with Quin’s date.
It was nothing sexual that Katie did. She was simply Katie being Katie. The interest she showed in other people was genuine and authentic. Her sunny personality drew both men and women into her orbit. Everyone wanted to be her friend.
And Katie had said that she still wanted Quin.
The admission rocked him to the core. He was pretty sure she regretted saying it. If she still wanted him physically, why in the hell had they broken up? They had so much chemistry between them. Did she not realize that such an intense attraction was rare and wonderful?
Two years ago, she had wanted more from him. He knew it. And he resented the way she was always pressuring him to be a better man. What if the man he was didn’t get any better? What if being selfish was his default setting?
He’d had his share of casual sex before Katie
came along. Even a handful of what he would characterize as serious relationships. None of those women had kept him up nights wondering, wanting, wishing he could reset the clock and rewrite the past.
When Katie had given him the heave-ho, he’d been embarrassingly shocked. He’d thought they were doing great. How could he have been so blind to what was happening? He’d felt like a fool.
If it had been only his ego that had taken a hit, he probably would have brushed it off and taken his dismissal like a man. But he’d been so dazzled by Katie and drowning in raging lust, it had literally never occurred to him that the relationship was in danger.
Now, memories of the playful passion they once shared made him itchy and horny and desperate. Katie said she still wanted him, but what did that mean? If they were to resume a physical relationship, it would be on his terms this time.
At last, his patience for seeing another man flirt with Katie ran out. “We should go,” he said abruptly. “That is if you want time to pick up a few things for the weekend.” He held out his platinum card to the waiter.
When the kid disappeared, Katie gave Quin a placating smile. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable in any of these Madison Avenue stores. I brought several tops to swap out with what I have on now. And I threw in some running clothes and shoes. One of my friends at home came to a Broadway show recently. She told me you see people in jeans and sneakers all the way up to fancy stuff. I’ll be fine without anything new.”
Quin ground his teeth. The one sure thing he could offer Katie was pampering. He could wine and dine her and shower her with gifts. But the frustrating woman didn’t want his money. She had told him so on more than one occasion. How could they connect if she continually dismissed his strengths? Extravagance was his strong suit—that and hot sex. Katie was honest about wanting him. The rest of it didn’t seem to matter to her.
He debated his options. “I brought a tux for this evening,” he said. “But I can buy a suit to wear if it would make you more comfortable.”
Her eyes widened, aghast. “Don’t buy a new suit. I’m sure you have half a dozen or more at home.”
After Hours Seduction (The Men 0f Stone River Book 1) Page 4
