The kiss seemed to last a lifetime, but when a boat’s horn blared across the lake, bringing him to his senses, he pulled his mouth from hers. It hadn’t been long enough, and yet every second was too long when it came to his professional integrity.
She trembled in his arms.
Realizing how inappropriate that kiss had been, he let go of her and took a small step back. “Sorry. I guess I got carried away.” He wasn’t used to feeling guilt over a woman, and he really didn’t like it.
“Oh. No harm done.”
She stepped back, as well. Gave him a long, piercing look, her eyes hot with the same urge he was fighting. When he pulled himself back mentally, she seemed to realize it and appeared embarrassed.
He picked up the beer bottle and wineglass from the railing. “We should call it a night.” That would be the best move, before things got out of hand. “Do you want the rest of your wine?”
“Want…Um, no. You can take it.”
“I’ll just get rid of these, then we can lock up.”
When he got to the bar, he dumped what was left, then looked for her. She’d left without a word, leaving him to lock up.
Maybe that was for the best.
Thorne called himself every kind of fool for kissing her, no matter that the softness of her lips and the heat of her mouth had rocked his world. What had he been thinking? Her father had hired him to protect Katelyn, not to seduce her.
If he wasn’t careful, he could fall for her. Hard.
He couldn’t let himself get too close again.
Chapter 5
“We’ve had a couple of calls inquiring about available rooms this morning.” Natalie Woodcock, the assistant manager of the Lakeside Guest House, punched her glasses back in place as she turned her sharp green eyes from her computer to Katelyn. “I told them we are full but could accommodate them tomorrow afternoon if they are going to be in town for more than the weekend.”
“Great,” Katelyn said. As it had been since the season started, the guest house would be full on both weekend nights. “Though only two rooms will be available.”
To her relief, all the other rooms were rented for longer terms.
“Did you ever figure out what that weird noise was we heard the other day?” Natalie asked.
“Apparently Radtke was making some kind of repair in the basement. He took offense when I asked about it.”
Natalie clucked. “That man has some attitude!”
The phone rang and Natalie answered it. “Lakeside Guest House.”
Thankfully, the assistant manager worked weekends year-round and part-time during the week during the busy season. If she hadn’t, Katelyn would have gone out of her mind trying to run both parts of the business alone. Remembering Thorne had suggested she get a backup manager for the café, she had to admit he’d had a valid point about hiring someone to help her. One that she should consider.
Not that she wanted to think about Thorne or anything that had gone down between them the night before.
Katelyn straightened up the display of flyers for local attractions, but her mind was still on her new bartender. After that kiss, she hadn’t expected him to go back to being distant. He’d made her come alive like no man ever had before. One kiss and she’d imagined it might be the start of something good.
Exciting.
Hot.
Despite his nonchalant attitude afterward, she hadn’t been able to forget the way he’d made her feel. Her body had betrayed her. Once she was in bed just thinking about him, she’d tossed and turned long enough that she’d chosen to do something about it. With his face filling her mind, her body had responded, her nipples hardening, her clit already wet when she’d touched it. All the while thinking of his hands on her, his fingers in her, she’d quickly gone over the edge.
With sleep had come dreams.
Erotic.
Him.
When she’d awakened in the middle of the night, he was all she could think about. Pleasuring herself again, she’d slipped into a fantasy world, doing things to Thorne Hudson and having him do things to her she’d never before tried.
Just thinking about it now turned her on.
She could imagine luring him into some dark corner….
If only she had someone she could talk to about him, but her so-called best friend back in Milwaukee had no time to chitchat. Since Jennie had gotten married last year, she’d grown nearly impossible to reach.
Katelyn considered using Natalie as a sounding board. The warm, charming woman with frizzy red hair appeared to be in her mid-forties. A mother figure, so to speak. Her own mother never wanted to talk about men, other than to warn Katelyn about the pitfalls of relationships. Surprisingly, though Mom had vowed never to let a man wield influence over her, she’d married and moved to Michigan while Katelyn was in college. They rarely saw each other, but Katelyn knew her mother was happily in love with her husband.
Just as she was about to broach the subject of men, Katelyn was interrupted by the Stewarts, a young married couple who wanted some information about the activities available in and around Lake Geneva. Katelyn gave them some fun tips on shopping and a local festival.
“What about boating?” the man said. “We are on a good-size lake.”
Katelyn gathered a few brochures and handed them to him. “Here’s information on boat rentals. Lakeside also has a smaller speedboat for rent, though it was just used and we need to fill the tank, so it’s not available today.”
“I’d rather go on a little cruise than rent a boat,” the woman said, poking her husband.
“Check out the brochure for the U.S. Mailboat Tour,” Katelyn suggested. “At one time, all the Lake Geneva mail was delivered by boat. Now only about seventy-five homes have it. It’s a two-and-a-half-hour cruise that’ll get you back to town for lunch.”
“Sounds like fun.” The woman looked to the man, who was already leading her out the door. “Honey?”
“How about we do that and then rent a boat?”
“I want some time for shopping today, too.”
Smiling, Katelyn waved them off. Then she turned to Natalie to initiate that conversation she wanted to have about Thorne. Luckily, just before she could bring up anything personal, a familiar male voice froze her in place. “Katelyn.”
Her pulse threaded unevenly and her lips curved upward of their own volition as she turned to face him. When she saw the man standing there, her smile instantly faded.
He was good-looking in a way that was completely different from Thorne Hudson. Not quite six feet tall, with a medium build, he had what she had once considered mesmerizing brown eyes. A splash of brown hair over a high forehead gave him kind of a jaunty look. He was a man most women would consider attractive. And eligible. Too bad that, in her book, he was nothing more than an upscale con man.
“Aaron Starkman, what are you doing here?”
“I came to see you, Katelyn. I was worried when you didn’t answer my phone calls.” His expression sincere, he asked, “Can we talk?”
Katelyn didn’t see a way out of it. She knew that sincere expression was interchangeable with any one of many he adopted to get what he wanted—his MO. How had Aaron won her over with so many lies? She was a reasonable judge of character, so how had she missed it for so long? Too bad she hadn’t realized what a liar he was sooner in their relationship. Then things never would have gotten so far. If Aaron had driven from Milwaukee to see her, he wasn’t going to be put off so easily, though she certainly didn’t want to talk here. The closest place for privacy was her apartment, but inviting him into her private quarters would be a bad move. He might get the wrong idea, and she didn’t want to deal with him making some kind of move on her.
“We can go into the café,” she suggested. “It’s not open for brunch for another hour.”
“Fine. Wherever you want.”
She didn’t want anything to do with Aaron Starkman anymore. That was the problem. It was the reason she’d refused to tak
e his calls. But obviously, he was giving her no choice in the matter.
Putting on her best face, she indicated the door. “This way.”
Aaron followed her lead, talking as they walked. “I understand why you wanted to set up a business here,” he said as they moved outside from the guest house’s lobby just as a couple carrying bags walked in. He glanced back at them. “A very popular town during summer. You should make a small fortune.”
Katelyn followed the walkway that went downhill toward the lake and rounded the building to the café’s public entry. “That’s not why I chose to buy the business.”
“You bought it to lose money?”
She had to unclench her jaw before saying, “Of course I want it to be successful, but money wasn’t the prime motivator. I bought it to make myself happy.”
“So your father’s the co-owner.” He made it sound like a given.
“No, Daddy has nothing to do with my business.”
“Really. I just assumed…Well, I can only imagine the kind of down payment you must have needed for a place like this.”
Heat seared her neck. She wasn’t about to admit she’d bought the business with the trust fund she’d never told Aaron about. It was none of his concern, but he was just as focused on her father and on money as he had been when she’d been involved with him. Too bad she hadn’t realized his intentions sooner, before he’d been able to hurt her so badly.
“Here we are,” she muttered, opening the door to the café. The first thing she saw as they entered was Thorne already behind the bar, setting up glasses. The instant he looked her way, she turned to Aaron. “Let’s go sit out on the patio.”
“A perfect day for it. A place with an incredible lake view is bound to be packed once you open for brunch.”
Aaron tried to put his hand on her back, but she shrugged it off.
She felt Thorne’s eyes on her as she wended her way between tables to get outside. Why? What was his deal? How high or low was his emotional temperature today? Would he continue to be distant or would he decide to be friendly after going from one to the other last night?
Most of the staff had already arrived and were setting up tables and wait stations. The umbrellas were up, providing comfortable shade. Katelyn picked a spot overlooking the water, as far away from Thorne as she could manage. She waited for Aaron to sit, then took a chair across from rather than next to him so he wasn’t close enough to touch her.
Wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible, she didn’t go for the niceties. “Speak your piece,” she said.
Aaron had the audacity to look hurt by her directness. “First, I wanted to tell you in person how sorry I am that I was such a disappointment to you.”
As if she would believe a word out of his mouth.
“You did more than disappoint me, Aaron.” For months, she’d mistakenly thought they’d had a really good relationship that might be going somewhere. “You fulfilled my every sorry expectation when it comes to trusting men.”
“It was all a misunderstanding,” he said.
Another lie, if she’d ever heard one. “So now you’re saying you didn’t seek me out and develop a personal relationship with me so you could get to my father?”
“Look, I’m ashamed of myself for the way our relationship began. But then I got to know you, and it turned into something far different.”
Lies and more lies. She raised an eyebrow to counter the intense expression he had adopted, making it clear she wouldn’t be foolish enough to believe him again.
“The reason you tried to get me to convince my father to give you an executive position at Hamilton Precision Weapons?”
Oddly enough, that was the company that had manufactured the assault rifle used to kill the seven people at Bascom College. The deaths being the supposed reason he’d been calling her and leaving messages every day since. Thankfully, she’d never carried through with Aaron’s demand that she call.
“I wanted to be worthy of you.”
“What made you think you weren’t?”
“C’mon, Katelyn. You belong to a family of wealth and power. I had a decent position, but I wouldn’t have been husband material for a woman of your stature.”
Katelyn shook her head. She’d never told anyone how she was the odd child out in that family, so it was no wonder he’d assumed that. No matter what her father had tried to do to include her, his wife, and her half-siblings certainly had never brought her into the fold. She’d grown up always feeling like the paltry castoff.
And when she’d finally figured out why Aaron had romanced her, he’d made her feel the same way. She’d simply been a stepping-stone to his real goal. He’d made her feel as worthless as her father’s real family had.
She said, “You couldn’t be more mistaken, Aaron. I’m not a Hamilton. I’m a Wade. I don’t care what a man does for a living, only that he’s committed to what he does do.”
“Then you should know I landed a great new job a few months back.” Aaron aimed his most beguiling smile at her. “That should relieve your mind. I’ll tell you all about it. It’s a big surprise, but come to dinner with me tonight and I’ll give you every detail.”
“Dinner? Why?”
“I was, um, hoping that maybe we could clear the air between us. Start over.”
“What?” Did he really think his charm would work on her now?
“I’ve never stopped thinking about you, Katelyn. I want you back.”
“Why?”
“Because I still love you.”
No way was Katelyn buying one word of this act. “Oh, please. You loved the idea of being Robert Hamilton’s son-in-law.”
“That was just an added bonus—”
“Cut the crap, Aaron! If you cared, you wouldn’t have waited this long to contact me.” That he had waited meant he had some other motive for seeking her out.
For a moment, his expression shifted to something akin to aggressive, reminding her of how hostile he could be when provoked—something that had bothered her more and more the longer she’d been with him. He had a dark side that he normally kept hidden, but she’d seen it once too often for her liking, especially when he didn’t get what he wanted.
Then his features went slack and he insisted, “I didn’t know where you were.”
“I was still living in Milwaukee until early March. That gave you four months to do your song and dance.”
“My pride was hurt. Then, with the shootings, I worried for your safety, and I realized how foolish I’d been.”
“I have nothing to do with Daddy’s companies.”
“Some people won’t care.”
Katelyn’s pulse ticked. Did he know about the threat her father had received? Her father—he’d wanted her to have a bodyguard, and she’d refused. Surely he couldn’t have made some kind of secret deal with Aaron to watch over her.
“Why do you say that?” she asked, glaring at him. “And why worry?”
“It would be human nature for anti-gun militants to care. Who knows what they might do?”
Now she was getting truly uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation. And suspicious. Daddy hadn’t really known about Aaron other than the fact that she’d dated him and then had broken up with him. She didn’t discuss details of her romantic life with her father. She could only imagine how he’d try to exercise control over her relationships if she did. Despite his supposed new job, Aaron might have gone to her father in some convoluted attempt to impress him.
“How did you find me anyway?” she demanded.
“I called Jennie.”
“Jennie told you where to find me?” Dumbfounded, she couldn’t believe her best friend knew that Aaron was in hot pursuit of her and didn’t issue a warning. “Why in the world would she give you the time of day?”
“She believes in true love.”
“There is no true love here!” Katelyn leaped to her feet. “I have no interest in you anymore, Aaron, so give it up.”
&
nbsp; He shook his head but rose to look her in the eye. “I’m not going to give it up so easily.”
“Well, you’re out of time. I need to get to work. You need to get back to Milwaukee and start looking for a different way to get to the top.”
“I understand if you don’t believe me—yet. But I want you back because I care so deeply for you—”
“Enough!”
“—and I’m going to prove it.”
“You’ll simply be wasting your time.” She indicated the exit. “It’s that way out.”
Aaron gave her a long, lingering, simulated heartfelt look that was clearly intended to put doubt in her mind. All it did was make her more impatient to see the last of him.
But would it be the last? she wondered as she watched him walk away. She’d thought she was rid of him for good, and here he was back on her doorstep, darkening what had started as a bright and positive day. Jennie had told him where to find her? More likely her father had had a hand in this one. Wait until she had a word with him!
After her ex-boyfriend left the café, she turned to find Thorne’s gaze glued to her. Ignoring him, she made for the kitchen. Anything to get her mind on something other than men.
—
Thorne was relieved when Katelyn sent the stranger on his way. Who was this guy? Hamilton hadn’t said his daughter was seeing anyone. But this had been no business meeting. He’d been too far away to hear anything they’d said, but he could certainly read body language. And he hadn’t missed the thundercloud surrounding Katelyn when she’d given the guy the boot.
Dare he ask about it?
He kept the thought at the back of his mind, but when Katelyn made for the café to start seating customers who were drifting in for brunch, she wasn’t smiling. Oh, hell. Who was that guy and what had he wanted of her? The last was a stupid question, of course. Thorne hadn’t missed the way the man had so familiarly put his hand on Katelyn’s back. Nor had he missed the way she’d shrugged it off. They’d had a relationship. The guy who’d called her the morning they’d shared breakfast? Aaron somebody. She’d said he’d been calling her a lot lately. How lately? Since the shooting?
His Deception Page 6
