by K. M. Scott
Finally, I had gotten through all of my ideas and took a deep breath before finishing up with, “Of course, I’ll wait for your word on all of these things. You’ll be in charge of final approval for any and all projects we work on related to the inn. I won’t begin anything without your signed approval.”
“Sounds great,” he said, finishing the last of his meal and wine. “Now, let’s get back to us.”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. The man was incorrigible, just like he’d always been, and I began to think nothing I said or did would stop him from coming after me, so I needed to give it to him straight.
“Zane,” I said, taking a long drink and finishing off my own wine while he sat waiting for me to respond, staring at me with those deep brown eyes of his. “There is no us. I can’t make that any clearer for you. I don’t want to be overly harsh since I can see that you’re really making an effort to be charming and sweet, but there isn’t any us, and we need to get back to focusing on the task at hand, which is your inn.”
I set my hands on my lap and waited for him to respond, silently swearing to myself that I was going to stand my ground. I never had with Zane Gilford on any other occasion, so this would be a first.
But an important first.
He smiled and leaned in a little closer. “But there can be, Becca. I’m not the person you knew before. Let me prove that to you. Let me show you that I’m not just some spoiled little boy. I know we got off on the wrong foot when you stayed here last month, but you caught me at a weird time in my life.”
“And I am not as naïve as I used to be, Zane. Trust me on that. It’s much better for both of us that we just keep things professional.”
The look of confusion on Zane’s face was almost comical as he answered, “I should remind you, Becca, I’m not the type of man who gives up when he finds what he wants. You know that from the first time we got together.”
I let out a laugh as I pretended not to remember how insistently he pursued me when we first met. “Thanks for the warning.”
The whole ride back to the inn, I tried to get him to focus on what the advertising campaign I had planned would look like, and he tried to get me to forget work and focus on what it would be like if we got together again. We were both stubborn people, so neither one of us intended to give in to the other person.
He stopped the car and turned it off before shifting in his seat to face me. “What do you say to the two of us having a drink in my room?”
God, he was persistent! I had to give him that, but I had no intention of giving him anything else.
“Thank you for dinner, Zane. It was wonderful. I’m going to go to my room now and write up some more ideas I just thought of for the campaign. Do you want to meet again tomorrow around lunch to discuss everything?”
His mouth slowly inched up into a smile. “I like the idea of breakfast better. We can have it brought to my room and discuss things in bed.”
“You never quit, do you?”
Shaking his head, he slid his tongue across his bottom lip. “No.”
“No wonder your mother left the inn to you. She must have known your persistent streak would ensure the place continued to do well.”
His expression screwed into a grimace at my mention of the inn, but I didn’t give him a chance to reply before I opened the car door. “Thanks for a great dinner! See you for lunch tomorrow! You’re going to love the ideas I have for you.”
And with that, I left Zane sitting in his car wanting something I wouldn’t give him. Not that part of me didn’t want to. As much as my brain remembered what being with him felt like, my body remembered too and wished my heart would get on board so all of me could enjoy him again.
I closed the door to my room and took a deep breath. I’d successfully fended off Zane Gilford, and as I congratulated myself, I remembered all the reasons why it would be harder and harder each time to deny what my body already knew.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Zane
Instead of the usual banging on my door to let me know of some damn problem, the sun slowly woke me, and I felt more awake and alive than I had in a long time. I sat up and glanced out the window and saw some deer running toward the valley off in the distance. One of them was a huge buck with antlers larger than I had seen before. He ran proudly through the trees and leaped further than any of the herd behind him. It wasn’t often that I appreciated the majesty and beauty of nature, especially the likes of which could be seen at the inn, but I felt all kinds of different this morning.
As I got into the shower, I decided that I didn’t care what it took to get Becca. I was going to win that woman over. Becca Fox simply needed to fall in love with me. I didn’t care if it meant being different or what I had to change about myself. She would be mine, and when I decided I would have something or someone, it happened. Plain and simple.
I toweled myself off and shook the hair out of my eyes as I thought about her and what I needed to do to win her over. It would take some real effort, no doubt, but a woman like Becca was worth the time and effort. Hell, at least it would be a good way to make the months I had to spend at the inn go quicker.
Time at this place seemed to drag on, like I was in some kind of bizarre Twilight Zone episode or that movie Groundhog Day. Every day I woke up and walked downstairs, faced any number of ridiculous questions and issues from my staff, did work to keep the inn running, goofed off online for a while, drove into town to kill time, and then returned to do more of the same until I fell asleep at a time I would just be heading out back in California. Then the whole process repeated over and over again every day. If it hadn’t been for the dates on the paperwork I had to complete every morning and the different activities scheduled for guests at the inn, I probably wouldn’t have even been aware of what day it was anymore.
I sighed and closed my eyes. It felt like I’d been stuck at the inn for an eternity already, or at least for a year. I’d been all across the United States, and this was the one spot on the map where time seemed to stand still. I marked a day off the calendar I kept next to the small desk in my room and saw that it had only been two months.
“Fucking hell. Seriously?” I muttered to myself as I got dressed.
Two months? That meant I still had ten months left on the sentence I’d had imposed on me.
Well, at least I felt good about my new project. I had a ton of time on my hands, and instead of sitting around hating every second of it, I was going to use it to win over the woman I wanted. I’d always been good at finding ways to occupy my time like that, and Becca was definitely better than most of the things I’d gone after in my life.
As I walked down the stairs toward whatever nightmare awaited me, I looked at the pictures that hung on the walls for the first time. Not just glanced at them but really looked at who was in them and what they were doing. It was like going back in time with each step.
Some were pictures of the inn and the staff over the years, while others were of my mother and me. In every one she appeared in, she looked happy to be right where she was. I’d never felt that way a day I spent at this place.
I was a little boy in the ones closest to the room I stayed in, my mother’s former room, and by the time I reached the landing, the pictures were of me as a teenager. After that, all the pictures were of the people who worked at the inn. As soon as I could get away, I had and never looked back. I’d chosen to spend holidays at school whenever I could, and the day after graduation, I jumped in the car she’d given me and left for anywhere but there.
Standing on the landing, I stared at one of the last pictures taken of the two of us together. She sat outside near the edge of the woods in one of those uncomfortable Adirondack chairs wearing sunglasses and looking like one of those Hollywood actresses from the 1950s—poised and beautiful as she reclined in a white dress that showed off her long legs. I stood next to her looking awkward and irritated, a teenage boy with scruffy hair and gangly limbs who hadn’t grown into his body
yet but had more than enough attitude that came through loud and clear in my disgusted expression. I wanted to be anywhere else in the world than right there at that moment. She beamed a smile while I grimaced, an impatient, spoiled teenage boy.
As I looked at the scene captured for all time now, I cringed at my behavior. I’d call my mother and always wished her well, and she’d always be happy to hear my voice on the other end of the line. She’d never said it, but I knew I was a disappointment to her for not loving that inn like she did. I just never felt it. It represented everything I didn’t want to be. I couldn’t help but see how ironic my situation now was.
Walking down to the first floor, I saw Becca in the dining room eating and writing in that little notebook of hers. I had to admit all the ideas she had about the place did seem like they’d be great. She cared so much about the inn, and it was one of the things about her I couldn’t understand. Becca Fox had the world on a string, and for some reason, she cared about this old relic.
To be honest, I didn’t give a damn about advertising the place. I couldn’t let it fall into ruin and disrepair or let business tank, but I really didn’t care about making the place prosper any more than it needed to for me to receive my money.
But I cared about Becca Fox wanting me, so I’d advertise.
I pulled up a chair and sat down across from her, watching as she intently jotted notes in her notebook.
“Good morning, Becca. You’re hard at work already, I see.”
She looked up at me and smiled in that sweet way I loved. “Good morning to you too. Yes, I am. I woke up with a ton of ideas running through my mind, and I needed to get them down before I forgot any of them. Sleep well?”
Her interest about the inn was so genuine, something I didn’t think I would ever be able to identify with. Then again, maybe she just loved her job.
“Always. I just wanted to come over and let you know that you have my full confidence as far as your abilities go with advertising for this place. Consider yourself as having free rein. I trust you.”
Her eyes grew wide, and she set her pen down on the table. “Zane, while I appreciate that, this would work a lot better if you had some input in the process. You know this place better than anyone else here. I don’t want to just take the reins and go off in a direction that you might not approve in the end.”
No matter what she thought, I knew next to nothing about this place and really didn’t want to know much more. “I trust you, Becca. You love this place more than I ever could. I know you’ll do this right. Besides, what’s the worst case scenario? It’s not like you can run this place into the ground with a bunch of ideas for an advertising campaign that hasn’t rolled out yet. If anyone’s going to run this place into the ground, it’s me, so don’t worry so much. You’ll do great.”
My compliment made her blush, and her cheeks turned the sweetest shade of pink. “Thank you, Zane. I appreciate that a lot, though I don’t believe that you’re going to run this place into the ground. Not unless you decide to consciously.”
“Well, I have a while more to do my worst.”
Ignoring my move into how depressing my reality truly was, she smiled. “I really do love this place like you said. Something about it is just so special to me. I can’t even put my finger on it. Maybe working through this campaign will do just that. I don’t know. It just holds a very special place in my heart.”
“I know it does. You’re going to kick ass on this project.” Touching her on the arm, I began to make my move. “I’m excited to see how it all comes out. So, what are you doing tonight? I know this nice restaurant in town by the movie theater. What do you think? Dinner and a movie with me?”
My suggestion was bold, and I knew it, but I had a goal and I intended on reaching it. She would be mine, come hell or high water.
“You know what? If I thought you weren’t a selfish asshole, I’d consider it,” she said in a tone that wasn’t so much harsh but more bored with my asking her again.
The same smile she’d been wearing while I was complimenting her on her ability to run the campaign stayed, but beneath her words existed a dislike for who she truly believed I was that stung.
But there seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel.
“That’s not a no. What’s changed?” I asked, my cockiness returning.
If she wasn’t saying no, maybe there was something there after all. With women like Becca Fox, and there weren’t many, a no was a no, but anything else might still be a maybe.
Was there a chance after all? It seemed plausible. We had an intense time of it in the past, and those kinds of feelings were hard to let fall by the wayside completely.
Unfortunately, she didn’t respond in exactly the way I hoped she would. Instead, she stood up, tossed her napkin on the table by her unfinished breakfast and said, “Nothing’s changed. That’s why we’ll never be together. People don’t change, Zane. It’s a simple fact, as much as any of us wish it wasn’t. I appreciate your confidence in me relating to our business together, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to run off into the sunset with you because of a few compliments. I meant what I said last night. There is no us, and you should really just stop trying to create it.”
She left in a huff and walked outside, but I didn’t follow her like the first time we’d argued at the inn. I didn’t want a fight with Becca. I wanted the exact opposite.
I let her go and looked around the dining room. Around me sat guests who had no inkling of what we’d been speaking about, lost in their own worlds, and servers and staff who avoided looking at me. Lately, I hadn’t been as awful to them as I had been right after I got there, but the fear within them for me was still very much alive. They made an attempt to stay out of my way, and I sort of liked that.
Silently, I made a decision that I would never have made for any other woman I had ever encountered. I was going to be better, even different.
I was going to be the kind of man Becca wanted.
At first, my brain rebelled against the idea. It was stupid to try and change for someone. What she said was one hundred percent right. No one ever really changed.
But the way she said she’d think about going to dinner with me if she didn’t think I was a selfish asshole before she walked out gave me the sense that if she saw that I could truly be different, she might consider being with me. Contrary to what many people thought of me, I was willing to work very hard for what I wanted. I just had to want it badly enough, and I wanted her bad.
The way she looked up at me when I came downstairs gave me the idea that something still existed between us, and not giving me an outright no gave me more hope than ever.
I stood up and walked to my office, making sure to not bother Becca with her walk or anything else she wanted. She would have complete control of the ad campaign and basically anything else she wanted in the inn. I would make sure of that. She’d want for nothing the entire time she was there, and the staff would be told to cater to her every need. They’d have no problem with it either since they liked her more than they ever could like me.
Resolved to figure out what I needed to do to get Becca back into my bed where she belonged, I headed out toward the front desk just as Mandy began to frantically wave her hand at me. “Mr. Gilford, there’s a problem with the reservation system, and I need your help.”
“Of course there is,” I muttered to myself, diving back into the trenches of that damn inn where despite my best attempts, something was always going wrong.
No matter. This place wasn’t going to get the best of me today because I had something more important to focus on.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Becca
Over the next few days, I started to get a thorough understanding of what I wanted the ad campaign for The Gilford House Inn to look like, but I needed to fully observe the inn in its entirety for me to really pull off what I envisioned. Sure, it would have been easy to just use what I knew of the place, having stayed there many
times, but I wanted to really give the inn something special.
At first, I wondered why I was so fascinated with the place, but every day when I walked down the stairs and saw Deidre Gilford in those pictures that lined the walls, it became a little clearer to me. The Gilford House Inn was more than just some random hotel in the woods. It was an escape, a place to get away to instead of from, and it meant something to the people who worked there. That care made it mean something to me.
I meandered around the inn and the grounds, exploring little nooks and crannies I had never noticed before. On the main floor on the other side of the house from the dining room, I found a tiny room that looked like it had been a cloak room at one time. Unlike everywhere else in the inn, it hadn’t been redecorated, so it had dark wood plank walls instead of the lighter colored painted walls found in the other public rooms. The space felt old and forgotten, but at the same time, it had a secret charm to it I felt privileged to experience.
Had Zane played in that room as a child? I imagined him hiding behind the wood counter with his toys, a secret place for him alone. The thought of that young boy in the pictures on the stairs playing here made me think of him as something more than that oversexed man I sometimes didn’t like much.
Afterward, I headed outside to spend time on the porch, enjoying the beautiful fall scene it offered right in front of my eyes. The crisp air smelled earthy like leaves, and the scent of ripe apples from a freshly baked pie wafted out the front door each time it opened. Closing my eyes, I let the feel of the place wash over me and wanted the rest of the world to experience what I did there.
