Taking Over the Tycoon

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  He watched as, red-faced, she crammed the transparent pouch containing her feminine products in, too. Advancing on her, he explained calmly, “Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘to make money you have to spend money’?”

  “Spoken like a true tycoon.” Who, unlike her, had oodles and oodles of money!

  “Or a successful businessman.”

  A tense silence fell between them.

  “I was doing you a favor here,” Connor continued.

  “Well…” Kristy picked up a small can of hair spray and receipts from the warehouse club and wholesalers. She put the hair spray in her desk and the receipts in her purse, then had to stop and reverse them. “These kinds of favors I can do without!”

  Connor rubbed the heel of his hand over his chin, turning two dots of fresh green paint into a lake-shaped smear. Exasperation tightened the handsome planes of his face. “What do you want me to do?” His gray eyes turned the color of the Atlantic on a stormy day. He flattened his hands on her desk and leaned toward her, looking more aggravated than guilty. “You want me to go out there and tell them to stop?”

  Finished putting her purse to rights, Kristy turned away from him, muttering glumly, “It’s too late for that. Now they have to finish.”

  Connor checked his jeans for paint and then sat down on the edge of her sturdy wooden desk. He folded his arms in front of him. “Look, they’ll be out of here by nine tonight,” he soothed.

  “Great,” Kristy stated sourly, irritated that she hadn’t seen this coming, that she had trusted him and his willingness to help her—even if it was just to win a bet and get a date—so completely. She looked him square in the eye. “I hope you’ve got your checkbook ready,” she said in a low, tortured voice. “Because as I stated before, there is absolutely no way I can pay for this.” No way in Hades.

  Connor shrugged negligently. “No problem. I’ve got it covered.”

  Kristy shook her head, her spirits sinking as fast as an anchor in the sea. “I don’t think you understand, Connor,” she explained with a great deal more forbearance than she actually felt. Shame made her face flame. “It could be years before I can pay you back. Unless…” Abruptly, the heat and color drained from her face. She studied him, aghast. “You’re not planning to put a lien on this place, to force me to sell out to you and your partner when I can’t pay up, are you?”

  It was his turn to look upset and insulted. Connor shot to his feet, cupped her shoulders in both hands. “Of course not!” he said. “I would never do that to you or anyone else! I’m here to find solutions! To make your life easier, not harder.”

  Silence fell between them. In the face of such righteous indignation, Kristy found it hard to stay angry. Sighing with a weariness she felt all the way to her soul, she sank down in her desk chair and buried her face in both hands. “You just don’t get it,” she murmured, distraught.

  “Then explain it to me,” he insisted, sitting down on the edge of her desk, facing her.

  She studied his paint-stained hands. They were large and capable, and yet, she knew, also capable of being so very gentle and tender. She swallowed hard, forcing herself not to think about the way it had felt when those same hands had cupped and caressed her breast. “I’ve already done this, Connor.”

  Without warning, Connor latched on to her wrist and hauled her onto his lap. “Done what?”

  Kristy shrugged as she settled against his warm, strong frame. “Given my opinion, only to have it ignored.”

  Connor curved a hand against the side of her face, forcing her to look at him. “Well, I’ve done that, too,” he said curtly. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to make the same mistake again.”

  Kristy slid off his lap. She did not like that look in his eyes. As if he had just been wronged and was preparing to right the situation, no matter what. She hitched in a breath as she began to pace the small confines of her office. “Which was…?”

  Connor sighed, then stood up, too. “Being wrongly convicted by a woman who constantly doubts my intentions and assumes the worst about me, no matter what the evidence to the contrary.”

  Kristy knew what it was like to have someone you cared about lack faith in you. It hurt. It surprised her to realize that Connor had suffered an injustice like this, too. She was silent a moment, taking it all in. “This happened to you before?”

  Their gazes meshed and Kristy saw the pain and regret in his eyes.

  “With my wife,” Connor admitted in a low, tortured voice. “It didn’t matter what I did or said. She constantly distrusted me.”

  Kristy found her anger over what he had done fading. Connor had listened to her problems. Maybe it was time she listened to his. She edged closer, wanting to understand him. “Tell me about her,” she encouraged softly.

  He studied her, as if he was trying to decide if he could trust her with his private demons. “It’s not a pretty story,” he warned gruffly, as his fingers tightened over hers.

  “Neither is mine,” Kristy commiserated quietly. But their marriages were part of their lives. It wouldn’t help to pretend none of it had happened. Otherwise they would have learned nothing from their mistakes.

  Connor’s mouth compressed into a brooding line. “We met the year after I graduated college. I was in Atlanta, putting together a consortium there. It was one of the first big business deals I ever did and I was pretty pumped up about it. Lorelai’s father was one of the investors. Anyway, she and I met through him and started dating, and got married later that same year.”

  Connor paused, shook his head. A faraway look came into his eyes. “We should have been happy. We had everything going for us. We both came from old money and had our trust funds, plus successful careers that were just starting to take off. We didn’t lack for anything.”

  Kristy perched next to him on the edge of her desk. “But you weren’t happy.”

  Connor grimaced, admitting it with a shrug of his powerful shoulders. “Lorelai never really believed I loved her. I knew what a highly emotional and dramatic woman she was—she was the epitome of the spoiled, pampered Southern belle. But I thought that would change after we married. Instead, it only got worse. Whatever I did or said or didn’t do or say was misinterpreted. Looking back, I see that Lorelai was addicted to the drama, the fights, but back then all I knew was that indulging her penchant for big emotional scenes only seemed to make things worse. Anyway, one night we were at an anniversary party for a couple of our friends and in the middle of it she accused me of not loving her, and stomped out. That was probably the fiftieth time she’d pulled something like that since we had been married, and I was in no mood to indulge her that night. So I stayed at the restaurant to placate our friends, thinking some time to cool off and calm down would help.” Sorrow and guilt combined in his eyes as he continued in a low, choked voice, “Meanwhile, at home, Lorelai was busy creating her biggest, boldest drama yet. Unbeknownst to me, she had slipped into a beautiful negligee, put on some tragic opera music, penned a note and swallowed a handful of pills along with a glass of champagne.” Connor swallowed, eyes glistening as he finished relating the story in a dull monotone. “I found her when I came in. The paramedics couldn’t revive her and she was pronounced dead at the scene.”

  Kristy gasped, imagining the horror of that. “Oh, Connor,” she whispered, her heart going out to him.

  His mouth twisted ruefully. “No one who knew her thought Lorelai really meant to kill herself. She just meant for me to find her. And be really sorry. Which, believe me, I was.”

  Kristy squeezed his hand all the tighter, offering what comfort she could. Although she had the feeling Connor would always carry with him a certain amount of guilt.

  He looked down at their entwined fingers. “Hindsight tells me the marriage never would’ve worked. That there was no way I ever could’ve convinced Lorelai I loved her. But, on the other hand—” Connor drew a deep breath, straightened “—if I had just figured out what she was up to, or gotten home an hour
sooner, I probably could have saved her life and forced her to get some therapy. But I didn’t and I have to live with that, Kristy.”

  He disengaged their hands and stood, squaring off with her yet again. “What I don’t have to live with are accusations of underhandedness or impure motives or insincere behavior.” He looked her straight in the eye and continued unapologetically, “I am who I am. I don’t like fighting. I don’t like to see people suffer unnecessarily. I’ll do whatever I have to do to help people on different sides of an issue get along. But there’s nothing underhanded about me or my motives.”

  Kristy saw that now. And although she still didn’t like what he had done, she knew she owed him an apology. “I’m sorry I accused you otherwise,” she said softly, meaning it.

  “And I’m sorry, too,” Connor said, just as steadfastly. “Because you’re right. I shouldn’t have presumed it would be all right to give you such a lavish gift. And that’s what the fresh coat of paint and the touched-up floors are, Kristy. A lavish gift from me to you. I don’t want or expect to be repaid.”

  Kristy could see that he meant it. “What you have done is very generous,” she said sincerely. She plucked the Carolina Storm cap she had been wearing earlier that day off the top of her file cabinet and handed it to him. “So generous, in fact, that I’m going to give you this cap to wear as you proceed. Because you definitely need something to keep the paint off your hair.”

  “Thanks.” Connor’s posture relaxed slightly as he widened the band so it would fit him. “I’m glad you see it that way.”

  “But there is no way, Connor. No way—” Kristy emphasized bluntly, as Connor put the cap on his head and adjusted the brim so it sat squarely on his forehead “—that I can accept it.”

  He quirked a brow warily. “Meaning?”

  “Someway, somehow, I’m paying you back. In the meantime, before you go back to your painting, perhaps you could help Winnifred in the kitchen?”

  “YOU GOT YOURSELF in one heck of a mess today, didn’t you?” Winnifred murmured as Connor hefted the fifty pound bags of rice, beans, flour and sugar onto the stainless steel kitchen counter. Thinking he might have a sympathetic ear in the older woman, he complained, “Kristy is determined to read me the wrong way.”

  Winnifred snipped the top off the flour bag. “For someone of our background, the gift is no more than a necklace. But for someone of Kristy’s, it’s way too much. You can see that, can’t you?”

  “Of course.” Connor helped pour the contents of the bag into several big stainless steel canisters. “But I’m the one who gave the gift,” he protested mildly.

  “And she’s the one who received it,” Winnifred countered.

  Connor watched as Winnifred moved on to the sugar. Maybe what he needed here was a woman’s viewpoint. “What should I do?” He wanted to make up with Kristy. Right now she still resented what he had done, if not him, specifically.

  “First,” Winnifred advised with a wise smile, “give her time to cool off and come to her senses.”

  That hadn’t worked with Lorelai, Connor thought.

  “Second, continue to prove you are not above demanding physical work.”

  Connor helped transfer the sugar from bag to canister. “Is that what you’re doing, Winnifred? With Harry?”

  Finished, Winnifred straightened and wiped her hands on her white chef’s apron. “Harry thinks we’re too far apart.”

  For what? Connor wondered. “But you two have been friends for years,” he noted. Everyone in Charleston knew how close Winnifred and her butler were.

  “That’s what makes this so frustrating,” Winnifred admitted with a sad sigh. “I know Harry and I can be a lot more than simply employer and employee.”

  Connor waited until it was clear nothing else was forthcoming. “But?”

  Twin spots of color appeared in Winnifred’s cheeks. “Harry wants more. He wants to date! At our age! Can you imagine?”

  Connor snipped off the top of the brown sugar bag while Winnifred went to get another commercial-size canister. “You’re hardly old.” Plenty young enough, in his opinion.

  Winnifred grimaced. “I’m fifty!”

  So? Knowing there had to be something more here keeping them apart, Connor asked gently, “Is it the class thing?”

  Winnifred huffed. “I am not a snob.”

  “Still,” Connor pointed out as Winnifred put bags of pecans and walnuts onto the pantry shelves, “you come from old money and Harry’s been your butler for years.” That would be enough to halt some blue bloods, but it didn’t seem to be the fracturing factor for Winnifred.

  “I know he loves me. I love him.”

  “Just not in that way?” Connor guessed.

  Winnifred released a troubled sigh. “I promised my late husband, Ewan, I would never love anyone but him,” she said earnestly. “When I married him, it was with my whole heart. I can’t be another man’s wife. I can’t make that kind of lifelong commitment again. And I fear that is what Harry wants.”

  “Which is why he quit your employ,” Connor said.

  Winnifred sat down at the prep table. Hunching forward dispiritedly, she admitted, “He said it’s too painful to be around me, knowing we can never be anything more.”

  Connor touched the woman’s shoulder gently. “So why not let Harry go on and make a new life for himself, if that’s the way you feel?” he asked quietly.

  “Because Harry and I are also best friends,” Winnifred said stubbornly. “And wonderful companions. And I have no intention of giving that up, no matter how unreasonable he’s being at the moment!”

  “Well,” Connor said, as always trying to find some common ground upon which two battling parties could meet, “if that’s the way you really feel—”

  “It is!” Winnifred replied passionately.

  “Then there’s one thing you could do,” Connor suggested helpfully.

  Winnifred waited.

  “You could ask Harry to be your friend. But also admit that you understand why, at age forty—”

  “Forty-one,” she corrected, making sure Connor knew there was only a nine years’ difference in their ages, not a decade.

  “Harry needs more to be happy,” Connor continued. “And then advise him to find another woman to court. And give him your heartfelt blessing.”

  Chapter Eight

  Connor finished assisting Winnifred in the kitchen, then went back to the north wing of the lodge, where he stayed to help until the painters had completely finished and cleared all their stuff out. At 10:00 p.m. he went in search of Kristy. She was in her office, sitting behind her computer. Connor only had to glance at it to see she was working on some sort of accounting spreadsheet.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, afraid to interrupt, more afraid not to, as he didn’t want the rift between them to continue.

  Kristy kept her eyes fixed steadfastly on the screen in front of her as she replied in a low, noncommittal tone, “I’m working on a ten-year repayment plan for the painting that was done today. I’m not sure what would be fair—a variable interest rate or prime plus three, but I’ll go by whatever you think is workable.”

  Connor sauntered forward, his thumbs anchored in the belt loops on either side of his fly. “I wish you wouldn’t worry about that,” he said.

  A becoming blush stained her cheeks. “I’m aware this is penny ante stuff for you.”

  Connor stepped around behind her and checked out the figures on the computer screen. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” He felt the first stirrings of panic. He was irritated with Kristy for continuing to act as if he had greatly overstepped his bounds here, despite the fact that his decisive actions were contrary to his own business agenda. All he had wanted was to help her feel better during however long it took for them to work out a deal that would financially benefit them all. He was trying to make Kristy see that even if the place was in optimum condition, and she had all the bookings she wanted, that the hard work would not b
e worth it on a daily basis. Not if she could just cash out and be a mom and never have to worry about money again.

  “Obviously, I made a mistake today,” Connor continued. “But my heart was in the right place.”

  Her luscious mouth pursed. “That, Connor Templeton, is debatable.”

  Connor wished he didn’t recall quite so accurately how sweet that bare mouth of hers tasted, or just how well she could kiss. Wished he could stop imagining how wonderful it would be when they finally did make love. “All I’m trying to do is help you here,” he said, doing his best to contain his exasperation.

  “You don’t understand.” Kristy rested her elbows on either side of her keyboard. “I’ve got to do this on my own, prove that I am worth something, too.”

  Connor marveled at her stubborn need to be her own woman, even though a part of him couldn’t really understand why she didn’t just take the easy way out that he and Skip were offering her. Most people worked and dreamed and struggled their whole lives to have the kind of wealth Kristy had within easy reach. But to his surprise, she seemed to have no such ambition. Money per se meant no more to her than a blade of grass or a bucketful of sand. He studied her, sensing there was a lot more behind her feelings than she wanted to let on. “How could you ever think you’re not worth something?” he asked, confused.

  “Easy.” Kristy pushed her chair back with a screech. “I’m thirty-three years old. I grew up as the underachieving misfit in a family of doctors. And thus far, unlike everyone else in my clan, and practically everyone else I know who’s my age, I haven’t a single professional accomplishment to my name.”

  Connor thought the job she was doing with her girls was a fine one, but sensing that she didn’t want to talk about motherhood at the moment, he pointed out calmly, “What you do here, trying to create a cozy place for people to vacation, and to provide financially for your two daughters, is very valuable.”

  Kristy scoffed. She picked up a half-finished glass of lemonade from her desk. “You would never know that from my family’s reaction to my chosen career,” she muttered, taking a long, thirsty drink. “You should have seen the looks on their faces when I added hotel and restaurant management classes to my college course load, in addition to my premed classes. Both my siblings and my parents thought I was wasting my time.”