by Susan Meier
His gaze crawled over to hers. So much for getting himself away from her. The royals were out of town, which he now remembered her telling him. Stella was out of commission. Until he got to know the palace staff, he needed her.
And he wasn’t going to let his own personal longings get in the way. “Thank you. I appreciate the help.”
“It’s our pleasure. Even if Grennady only turns out to be a good place for your company to finish this one project, we want you to remember us fondly.”
Right. His plan was exactly the opposite. She tempted him to want things he knew he couldn’t have. So he intended to forget her, and everything about her.
“You want us to remember that your country didn’t suit us so we left?”
“No. We want your employees to remember skiing and snowboarding. Sleigh rides. Hot cocoa. Hot toddies. Snuggling in front of fireplaces. We want them and their families to go home and talk about what a great time they had here.”
He sniffed a laugh. “Leave it to you to find the bright side.”
“Being in charge might be new to me, but I’m not stupid, and all of a sudden the timing feels right. Like I’m stepping into my destiny.”
“Destiny.” He snorted. He hated when people talked that way, as if some big hand would nudge them along, open doors, keep trouble at bay. She might be smart but that darned naïvety of hers was going to get her into trouble if she didn’t put a lid on it. “Don’t think destiny. Think to do list. Think organizational chart. For a charity like you’re proposing, you’ll need accountants and tax people, all of them versed in international law.”
She laughed. “I haven’t just kept a princess on track for three years, there’s also the matter of that little degree you know I have. I’m more prepared for this than you think.”
“You have a fanciful streak, as if you assume everything’s going to automatically work out.”
Her gaze ambled over and snagged his. “I got you here, didn’t I?”
Desire slammed into him like a punch in the gut. She was tempting when she was sweet, but damned near irresistible when she was sassy.
He sucked in a breath and brought his briefcase to his lap so he wouldn’t have to look at her when he spoke. “Technically, Mrs. Flannigan got me here.”
“Yes, but it was a stroke of luck that I was with you every time you saw her.”
“No, it wasn’t luck. It was a bunch of things coming together. I took you to a Christmas party where Winslow invited us to lunch. You had told him you were pitching your country to me. He brought it up to Mrs. Flannigan. No magic. No destiny. More like logical steps. Everything had a purpose and a reason. Stop thinking about magic and destiny and start using this.” He tapped her head. “And things will go a lot easier for you.”
“I bet you’re a real barrel of laughs at Christmastime.”
He turned his attention to his briefcase, opening it as if he had something important he needed to read because once again he just couldn’t look at her. “If I choose not to celebrate that particular holiday, I think I have good reason.”
“Yes, you do. I’m sorry. I spoke thoughtlessly.”
She looked so apologetic that he felt bad—for her. But he was the one who’d needed the reminder about mixing business with pleasure. If he wasn’t so damned attracted to her, he wouldn’t have fallen into such a complicated conversation. He would have told her what he needed. Told her yes or no. And the discussion would have stayed on track the way it should have.
“Look, it appears we’re stuck working together for two days, so let’s agree to stop trying to be friends and just do our jobs.”
She gave him a funny look. “But you kissed me.”
He sighed. Why was he not surprised her honesty wouldn’t simply let that go?
“I know. I thought I was never going to see you again, so it wouldn’t be a big deal. It was a nice way to end a nice weekend.”
Her eyes softened when they met his. “A really nice weekend.”
His pulse scrambled. It had been one of the nicest weekends of his life and to see she felt the same made him want to kiss her again. But he couldn’t have her and she shouldn’t want him.
“So let’s leave it at that. A nice weekend.” He rifled through the documents in his briefcase, pretending to be looking for something. “Right now my priority—and yours since you’re my liaison—is to get this game to beta testers on January second. Forget about kisses, forget about the whole weekend. Hell, forget about Paris. Let’s pretend we just met.”
“Okay.” She reached into her pocket. “You’ll need this back, then.”
The bracelet he’d given her fell into his briefcase. He’d told her he’d take it back, but actually having the damned thing almost fall into his lap sent a zap of weirdness through him. He’d bought that for her. He didn’t want it back. It didn’t feel right taking it back.
But if they were going to keep this strictly professional, he couldn’t say any of that. He had to accept the bracelet.
“Great. Thanks. Are you sure you don’t want it?”
“Totally.”
He tucked it in his overcoat pocket and the weight of it felt like a rock. No one had ever returned a gift. He wasn’t even sure what to do with it.
As they reached a hotel that looked more like a Swiss chalet, Kristen said, “The princess had to pull some strings, but we emptied the entire hotel and it’s yours.”
“Mine?”
“Well, yours and your employees’. You have the penthouse suite on the third floor. The first and second floors each have twenty rooms, so you’ve actually got an extra room or two. Just in case.”
“So I’m in a hotel with my staff?”
“You’ll be fine.”
He shook his head. If Stella had booked this hotel, he would have accepted it on faith. Which was why they never fought or got personal. She did something. He accepted it.
So if he wanted to have an uncomplicated relationship with Kristen for the next two days, that’s what he needed to do with her too. Not engage her. Just trust her judgment.
“Okay. Whatever. When do I see our work space?”
“Actually, your work space is the hotel’s two first-floor meeting rooms.”
He gaped at her. “We’re working in the same space where we’re living?”
“I thought you’d like that.”
He blew his breath out on a sigh. Winslow had said to shake things up. So, sure. Why the hell not? “I might.”
“It’ll be very convenient. Staff has already been briefed on the fact that there’s only about six hours of daylight. Most have decided to use the daylight for family time and work when it’s dark.”
This he could not handle. “I’ve gone along with your conference rooms and having my employees and their families underfoot in my hotel...but eighteen hours of dark?”
She laughed. “It’s winter in Scandinavia. Anybody who knows geography knows we don’t get much daylight.”
He struggled with the urge to close his eyes in frustration. He supposed he did know that. He simply hadn’t put it all together.
“Look on the bright side. If your employees work when it’s dark, that’s eighteen whole hours a day.”
He sniffed a laugh. “You are such a dreamer.”
She climbed out of the limo. “Yeah, well, you’re pretty much the opposite.”
Of all the answers she could have given that was the last thing he’d been expecting. “That’s it? I call you a dreamer and your best shot is to call me the opposite.” He shook his head. “I’m absolutely going to have to teach you how to fight.”
She smiled and pivoted toward the entryway. “Maybe I don’t want to fight. Besides, that would take us back to you giving me lessons on how to handle myself in the business world. We just agreed to p
retend we’d only met tonight. We can’t go back to those lessons.”
She walked into the hotel and he blew out another exasperated breath, staring at the starry sky.
Being with her, pretending he didn’t like her, was going to kill him.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN KRISTEN FINALLY got to bed, she slept like the dead. She woke around nine, just as the sun was coming up.
Curious about what she’d been doing the past few days, her family asked a million questions. She’d phoned them the day she’d flown to New York, in the limo on the way to the boutique to get her gown for the Christmas party with Dean, but they’d never heard of flying across an ocean with someone just to make a pitch. So she filled them in on the details of her trip and the weekend that followed, but her mom had trouble taking it all in.
“He’s a busy man, Mom. People ask him to go places like lunches and dinners and I was his date for the weekend so I went too. But now we’re in Grennady and everything’s back to normal,” she said as she grabbed a piece of cheese and headed for the door. “I can’t do a darned thing to help him meet his deadlines, but I am in charge of making sure he and his crew are happy over the next two days. With his assistant in New York, I’m not sure what that’s going to entail, but I need to be on-site.”
She rushed out of her mom’s kitchen and headed into town, to the men’s shop where Prince Alex had bought his coat the first time he’d come to Grennady with Princess Eva, and realized he was horribly underdressed.
Stefan Steiner, a tall blond with big blue eyes, greeted her when she walked in. “Kristen! How can I help you?”
“The royal family has a visitor. An American.”
“Oh, sounds interesting.”
Dean was interesting, probably the most interesting guy Kristen had ever met. But he didn’t want anything to do with her except a professional relationship, and she didn’t want to push him into admitting he had feelings for her. Though he did. She knew he did. That kiss told her he did.
And she recognized that if he was avoiding whatever was happening between them it was because he’d gotten his heart broken by Nina. She’d cheated him, used him, then dumped him.
And died.
Was it any wonder he was so careful about his feelings?
There was absolutely nothing Kristen could say or do without stepping on incredibly private territory, and if she pushed him he probably wouldn’t talk anyway.
Realizing Stefan was waiting for an answer she said, “He’s a businessman, only in Grennady for a few weeks trying to get some work done.”
“Now? When we’re about to celebrate Christmas?”
“He’s American.”
Stefan laughed. “Last time I heard, they celebrate Christmas in America.”
She ambled toward a circle of parkas. “Not this guy. He’s all about the work.” Because his life had been difficult. Marred by tragedies that molded him into someone cool and precise with haunted eyes. But she couldn’t dwell on that, couldn’t wonder about the scar on his heart that might never really heal, or the days and nights of anguish he’d spent before he’d built his walls. Because when she let her mind go in that direction, she longed for him to talk to her, to get it out and see that he could be happy.
“So it’s my job to make sure he doesn’t have to worry about anything else.” She picked a sturdy navy blue coat. “I think this is what he needs. I’m just not sure of the size.”
Stefan joined her at the rack. “How tall is he?”
She glanced over. “About your height.”
Stefan nodded. “Shoulder width?”
She frowned.
“How broad is he?”
“Well, he’s...” She lifted her hands until she had them in a sort of circle the way they had been when she slid them to his nape when he kissed her. “This big.”
Stefan eyed the shape made by her arms and told her the size Dean probably wore.
She shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”
He helped her find warm gloves and a fur-lined bomber hat with flaps to cover his ears.
She nodded appreciatively. “He’s probably going to need boots too, but I won’t even venture to guess that size.”
“Yes, especially since you didn’t kiss his feet.”
Kristen felt her face color but she innocently said, “What?”
“You think I don’t recognize the arm placement of someone kissing a man?”
She grimaced. “I guess you do.”
He leaned across the counter. “Don’t worry. My lips are sealed.”
“Thanks. Because nothing’s going to happen between us. Like I said. He’s all about business.” And no matter how haunted his eyes, she absolutely had to respect his wishes.
She signed off on the purchases, charging them to the royal family. Stefan told her to have Dean phone him with his boot size, and he’d have a pair delivered to his hotel.
She lugged the enormous bag out of his shop, passing familiar bakeries, groceries and restaurants on snow-covered streets that wafted with the scents of cheese, breakfast meats and breads. The frosty air nipped her nose and turned her breaths to puffs of smoke as she wove through gaggles of happy, chattering tourists.
In the lobby of the hotel the princess had procured for Dean and his staff, she stomped snow off her boots. After a quick chat with the desk clerk, she took her big package down the hall to the first meeting room.
Much larger than a conference room, more the size of a classroom, the space had round tables scattered throughout. Covered in white tablecloths as if prepared for a banquet, they weren’t suitable for a bunch of computer geeks who would be working to find and fix the problems in software.
Given that it was light out and most of the Suminski Stuff staff were on the ski slopes with family, the hotel had plenty of time to put some workstations in there and maybe a sofa or recliner or two. She would remind them of that as soon as she gave Dean his coat, hat and gloves.
A few feet down the hall, she found the second meeting room. From the doorway, she could see this room was set up the same as the first. Round tables with white tablecloths, each surrounded by six chairs.
The only difference was this room wasn’t empty. Dean Suminski sat alone at one of the tables. Dressed in jeans and a sweater, with his hair causally mussed, he looked the way he had at Rockefeller Center. Memories of skating, holding hands, nestling against him as they walked up the busy New York City street slid through her brain, almost making her sigh with longing.
“In case you can’t interpret the expression on my face, this empty room does not please me.”
She laughed, though her heart jerked a bit. It was hard to believe that this guy currently being so cool with her had held her hand, built her confidence, introduced her to Mrs. Flannigan and made sure she had private time with her. And even harder to believe she had no choice but to go along with him.
“It’s your employees’ first day here. They may decide not to work at all today. I told you last night that they intended to take at least the daylight hours for family time. Your people need a break.”
She hoisted the big bag containing his parka onto one of the round tables. “I bought you a few things.”
One of his eyebrows quirked.
“Now you understand how I felt in New York when you kept buying me clothes.”
“I told you that was the cost of doing business.”
“Well, consider this a welcome gift from the royal family.”
She pulled the hat out of the bag and tossed it to him, then the gloves, then the parka.
He caught the first two easily, but barely managed to grab the big coat. “I won’t be going outside.”
“You’re here for six weeks. If nothing else, you’ll tire of the hotel food and want to go to a rest
aurant. That coat you have won’t cut it.” She handed him Stefan’s business card. “You’ll also need boots. All you have to do is call Stefan and give him your size. He’ll send the right boots to the hotel.” She smiled hopefully. “Let’s try everything on.”
Hugging the big parka, Dean sighed in resignation and rose.
She took the coat from his hands and motioned for him to turn around. When he did, she held it open and guided the sleeves up his arms. After he shrugged into it, she smoothed her palms along the shoulders, straightening the fabric, recognizing it was a perfect fit.
But as her hands moved from his spine outward, she realized she was touching him. Essentially, rubbing his back. Because she liked it. She liked the feel of him, the look of him. Even the haunted expression in his eyes tempted her to ask him a million questions because she wanted to know him.
He turned his head and caught her gaze. “Having fun back there?”
She grimaced. “Sorry. I was just straightening things, making sure the coat fit.”
“Right. And my lips accidentally bumped into yours when I kissed you.”
His sarcastic wit would have surprised her, except he’d been making jokes all weekend, as he’d relaxed with her. She reached for the fur-lined navy blue hat with flaps that could be pulled down over his ears. Before he realized what she was about to do, she went to her tiptoes and plopped it on his head.
She burst into giggles. “You look like a Russian.” But she quickly sobered. She really didn’t know a damn thing about this guy she was so drawn to. “Are you Russian? With your dark hair and eyes, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
He gave the straps of the hat a tug to yank it into place. “I’m half Polish, half Irish.”
“That’s a strange combo.”
He shrugged. “I’m sort of happy with it. The Polish part of me makes me resilient, and I’ve never met a Saint Patrick’s Day that I didn’t like.”
The corners of her mouth tipped up into a smile. “There you are being funny again. You should let more people than me see your sense of humor.”
