“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning.” The kiss had stolen her breath away, and she barely formed the word.
“I don’t suppose it’s a good idea for us to...” Kyle began, still holding her flush against him with one arm.
Nia followed his gaze and his thoughts to the sex-rumpled bed. He was hard again, and her panties were already damp in anticipation. The sound of engines grew louder, and she shook her head.
Kyle heaved a sigh and kissed the top of her head. “Yeah, I know. We’ve got company coming,” he said, finally dropping his arm. “I’d better get dressed.”
He stopped in the doorway. “I was thinking we could have dinner together this evening, after I get my car and transportation sorted.”
His suggestion caught her off guard. As wonderful as what they’d shared had been, Nia hadn’t expected he’d want to see her again. She pressed her lips together to stop an enthusiastic “yes” from tumbling out of her mouth. She’d made herself a promise and she had to keep it. No matter what her body wanted, what her heart wanted, it was time for her brain to take the wheel.
And Kyle was just a sexy, one-night stand.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” The words came out of her mouth slow, almost painfully. “Last night was great, but...”
For a moment, Kyle looked as if she’d slapped him. The expression came and left his face so quickly she thought she’d imagined it. “But as you said, you only wanted one thing,” he finished.
Nia could only nod.
“All this time, I thought I was an expert at giving the brush-off.” His eyes were devoid of the warmth they’d held earlier. “I could take a lesson from you.”
Nia opened her mouth wanting to say something, anything to bring back the sweet moments they’d shared last night and this morning, but words eluded her. So she stoically ignored the protests of her heart and continued to use her head, just like her grandmother taught her.
One woman in their family had thrown her life away on a man. Nia wouldn’t put herself in a position to let history repeat itself.
“Look, Kyle,” she began.
Her cell phone rang in the other room. Apparently, the service had been restored. Further evidence their real lives were hurtling toward them at a frenetic pace.
“You’d better get that,” Kyle said. “I need to get dressed.”
Nia’s gaze followed him out of the bedroom to the bathroom, before she went to the kitchen to retrieve her ringing phone.
“Our power and phones are finally back,” Amy said, after she answered the phone. “Just wanted to know if yours are, too?”
“Everything’s okay here.” Nia’s distracted gaze wandered down the hallway to the closed bathroom door.
“The fire chief blazed through here with the snow plow a bit ago headed in your direction,” Amy said. “He should be there soon.”
“I can hear the plow outside now,” Nia said.
“So you didn’t get too stir-crazy holed up there by your lonesome, did you?”
“Actually, I have a houseguest.”
“A what?”
A knock sounded at the front door.
“There’s someone at the door, probably the fire chief checking on me. I’ll call you back,” Nia said.
“What houseguest?” Amy asked. “Who’s there with you?”
“I’ll call you back.” Nia ended the call.
Answering the door, she wasn’t surprised to see the volunteer fire chief on her front porch. However, she didn’t expect him to be accompanied by Deputy Butler.
“Afternoon,” the two said simultaneously.
“Just wanted to make sure you rode out the storm okay,” the fire chief said. Like most of the people in town, he also worked at the candy factory.
Oh, she’d ridden it out just fine. Nia felt her face flush as images of last night with Kyle played through her head.
“Can I offer you guys some coffee?” she asked, shoving the images aside.
“We just had coffee at the Miller’s,” the fire chief said, which earned him a less-than-discreet elbow jab from the deputy.
“We’d love some.” Deputy Butler stomped off the snow clinging to his boots. He removed his uniform hat emblazoned with a gold star above the wide brim, as he eagerly crossed her threshold, nudging the fire chief inside with him. “On a cold day like this you can’t have too much coffee. Besides, I’ve been trying to have a cup with you for months.”
Nia cringed inwardly. She hoped he wasn’t reading anything into the neighborly gesture.
“If you two want to have a seat in the kitchen I can make that coffee to-go so you can be on your way,” she said.
The deputy cleared his throat. “Actually, I’m also here on police business.”
“Here?” Nia stopped in her tracks. “What’s going on?”
“A car was abandoned, about five miles down the road. We’re worried the motorist and any passengers might have attempted to walk to shelter and succumbed to the elements,” Deputy Butler said.
“He’s fine,” Nia said. “I mean, I came across the car on the way back from town the other night and brought the driver home with me.”
As if on cue, Kyle emerged from her bathroom fully dressed and looking better than any man had a right to.
“Kyle Ellison?” Deputy Butler asked.
Nia’s antenna went up at the surname as bits of information began to assemble in her head like puzzle pieces.
Ellison.
The Ferrari’s temporary Tennessee tag.
Business.
The pieces slid into place too easily for it to be a coincidence, and she felt like the biggest fool on earth for not putting them together before now.
“Glad to find you safe, Mr. Ellison,” Deputy Butler said. “When we came across your car we feared the worse.”
Kyle’s gaze shifted from the deputy to her. “Thanks to Nia, I survived.”
“Ellison Industries?” Nia asked without preliminaries.
Even as he confirmed it with a nod, Nia could barely comprehend someone from the corporation they’d been desperate to make contact with had been under her roof.
“And Jonathan Ellison?” Nia’s head was spinning.
“My uncle.”
“Which makes you?”
“Vice president.”
Surprise gave way to a feeling of dread swirling up from the pit of her stomach. His clipped answers. His stiff body language. The impassive expression on his handsome face.
“You’re here about Peppermint Lane?”
Kyle nodded.
“Mr. Ellison, your vehicle didn’t appear drivable, so I’d already called dispatch to have it towed,” Deputy Butler interrupted. “If you’d like to retrieve any personal belongings. I need to take you to your car before they arrive.”
“In a minute, Deputy,” Kyle said. “I need to have a word with Nia first.”
“Nia, I’ll have to take a rain check on that coffee. I’ve got to get going,” the fire chief said.
Still reeling, the manners her grandmother had drummed into her went on autopilot. “Of course. Thanks for clearing the road and stopping in to check on me.”
“No problem.” The fire chief turned to Kyle. “Good to see you safe, Mr. Ellison.”
Nia felt Kyle’s large hand on her lower back as he steered her into the dining room. She’d told him about the factory, and what it meant to the people of Candy. He knew and said nothing. The heat from his palm emanated through her clothing straight to her core. Nia hated the way it made her throb with need.
She swallowed hard and tried to clear her head.
“Why?” she asked. “You could have told me, why didn’t you?”
Kyle reached out to her, bu
t she shirked from his touch.
“It just never seemed to be the right time,” he said.
“So you lied.”
“I never lied to you.”
Nia closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. “It was all a lie,” she whispered more to herself than him. She thought about lines he’d fed her in bed about being beautiful. “Everything you said was just a big, fat lie.”
Kyle hauled her against him and captured her mouth in a kiss.
A forceful kiss she would have been able to fight off, but not this one. His arm was like a steel band around her waist, yet the movements of his lips, his mouth, the way his tongue stroked hers were so achingly tender. Nia found herself surrendering to them completely.
Kyle’s lips moved to her cheek. “It wasn’t lies, Nia,” he murmured against her cheek. “What I told you when we made love was the truth. I’ve never met a woman more beautiful than you.”
Nia shook her head, as if it would erase his words from her head. She was being a fool. Just like her mother. The very thing she’d promised herself and her grandmother she’d never become.
But it wasn’t about just her. There was a town full of people afraid for their livelihoods, and the man with the power to ease their worries was standing in front of her.
She had to put her feelings aside and think about them.
“Nia, I know you have sentimental ties to the factory, because your grandmother was employed there, but the place simply isn’t profitable. It...”
“It’s more than sentiment, I’m trying to save it,” she said. “I’ve come up with a proposal. I was working on it on my laptop yesterday. If you’ll just hear it out.”
Kyle shook his head, his answer written all over his handsome face. “Nia, I...”
She touched her fingertips to his lips to stop him, not wanting to hear what she suspected he would tell her. She also didn’t like what she was about to say, but she had no choice.
“Kyle, I’d never try to take advantage of the fact we slept together,” she said. “But I will take full advantage of the fact I picked up a stranded stranger in the middle of a blizzard and took him into my home,” she said. “We have a proposal to make the candy factory profitable, I’m asking you to hear us out.”
“Mr. Ellison.” Deputy Butler stood under the archway separating the living room from the dining room. His eyes narrowed as he glanced from her to Kyle. “We really need to get going if you want to get your things.”
Nia looked up at Kyle. “All I’m asking you to do is listen.”
“I have to get my transportation sorted.” Kyle took her hand in his and squeezed it. “We’ll talk later.”
Nia’s heart clenched as she stood in the window watching the county sheriff’s SUV disappear down the road as Kyle and Deputy Butler departed. The man was barely out of the driveway, yet already the farmhouse seemed empty without him.
Her cell phone rang and she answered, not bothering to look at the number.
“What houseguest?” Amy practically shouted the question.
“Kyle Ellison,” Nia replied, emphasizing the last word.
“Hold up. Did you say ‘Ellison’?” Amy asked. “As in big, fat money pie Ellison?”
Nia didn’t think of him that way, but she confirmed he was indeed from Ellison Industries.
“Oh, my God! I don’t believe it! How in the world did that happen?” Amy was yelling now, and Nia had to pull the phone away from her ear until her friend settled down.
Finally, Nia was able to fill her in on discovering a stranded Kyle on the side of the road and having little choice but to take him home with her.
Amy pelted her with back-to-back questions. “So what did he say about the factory? How much money are they going to pump into it? Are they going to renovate it? As you know the place is way overdue for renovation.”
“Slow down, Amy,” Nia said. “I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. In fact, I didn’t even know his last name until a short while ago.”
“What?” Amy practically shrieked the question. “You mean you were snowed in two days with an Ellison and didn’t know it? How did you not know the man’s last name?”
Nia sighed, still staring out the window at the snow-covered landscape. “When we introduced ourselves in the truck, we only gave first names. The man was freezing, he could barely get that out, and I was focused on driving us back here safely,” she said. “As we got to know each other, the subject of our last names never came up, and it never occurred to me to ask him.”
And when he’d tried to tell her, she’d stopped him. Nia touched her hand to her mouth, as she remembered shushing him before he could say it. He had tried to tell her.
She heard a sigh on the other end of the line. “Okay, I guess I can see how that could happen,” Amy conceded. “So is he still there? Did you show him your proposal?”
Nia told her Kyle had left with Deputy Butler.
“What’s the guy like?” Amy asked.
“He was nice.” Nia’s nonchalant tone belied the jumble of emotion enveloping her. He was more than nice. A lot more.
“I’m just glad someone from Ellison Industries is finally here and not just a lackey, but a genuine Ellison,” Amy said. “That’s got to mean something.”
Nia sighed deeply into the phone. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she finally said. “I don’t get the impression he’s here to turn the factory around.”
Silence stretched over the phone line as Nia gave her friend a moment to absorb what she’d said.
“What do you think he’s going to do?”
“Honestly, I think he’s going to shut it down.” Nia struggled to keep the defeat out of her voice. “I asked him to hear us out, but he didn’t exactly agree to do so.”
“Then we have to make him listen.”
“How are we going to make a millionaire listen to us?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ll come up with something,” Amy said. “Put on a pot of that kerosene you call coffee. I’m on my way over there with a bag of Oreos.”
Nia allowed herself a sliver of hope. Although she’d only known Kyle a short while, she believed deep down the man who’d stayed with her couldn’t meet the people of Candy, see for himself how wonderful they were, and then proceed to destroy their lives.
* * *
Kyle stared out of the passenger-side window while the deputy steered the patrol SUV along the freshly plowed road.
He’d borrowed the deputy’s phone to make a quick call to Margie to explain his whereabouts and instruct her to have a rental car and cell phone charger waiting when he arrived at the hotel in Brookville.
He didn’t like the way he’d left things with Nia, and he realized when they did talk, they’d have totally different objectives. She’d want to make a case for the candy factory, when the decision to close it had been made before he arrived. He wanted to talk about them, and he suspected his case was also a lost cause.
“You and Nia seemed pretty friendly back there.” The deputy broke into his thoughts.
Even before he’d sat in the passenger seat of the deputy’s SUV, Kyle knew the man’s motives had less to do with offering assistance and everything to do with getting him out of Nia’s house.
“I consider her a friend. After all, she did come to my rescue in the middle of a blizzard,” Kyle said.
He hadn’t missed the borderline hostile look the deputy gave him when he’d emerged from the bathroom, and later when he’d interrupted his and Nia’s conversation in the dining room. Also, the cop looked like a lovesick puppy every time he looked at Nia.
“We’re all very fond of Nia around here,” he said. “We wouldn’t like some stranger trying to take advantage of her.”
“Nor would I,” Kyle countered.
He knew what the guy was fishing for, and he wasn’t taking the bait.
The deputy spared Kyle a glance. “The two of us have been trying to get together, you know?”
“Really.” Somehow, Kyle doubted it.
Nia hadn’t kissed him like a woman interested in someone else, and she damn sure hadn’t made love to him like one. It had been his name she’d moaned into the wee hours of the morning.
“It’s just a matter of time,” the deputy said.
The deputy eased the SUV to a stop behind a tow truck parked behind the wrecked Ferrari.
“But you’re just passing through, right?” he asked.
“Yeah, I am,” Kyle finally said.
Kyle felt almost as sorry for the cop as he did for himself, because the way he saw it, Nia didn’t want either one of them.
Chapter 11
The next morning, Nia stood on the top rung of a ladder in heels securing a welcome banner to the rafters of the candy factory’s foyer.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” she said.
She and Amy had brainstormed the idea to throw a welcome reception for Kyle upon his arrival at the factory—one he wouldn’t be expecting. Their scheme sounded brilliant at Nia’s kitchen table. Now she was wavering.
Amy gestured for her to move the banner a little to the left.
“It’s a fabulous idea,” she said.
While Nia appreciated her friend’s vote of confidence, Amy hadn’t seen Kyle’s expression when he said the factory wasn’t profitable. There was no doubt in Nia’s mind he intended to shut it down. She just hoped this last-ditch effort would be enough to change his mind.
“Maybe I should have stayed close to the house yesterday,” Nia said. “He did come back, you know. Twice. He left a note with his phone number and asked me to call. Maybe I should have.”
Getting the okay sign from Amy that the banner was straight, Nia slowly climbed down the ladder careful not to catch the heels of her pumps in the steel rungs. She’d put on one of her work outfits this morning, a navy pencil skirt and a matching peplum sweater. Looking businesslike would lend credence to her proposal, and she needed all the help she could get.
Sweeter Temptation (Kimani Hotties) Page 9
