Swept Away by the Tycoon

by Barbara Wallace

  And Dagmar was definitely charmed.

  “Looks like you’ve won a fan,” Chloe said, once the older woman had sashayed back to the kitchen. “And here I thought you were famous for being difficult to work with.”

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t be charming when I need to be.”

  “Obviously.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”

  “Of course not.” Chloe could hear the sharpness in her voice and it bothered her. What did she care if Ian flirted with some middle-aged innkeeper with perfect hair? It wasn’t as if that growl was reserved solely for her. “I was wondering how long you want to stay.”

  He was busy checking his cell phone. “Not too much longer. I noticed Josef had a laptop. I’ll ask him to check the local weather and traffic before we leave.”

  “Doesn’t look like the storm’s let up much,” she noted. In fact, conditions appeared worse. They could hear the wind howling from where they sat.

  “Hopefully, we’re looking at more rain than ice farther west.”

  “And if we aren’t?”

  “Then, Curlilocks, we get to see if you turn into a pumpkin.”

  A shiver ran down Chloe’s spine. He was merely making a joke, and a silly one at that, since he mashed together fairy tales. The setting, however, along with his ragged-edged voice made the words sound like a seductive promise.

  Ian was checking his phone again, staring at the screen with a frown. “Something wrong?” Beyond current circumstances.

  “I left a message for Matt yesterday. I thought he’d have called back by now.”

  “Did you ask him to call?”

  “No, not outright.”

  “Well, no wonder then.” They’d entered her area of expertise now: rationalizing silent phones. “How else would he know he’s supposed to call?”

  “I would.”

  “You’re different.”

  Ian settled farther back in his chair. “Exactly how am I different?” he asked, his eyes shining in the firelight.

  “You’re...” The words coming to mind at the moment—special, unique, amazing—weren’t ones she wanted to share aloud. Mainly because the fact that she would use such words to describe a man frightened her. “You were a CEO,” she said finally. “You’re used to having people at your beck and call. Your son is a college freshman. My experience with guys his age is you have to lead them step by step through everything. And even then they might not get the message.”

  “When I was eighteen, I was in the army. A higher ranking officer asked and you said yes.” Ian’s current position had him in the shadows, making his expression difficult to read. Chloe swore she saw a frown. “Come to think of it, I ran my company in a similar fashion.”

  She was right; she did see a frown. “You go with the world you know.”

  “I suppose you do.”

  Silence followed. In the car, the silence had closed everything in. Here, in the empty, half-lit restaurant, quiet felt more like distance. It brought a sadness to the air.

  Chloe reached to draw him in again.

  “How’s Dagmar’s coffee? Better than yours?”

  His chuckle made Chloe happy. “Don’t be ridiculous. We use far higher quality beans.”

  “That so?”

  “You don’t notice, since you insist on killing the taste with peppermint and chocolate syrup.”

  “Hey! You should be nicer to one of your best customers.”

  “The best,” he corrected, leaning into the light. “Not to mention one of my favorites.”

  What on earth made her think the air had chilled, when Ian was studying her as if she were the only female on earth? A woman could get damn addicted to a look like that. She might even start believing it to be true.

  Getting an internal grip, Chloe did what she did best, and acted unaffected. “Just one of? I must be slacking. What’s a girl got to do to make top of the list?”

  “What makes you think you—”

  She was what? Not at the top? Or had a chance? The questions went unanswered as a loud crash suddenly shook the entire building.

  CHAPTER SIX

  YOU’VE GOT TO be kidding. Ian stared at the giant tree covered in power lines lying in the driveway. Clearly, nature had a sick sense of humor, because the monstrosity managed to block both the road and passage off the property.

  As soon as the crash sounded, Ian, Josef and several other guests rushed outside. They stood in a clump halfway down the hill, surveying the damage.

  “Tree’s been dead for years,” Josef said. “I told my neighbor he should call someone to cut it down, but looks like the weather did the job for him.”

  “Looks like it took power along with it,” one of the guests commented.

  Sure enough, cables laced the limbs like thin black snakes. Behind them, the farmhouse sat dark, a victim. Ian peered through the trees, searching for light, and saw none. “From the looks of things, the tree took out the whole street when it fell,” he said.

  Josef’s sigh spoke for all of them. “Telephone, too. Hopefully, I can find cellular service so I can call for a road crew.”

  “Good luck getting a truck out here,” a different guest said. “We had a storm like this in Connecticut a couple years ago. Took days before they cleared all the damage.”

  Peachy.

  Above them, pine branches groaned. Instinctively, the entire group looked upward for debris before taking a few steps backward. “Tell the crew I’ll double their rate if they get here as soon as possible,” Ian told Josef.

  “That is very generous of you.”

  “Generosity has nothing to do with it.” He was eager to get on the road, and if money helped bump the inn to the top of the list, he was more than glad to pay.

  Top of the list. He’d been about to say the same thing to Chloe when the tree saved him. He was beginning to wonder if she wasn’t a test, as well. With her curls and her infectious smile, not to mention those mile long legs, the woman was temptation in high heel boots. He’d been celibate for almost as long as he’d been sober, and for the first time, the lack of companionship ate a hole in him. When he’d wrapped his arm around her waist in the parking lot—hell, before that, when they’d sat in the parked car—images of what he’d gone without had flashed through his head. Beautiful Technicolor images of tawny skin spread out beneath him.

  The scariest part of all was his attraction wasn’t only physical. She had this way of drawing him out from behind his facade. In one day he’d shown her more of himself than he had anyone, short of the addiction counselors.

  Worse, he had this inexplicable desire to know more about her. Like what secrets lay behind that false bravado, for example. A trait so much like his it hurt. But then he thought about all the women whose hearts he’d broken, and he reminded himself he had all he could do to keep his own life together. Complications like Chloe, as intriguing as she was, would only lead to more mistakes.

  “You must be psychic.”

  Ian pulled out of his thoughts to find Josef smiling at him. “How so?” he asked.

  “Booking a room. Looks like you will need to stay the night.”

  Images flashed before his eyes again. Oh yeah, definitely a test. “About that,” he said, following Josef and the others to the house. “Do you have a second room available?”

  “Really? I assumed...” The innkeeper looked surprised. “The two of you look quite comfortable together.”

  Sure, if comfortable meant being perpetually half-aroused. “Is there a second room?”

  “Of course,” Josef replied. Ian ignored his disappointment at the man’s answer. “I’ll do up the paperwork soon as I check to see Dagmar’s got the generator running.”

  “Thank you.” That was one test taken care of.

  Good thing, too, because Chloe insisted on meeting him at the entrance with a mug of steaming coffee. Wordlessly, she held it in his direction.

  “You read my mind,” he said.

  “
In this case, it wasn’t so hard to do.” She turned on her heels and headed back indoors, but not before shooting him a smile that made his stomach take a strange, hard tumble.

  Gripping the mug like a lifeline, Ian watched her walk away. Definitely a complication, he thought to himself. A damn fine complication. He headed off to make sure Josef remembered that second room.

  * * *

  “Extra towels are down the hall. We also keep a supply of toiletries on hand—shampoo, toothbrushes and other essentials. I will check to see if Dagmar has an extra nightgown you can borrow as well.”

  Somehow Chloe didn’t think petite Dagmar and she took the same size, but she appreciated the gesture. “Thank you.”

  “Do not give it a second thought. Our house is your house.”

  So long as they were paying customers. Only a couple hours earlier he’d wanted to turn them away. Her fantasy grandfather was quite the capitalist.

  Josef filled her in on a few more details, such as where she could find an extra blanket, reminded her that guests could get coffee twenty-four hours a day, and headed off in search of sleepwear, leaving Chloe alone for the first time since their arrival.

  First time since this morning, really. She threw herself on the bed. As she lay there staring at the ceiling, her mind automatically went to Ian, who’d stayed downstairs to finish his coffee. His mood had shifted between when he’d left to check out the storm damage and when he’d returned. Lunch’s good humor had disappeared. Shouldn’t be surprising, seeing how this trip had been nothing but delay after delay. Now they were stuck here for goodness knows how long. The control freak in him must be ready to scream.

  Rolling on her side, Chloe took a good look at her surroundings. The room was gorgeous. Small, but filled with all sorts of cozy extras, like fluffy robes and a pillow-laden window seat. Of course it helped that, to save a strain on the generator, Josef had provided her with a battery operated lantern. The light’s glow mimicked candlelight in the wake of the setting sun.

  An emptiness filled her chest. The Bluebird had been created for couples—real couples, like Del and Simon or Larissa and Tom. She was an outsider amid all the romance, a fact that Ian drove home when he’d reserved a second room. Nothing reminded a woman she was alone like a man sleeping in his own bed.

  You’d think she’d be relieved by Ian’s gallantry. She knew plenty of guys who’d assume because they were together, they could share a bed, whether sex was involved or not. Ian respected her privacy—further proof he was different. Sadly, it also made him that much more attractive. It was Chloe’s pattern of inverse relationships: The more disinterest, the more attractive. Seriously, though, how could a woman not find Ian Black attractive? Funny, smart, considerate, sexy Ian Black. La-roo was right; Chloe had been fooling herself to think otherwise.

  A soft knock sounded on the door. Josef and his never-fitting nightgown, no doubt. “That was fast,” she said, opening the door.

  “I’m a fast drinker.” Ian smiled from across the threshold. His cheeks were still ruddy from being outside, the bright pink adding to his virility quotient and causing her stomach to tumble end over end.

  “I thought you were Josef,” she said, gripping the molding for support.

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “You didn’t.” She dug her fingers into the wood. Nothing like blushing in return. “I mean, is there a problem?”

  “While I was finishing my coffee, I saw a large branch blow off a tree in the backyard. Got me worried.”

  “About what?” They’d already lost power and telephone service. What more could the wind do? Topple over the building?

  “This,” he said, producing a garment bag.

  “My dress!” With everything going on, she’d forgotten it lay in the backseat.

  “Figured it’d be safer hanging in your room. The way today’s going, I didn’t want to chance a tree falling on the rental car.”

  She was touched he remembered. Gathering the bag in her arms, she went and hung it on a hook on the back of the closet door. “Seems like you’re forever rescuing pieces of my wardrobe.”

  “Just don’t tell me you owe me. Being stuck here for the night already makes us pretty even.”

  “Alright, I won’t.” She unzipped the bag. The dress was still in perfect condition, the azure silk barely wrinkled.

  “Pretty gown,” Ian said. She could feel him hanging by the door, watching.

  “Told you I got a banging dress out of the deal.”

  “Interesting color.”

  “Apparently it’s Simon—the groom’s—favorite shade. I’m only glad the color looks good on me.”

  “I’m betting most things look good on you.”

  There he went, making her feel special again. “You’ve never seen me in bright pink,” she murmured, zipping the garment bag shut. Actually, he had, because she was pretty sure her cheeks were that very color. Why did he have to say such nice things?

  Josef’s voice saved the day. “Turns out Dagmar agreed with you about her nightgown not fitting.” The innkeeper appeared in the doorway holding a plaid flannel shirt. “She suggested this. I hope it will suffice.”

  “It’ll be perfect. Thank you.” Out of the corner of her eye, Chloe caught Ian trying to fight a smile. “Don’t say a word,” she warned him once Josef had left.

  He did, anyway. “Sexy.”

  The shirt was faded Black Watch plaid, soft and comfortable looking, but sexy? Not so much. “Whadda you know? There are things I don’t look good in.”

  “Who said you wouldn’t look good?”

  Chloe had to ball the shirt in her fist to keep her stomach from tumbling again. “Well, you’ll never know, will you?”

  Hearing herself, she nearly winced. The comment made her sound disappointed, which was the last thing she wanted him to think. Quickly, she stuffed the garment under a pillow and changed the subject. “Thank you for booking a second room.” There, that should erase any notion that she expected more. “It was very considerate of you.”

  “I’m not so sure I’d use the word considerate,” he replied.

  No, he’d probably use no-brainer or common sense, wouldn’t he? Considerate implied a deeper relationship. She should stop before she dug herself into a deeper hole.

  Fluffing her curls, she moved across the room. “Thank you again for rescuing my dress.”

  “Wasn’t much of a rescue. All I did was carry the thing upstairs. It’s not like I saved you from a mugging or something.”

  “Very funny.” He’d brushed off that act with modesty, as well. “For the record, I know a lot of guys who wouldn’t have even remembered the dress was in the car, let alone gone out in a storm to retrieve it.”

  Ian gave her a long look. Such a long look she found herself fidgeting. With nothing close by to play with, she settled for tracing the slope of the footboard with her palm.

  “Maybe you should start dating a better class of guy,” he said finally.

  Yeah, well there was the rub. Better class guys didn’t want her. They rented separate rooms. “Or quit dating,” she quipped. Just her luck, the light tone she’d hoped for failed to materialize.

  “Little young to close the book completely, aren’t you?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Am I?” As far as she was concerned, it all depended on your perspective. A lifetime of guys walking away more than made up for her age.

  Ian’s eyes had yet to stop looking at her. The scrutiny reminded her too much of the other night when the air grew intimate and unsettled. Taking a seat on the other side of the bed, she grabbed one of the pillows and set it on her lap in an attempt to increase the distance between them. She never should have said anything in the first place.

  “I’m sorry your trip’s been delayed,” she stated, fingering the piping.

  “Not as sorry as I am.” Gratitude washed over her. As he had in the car, he was letting her change the topic.

  Mirroring her action
s, Ian grabbed a pillow, too. The Hendriks clearly didn’t believe in skimping when it came to bed decorations. “Logically, I know one day’s delay won’t make a difference.”

  “But you can’t help but feel time is ticking away while you’re stuck here.”

  “Exactly.”

  He looked surprised. If only he knew. Chloe understood exactly what he meant. Eventually there came a tipping point, when the bitterness became too much to overcome and all the apologies in the world wouldn’t make a difference. For a man like Ian, so used to being in control, the idea that such a time might be near would be terrifying. “Your son’s still young, though,” she assured him. “Plus, didn’t you say the two of you have already connected?”

  “Yeah...” The sentence was incomplete and she knew he was thinking about Matt’s unreturned call.

  “Hey,” she said, leaning across the bed to get Ian’s attention. “It’ll be all right. The two of you are already talking. Plus, don’t discount the fact you were there for him financially all these years. That matters, too. You could have ignored him or forgot he ever existed.”

  Too late she realized what she’d said. Stupidly using forgot instead of pretend. Naturally Ian picked up on the slip. “Is that what happened to you?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Chloe ran an index finger across one of the circles decorating the bed’s quilt, wishing she might find an answer hidden in the calico. How did a person explain that their father didn’t want them without sounding pitiful?

  The bed sagged, and a moment later she felt Ian’s breath on her forehead. He’d joined her in stretching out across the bed until they lay head to head in the middle. His index finger brushed across her wrist. “Chloe?”

  Looking up, she saw his eyes only inches from hers. Up close, the blue wasn’t nearly as pale. Tiny pearl-gray lines sprayed from the center, giving the color depth and dimension. He waited for her answer with such sincere interest, she had to look away before her own eyes teared up.

  “I told you my father wasn’t around much,” she began. “What I didn’t tell you is that sometimes we’d go years without a word. Soon as we convinced ourselves he was really gone for good, he’d show up again. Somehow, some way he’d convince my mother to take him back, and for a couple of days, maybe a week, they’d be all hot and heavy. Until he took off again.”