“Hmm, that’s a bit weird. Let’s talk more about this once my dad and I have had our meeting.”
“OK, sounds good.” Right at that moment my father steps into my office.
I go over to give him a hug and offer him a seat.
“Dad, thanks for coming down. As a matter of fact I was just putting this material together for you, so your timing is perfect.”
“Hello, my dear,” he says with a smile. “You’ve been busy, I see.”
“I’m always busy, Dad, you know that.”
He frowns. “Yes, an unfortunate habit I fear you inherited from me.”
“You taught me to work my ass off for what I want in life,” I say with a shrug. “So that’s what I do but, at the same time, I have to say I am excited about this project and the vision for it.”
“But I’ve often prioritized work over everything else.” He stares off into the distance, obviously not ready to talk business just yet. “It cost me, with your mother.”
I cough, caught by surprise—Mom left when I was a teenager, but it’s something he never discusses. “I—”
He turns his gaze to me. “It would have been our thirtieth anniversary today, so I’m a bit maudlin, I’m afraid. I regret the way things happened, and I’ve come to the realization that it’s largely my own fault.” He waves a hand. “Never mind. This isn’t the time or place for this conversation.”
I sigh, sitting next to him at the conference table. “I admit I’m a bit blindsided by this. You’ve never talked about this before.”
“I know. My apologies.” He claps his hands, and is suddenly all business. “So. Costa Rica, huh?”
“So, do you want an overview, or do you want the sales pitch?”
He rolls a shoulder. “I want the Brooklyn to her father pitch.” His eyes are sharp, insightful.
I let out a breath. “Okay. So. It’s an all-inclusive. Not super original, I know, but for my first totally solo project, it makes sense. Bellanger Real Estate doesn’t have any tropical holdings—only domestic in places like Florida and Hawaii. This is a boutique resort. The target demographic is on the new, young wealthy millennial types, so the focus is on buzzwords. The materials being used are all sustainably resourced, meaning the wood is from a sustainable farming forest, same for the bamboo and all the cotton for the sheets and everything. It’s a green resort, too—currently eighty percent of the resort’s energy will come from a renewable power supply, primarily solar with some wind and geothermal. It’s being built exclusively by local builders and subcontractors, and even the architects are Costa Rican. We aren’t at the staffing phase yet, but all staff will be local, and well paid. Each unit will be private, with every luxury imaginable—except Wi-Fi or cell signal, intentionally, as the goal is to provide a respite from civilization. Get away from everything, and unplug. My marketing team is working on ‘unplugged weekends’ for high-powered CEO’s, including private charters from LA, here in New York, Chicago, Beijing, London, places like that, so all you have to do is clear your calendar and pack a bag, and even the bag isn’t needed, because all you really need is a bathing suit.”
Dad nods. “Great. And I’ll be your first client.” He smiles. “It sounds like you have all your bases covered. It will be an asset, certainly. I presume the profit numbers are in line with what we discussed a couple of weeks ago, so we don’t need to go over that again right now.”
I frown. “But I hear a ‘but’ in your voice.”
He lets the smile fade. “But it’s safe.”
I groan, and toss the marketing pamphlet aside. “Yes, I know.”
“This was about risk-taking. For you. This is outside what we currently have, true, but the idea was for you to challenge the company a little more, and look at how we make money, and why.” He pauses for a long time. “What happened to the Colorado idea?”
I stare at him. “How much do you know about that?”
He snorts. “I know all, my dear. Don’t you realize that by now?” He’s only sort of kidding.
“That was a bust. The owners wouldn’t sell.”
“So? Convince them, or find a new location. From what I understand, the idea was solid and completely different from anything else we do.”
“It was.”
“So?”
“So, I…” I have no idea how to explain this away.
At that moment, Tina enters my office, looking pale as a sheet and clearly worried. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Bellanger. But, um, Brooklyn? May I talk to you privately for a moment?”
Dad’s eyes narrow at Tina. “No, you may not.”
“What is it, Tina?” I ask, slightly annoyed she’s interrupted, knowing Dad only had twenty minutes for this meeting.
“Those calls you’ve had recently?” She pauses. “I haven’t let any of them through, as you know…um. It’s becoming—he’s rather persistent.”
“Who?” I ask, hating the lurch of premonition in my gut.
“A, umm…a Mr. W.H. Auden.”
My eyes slide closed. “He’s the one who has been calling?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And now he finally got my personal phone number—like, my cell phone, my personal cell number, not my work cell. And he left me a message saying that he, um…” She trails off, clearly scared.
“Say it, Tina.”
“He’s here.”
“He’s coming here? From Colorado?” I ask, my voice squeaky with panic.
“No, he is here. Now. Down in the lobby.”
“In the building? Keep him waiting. I’m not going to see him. He had his chance, and we’ve moved on.” I’ve moved on.
And I can’t risk seeing him. My equilibrium is already shot, and seeing him would only further mess me up.
My father watched this exchange with more interest than I’d seen on his face in a long time.
“Send him in,” my father says.
“Um,” I find my voice. “No, don’t.” I glance at Dad. “I’m sorry to counter you, but…I don’t need to see him right now.”
“A working historical village sounds like the best idea I’ve heard in months. It’s bold, and it’s outside the box.” He stares at me, his expression hard and piercing. “You should have stayed with it.”
“It wasn’t working, Dad. For a lot of reasons.”
Dad leans back in his chair, gives Tina a peremptory glance. “Send him in, Tina. I’m not asking.” His voice is gentle, but there is no mistaking the command.
“Yes, sir.” She gives me an apologetic look, but we both know she can’t disobey him.
When she’s gone, Dad’s eyes go to mine again, and he sees far more than he should. “You’re flustered. No one ever flusters you, man or woman, CEO or common crook. If he can get the best of your rather intimidating skill set as a negotiator, I have to meet him.” He grins. “Especially one who can affect you the way he so obviously does.”
“Dad, it’s not like that.”
It is totally like that.
He screwed me, literally, out of the negotiation. Probably on purpose. He distracted me with sex, and he got me to drop the project when he ghosted me. And it worked.
The bastard.
So why is he here?
I swallow hard, because I truly never expected to see him again. And now he’s here?
Dad is carefully watching the door for Will’s appearance.
I’m not ready. I’m not calm. I’m not in control. This is a clusterfuck, and I’m in trouble.
Less than a minute later I can hear them just outside my office. Tina is chattering a mile a minute. “…but you don’t understand, Mr. Auden, this isn’t how things are done. I don’t think you’re entirely aware of exactly who Brooklyn is—”
“I don’t care,” he growls. “I want to talk to her, and it shouldn’t be this fuckin’ hard to get a five-minute conversation with someone. I shouldn’t have to travel halfway across a damned continent to have a fucking word with someone,
no matter who they are—”
“But, sir, she—”
They enter my office at that moment, and both Will and Tina abruptly stop talking. Will barges in and my heart stops dead. Flatline. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
He’s wearing the same dusty old cowboy boots—now brushed clean of the worst mud, and a clean pair of dark blue jeans. His shirt is a white button-down. He’s wearing a big silver belt buckle with the logo of some association probably to do with horses or rodeos, and the shirt is tucked in. His jaw is shadowed with heavy blond stubble, and the same faded ball cap he wore the day I met him graces his head. Aside from being clean, his only nod to this being a business meeting is a dark blazer, left open.
It’s Will, in all his cowboy glory, only better.
And he’s staring at my father. Blankly, for a moment, and then he looks at me, and then at Dad again, and I see understanding dawn. “Thomas Holden Bellanger,” he says, in his permanent-growl voice.
“W.H. Auden,” my father says, amused. “Not the deceased poet, I presume.” A joke? From my always-business father?
“William Henry, not Wystan Hugh, and no, I’m no poet,” Will says. “My mother was a schoolteacher, back East.” He glances out the window at the Manhattan skyline. “Or, rather, over here, I guess I should say. Named me after her favorite poet.”
Dad nods. “One of mine, as well.”
“‘We would rather be ruined than changed, we would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die,’” Will quotes.
Color me impressed.
Dad nods. “‘How should we like it were stars to burn with a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.’” He frowns slightly. “Forgive the stereotype based on appearances, but if I were to guess, I would not peg you as a reader of poetry.”
Will laughs. “I ain’t, and you’d be right in your estimation, generally. But when you’re named after a guy, you get curious, and some of his stuff sticks in your head.”
“It does at that.” Dad eyes me.
Am I too pale? Is it obvious I’m having trouble swallowing? Can he smell the raw sexual desire wafting up from between my thighs? I’d hoped this wouldn’t happen, but alas, it has: I’m drenched, dripping with need from one look.
Will steps forward and shakes Dad’s hand, their eyes locking; I know Dad well enough to see the subtle wince he suppresses at the power of Will’s grip, and I see something pass between them.
I clear my throat, and they both look at me. My voice is beyond icy. “How can I help you, Mr. Auden?”
Will’s lips part, but his teeth do not, remaining locked and clenching. He blinks at me for a time that feels endless. “You’re his daughter?”
I nod. “Yes. I did introduce myself to you, I distinctly remember, as Brooklyn Bellanger. Pretty solid clue, there.”
“Didn’t realize you meant that Bellanger.”
“Would you have changed your mind, if you’d known?” I ask, the ice in my voice going so cold it crackles to brittleness. “Would knowing that I’m his daughter, that I’m the heir to a sixty-billion-dollar fortune have convinced you to hear me out?”
“Ahem, seventy, actually, my dear,” Dad adds. “We recently closed on a rather large acquisition, which boosted our value quite a bit.”
“Sixty, seventy, whatever.”
Will blinks, and then snorts a laugh. “You just whatevered a ten-billion-dollar difference.”
“It’s all the same at that level, William. More money than anyone could spend in several lifetimes, and my contribution to that fortune is fairly minor. I may be the heir, but I expect Dad to donate the majority of it upon his passing. I don’t want his money, and he knows it.”
Will nods. “Understandable.” He mutters a sound, a wordless sound of…irritation? Something I can’t quite fathom. “We need to talk, Brooklyn.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that. There’s nothing to talk about, William.”
His snarl is barely kept under control. “Quit with the William bullshit. My name is Will, and I think you know that.”
“I damn well know there’s nothing to talk about. I was just discussing my new project with my father when you interrupted. Now, if you’ll excuse us…”
Dad frowns at me, and leads me to the outer office, where he addresses me with an admonishing gaze. “If someone goes to the trouble he’s gone through to hunt you down, you ought to at least hear him out.”
I gesture pointedly at the door to the inner office, where Will waits. “Tell that to him.”
Dad’s face features a smirk, then, and I have never, ever in my life seen him smirk. “I see.”
“You do not see, Dad.”
“This is personal, that’s what I see,” Dad says, the smirk growing. “Very personal.”
“It may have, very unfortunately, been personal,” I admit, “but it’s not any longer. I’ve moved on—both personally and professionally.”
“The frost on the windows speaks of a different story, my dear,” Dad says, leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms.
I take him literally for a split second, looking at the actual windows for frost before realizing he means me—the steel in my spine, the rigidity of my features, the ice in my voice. “If it’s personal, then it has nothing to do with you,” I say, knowing my dad doesn’t deserve it, but too pissed off and confused and aroused by Will’s mere presence and pissed off at that to stop myself. “If it’s personal, then it’s my situation to deal with as I see fit.”
Dad’s eyebrows arch. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen you like this.”
“It’s a simple matter,” I say. “He’s the type of person who just pushes my buttons wrong. He refused to even hear out my proposal, and was rather…rude, about it. End of discussion. I decided on a different concept.”
“A safe one, that requires nothing from you but a few months of legwork.” Dad gestures at Will. “Meanwhile, two months later, if looks could kill, this man would be dead several times over, and you have always been the most objective and rational person I know.” Dad’s eyes see through me. “You’re bluffing, my dear, and I’m calling it.”
“Dad, I—”
He interrupts again, and I click my jaw closed to listen—the sternness in his eyes demand it. “Hear him out, Brooklyn.” He drapes his suit coat over his arm. “I have to go now, but my recommendation as your father, your boss, and an older, wiser head is to hear him out—in private.”
I sigh, because I know he’s right—he usually is. “Fine.”
Dad grins at me, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “We’ll talk more later,” he whispers. “Open mind, Brooklyn.”
“I’ll do my best,” I murmur back.
When Dad is gone, I go back into my office, and I feel trepidation and nerves made worse by the fact that I feel this way in my own damned office.
“What’s your proposal, Brooklyn?” Will gets right to the point, and his voice cuts through everything, low but commanding. It’s a voice that demands attention.
I stand in the doorway, blink through a pause, and then sigh. “There is no proposal. I’ve moved on.”
“Brooklyn.” Will’s voice is…almost soft. “I…I’m sorry. An apology is the least I owe you. On top of everything else, I should have at least heard you out when you visited the ranch. I made a mistake and I’m here to make amends. I’d really like to know what you would’ve proposed.”
I search him, and I see no duplicity. “Tell me why, after all this time, you finally want to have a discussion.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you want to hear this, now. Why did you come here, after all this time.”
My arms cross over my chest, and Will’s eyes follow the movement before flicking back up to my eyes.
"You’re gonna have to do better than that,” I say derisively.
He lets out a deep breath, glances up at the ceiling, and then at me. “I’ve…seen the
error in my thinking.”
“Meaning?” I prompt. “You’re not going to get a second chance at this for free, Will.”
His shoulder drops for a moment, but then he re-squares them and meets my eyes, bold as I remember. “Okay, fine. Theo quit.”
“Quit? Quit what?”
“Quit working for the ranch. She left.”
I blink. “She…left? For where?”
“Denver.” He shrugs. “She’s always wanted to live in the city, and she has some friends there. I guess she’s got a part-time job or something until she starts school in the fall. Hell of a waste of talent as a rider, if you ask me, but I’m just her brother.”
“This has nothing to do with me, but I’m curious, why did she up and leave so suddenly?”
“Theo was in charge of the village. With her moving to Denver on me, that leaves me to take over.” He stops there, as if that should explain everything.
And, actually, it does, but I need more explanation from him. “And?”
He hisses, and if Will Auden could do anything unsexy, it’s make that noise. “So fucking difficult,” he mutters.
I nod. “Yes, I am.”
He spins his chair around and stretches out his long legs, crossing a heel over an ankle, and leaning back in the chair. “I suppose I may have taken Theo for granted in terms of the work involved in running the village and keeping an eye on the business end of things. My territory has always been the horses, same for Dad and Grandpa and everyone going back six generations.” He reaches out, snags a pen, and fiddles with it—a sure sign that he’s nervous. “So after a couple weeks of dealing with the books and the ordering and the saloons needing this and that, arranging repairs, needing a new air-conditioning unit, blah blah fucking blah, I realized why Theo said what she said before she left.”
I suppress a grin. “And what was that, William?”
“We got in a fight. Apparently I’ve been a little…out of sorts lately—” Here, his eyes meet mine, and the expression in them speaks the million words his mouth never could. “Um. Yeah. We argued. She said I was being a real bastard, and the second biggest mistake I’ve ever made was letting you leave without even hearing your proposal.”
Cowboy in Colorado (Fifty States of Love) Page 17
