10
“KNOCK IT OFF, REECE,” Mitch snapped the next afternoon. His glare should have slain the man in his tracks, but his damned cousin was made of tougher stuff. “I don’t want to hear this crap. It’s bullshit, you’re wasting my time.”
“Cuz, I know you don’t want to hear bad about your ladyfriend, but you have to face facts. Someone is screwing you over and everything is pointing in her direction.”
“Belle isn’t behind the sabotage. It was happening long before she signed on. There’s no reason to suspect her.” He slammed his fist on his desk. Mitch’s vision blurred as fury filled his brain. “What’s your problem with her, Reece? Are you holding on to a grudge on my behalf? Do you hate blondes? Is Belle just too much for you? What exactly is the problem here?”
The fury did a slow burn as his cousin just sat there calmly, staring in silence. The contrast of his own anger and Reece’s composure only added fuel to Mitch’s frustration.
Then, stretching his jaw to either side, Reece pulled off his cowboy hat and contemplated the curve of the brim before setting it back on his head. Preparing for battle. Mitch recognized the move and steeled himself to win. Because there was no way in hell he was backing down.
“Look, I know you’re into the gal and I’m not saying I have a personal issue with her.” At Mitch’s glare, Reece shrugged and admitted, “Well, other than the whole screwing-you-over-and-leaving-you-standing-there-with-your-dick-in-your-hand thing, I don’t have a personal issue with her.”
Mitch thought about defending his dick-holding practices as his business, but realized it’d be a waste of time. Family defended family, end of story.
“But you have to be realistic. Your resort is seeing problems and this gal has a history of problems. She also knows the hotel business inside out. She’s the daughter of a guy who thinks you screwed him royally. And, well, bottom line, she’s female.”
Mitch squinted. “Care to justify that last one?”
“She’s a woman. Women do the strangest things. Who knows, she might have spent the past half-dozen years stewing over whatever it was that pissed her off enough to leave you at the altar and is just now implementing her revenge.”
The flames of his fury were doused as if they’d been hit by a deluge of water. Mitch just shook his head in pity. “You still reeling from your divorce, cuz?”
“Nah, I’m over the hangover now.” Reece shot him a grin that Mitch had seen turn women from disinterested divas into panting groupies. Mitch was probably the only person who knew that grin was hiding a pained heart. Not broken, but bruised. Even Reece would be surprised at the news.
“Shawna aside, since she was in a class by herself, I just don’t get what goes through their pretty little heads sometimes,” Reece continued with a shrug.
Mitch didn’t comment. There wasn’t much to say since he’d never cared two damns about what went on in a woman’s head until Belle had showed up—this time, he forced himself to acknowledge. Their first round, his only interest had been in proving himself, in snagging the biggest prize in the game.
“You said you wanted me to investigate.” Reece’s grin fell away as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. The look he speared Mitch with was all business. “That means man up and listen to the results of that investigation, regardless of what your dick wants to hear.”
Mitch set his jaw and with a jerk of his head indicated his cousin offer up those results.
Reece stared for another few seconds, then lifted a file folder from the seat next to him. He held it up for Mitch to see, then without opening it tossed it on the desk.
“You’ve had a series of emails coming out of the resort. Not unusual,” he said before Mitch could scoff, “except that each one is going to the same IP address and each one is deleted from your server. A few a week, sometimes more, never less.”
Mitch frowned and laid his palm on the file.
“Interviewing the staff and repair crew involved in each incidence, I think it’s clear the problems the resort’s faced in the past month have all been deliberate. The lost linens, the destruction of property, even the gophers.”
Mitch pulled his head back in shock. How the hell did someone come up with that many gophers?
“The gophers, by the way,” Reece continued, pointing a finger at the file folder under Mitch’s hand, “were actually shipped direct to the resort. Ballsy move, that.”
Mitch pulled the folder toward him but didn’t open it.
“From what I’ve gathered, the person behind it is a woman.”
Mitch glared, but waited for the justification he knew was coming.
“I say that because all of the destruction was smallish, things easily broken by someone of a slight stature.” He went on to list the items to support his supposition. While he listened, Mitch flipped open the file folder and scanned the reports of property damage. With each one, his anger and frustration mounted.
“You really think all that is definitive evidence it’s a woman behind the problems?” Mitch asked, his tone dismissive. He had small guys on the crew and in his management team. He was sure it could have been any of them.
“Nah, that’s all circumstantial.” Reece leaned out of his chair and across the desk to flip the pages in Mitch’s hand to a manifest. “That the gophers were delivered to and signed for by a woman is definitive.”
Mitch stared at the loopy and decidedly feminine scrawl on the delivery manifest. Two dozen gophers, signed for by Janie Doe. He hated that his brain was scrambling to remember Belle’s signature. He glanced at the date on the invoice. The same as the date of her first visit to talk him into hiring her. Mitch felt sick, but told himself it wasn’t her. His gut knew it wasn’t, but there weren’t many women at the resort yet, especially not ones with enough authority to commandeer a direct delivery without being questioned.
“This doesn’t point to Belle,” he stated unequivocally, tossing the folder down. The pages fanned over his desk but he and Reece both ignored them.
“Her old man is in trouble—financially sinking and the cause is pretty much your fault,” Reece said, his voice quiet with resignation. Mitch knew his cousin figured he’d just delivered the death knell to Mitch’s relationship and felt rotten about it. “That deal the two of you cooked up, then you bailed on when your princess ran off has him tied up financially, and with real estate tanking, he’s screwed with no way out.”
“That sucks.” And it did. Hugely. Mitch hadn’t heard a whisper about it, but he wasn’t surprised. Franklin Forsham was good at keeping things hush-hush. Regret washed over Mitch in a heavy wave. He’d been an a*shole to leave Franklin in a lurch like that. Sure, he’d been humiliated and feeling justified in slapping out at anyone named Forsham, but the bottom line was it’d been bad business. He considered the current real estate climate, the tightened zoning laws in California and the probable debt Franklin had incurred holding the property all this time and winced.
“That totally sucks,” he repeated. “But how does that make Belle the culprit in Lakeside’s sabotage? In the first place, the problems started before she got here. Second and more significantly, she’s under contract with me. The success of her business hinges on the success of my resort.”
“Maybe. Or maybe she’s more interested in her daddy’s business right now.” Reece grimaced, then pulled some more papers from that damned file. “I was chatting with Kiki, the gal who runs the spa here.” In other words, flirting and looking for a good time. “Turns out Belle made her a very interesting proposition.”
Mitch’s mouth watered as he remembered the Brazilian treat he’d enjoyed the night before. “So?” he asked.
“It seems she’s trying to lure Kiki away from your resort.” Mitch’s smile dropped away as Reece continued. “She’s offering her gigs at her daddy’s hotels. Same deal you have, but a few extra perks.”
“That doesn’t put her behind my resort issues.”
“True,” Reece agreed. Then he handed Mitch the papers he’d been holding. “Copies of the emails sent through the resort server from Belle to her partner.”
Mitch started to point out how wrong it was to invade her emails when the words caught his eye.
The plan is in motion. Daddy will be thrilled.
Check timing of all of this. Can’t let the cat out of the closet or Mitch will know.
Cat out of the closet. It was totally Belle-esque. His stomach fisted at the idea of her screwing him over with such calculation.
She’d walked out on him once without giving him the benefit of the doubt, not caring that she left him looking like an idiot. She was clever enough and resourceful enough to pull off revenge at this level and confident enough not to bat one long, mink eyelash.
But despite all the proof Reece was pitching, regardless of how many papers he stuffed in that file pointing the finger at Belle, Mitch wasn’t going for it.
With a smile at odds with the subject, he settled back in his chair and finally identified the feeling he’d been struggling with since he’d walked into this office and seen his past waiting for him. He was in love with Belle. He had been six years ago, although he’d called it ambition. He was now, although he’d been trying to tell himself it was lust.
Love. Mitch shifted his gaze out the window to stare at the expanse of trees and gopher-infested lawn. Who knew it would feel so confusing?
But confusing or not, he loved her. Which meant, bottom line, he trusted her.
She might only be in this for the sex. She might still run away at any time, Mitch realized as his heart sank a little. He swallowed the bitter taste of fear at the possibility and told himself he’d deal with it later. The truth was, he wasn’t blind to Belle’s issues. But he knew screwing him at the same time she was screwing him over wasn’t one of them.
“You’re meeting with Belle tomorrow to talk security for the grand opening,” he told Reece. “If you need to ask questions to make you feel like you’re doing your job, go ahead. She’s clean. But keep digging because the real culprit needs to be stopped before they do any more damage to my resort.”
“You’re gone, cuz.” Reece shook his head in a pitying, you’re-so-stupid kind of way.
“Totally gone,” Mitch acknowledged, shoving aside the doubts. “And I’m loving every minute of it.”
* * *
“I’VE GOT IT, THE ANSWER to our problem,” Belle claimed in her daily phone call to Sierra. She tucked the cell between her chin and shoulder as she sliced a peach. They were now officially her favorite fruit.
“A blow-up doll with remote-control hands?” Sierra shot back.
Belle rolled her eyes at the phone. “Hardly. If we’re using remote control I plan on operating something much more interesting than hands.”
“Right. So what’s our problem and then what’s the answer?”
Sierra was usually so on top of things, but she’d been distracted during their last few phone calls, forgetting to send papers and contracts, just sort of disconnected from everything as far as Belle could tell.
Taking her snack to the table, Belle frowned in frustration. Questions were pointless. Sierra answered them all with annoying assurances that everything was just fine.
“Kiki’s in,” Belle explained. “She’s really excited to take her spa to the next level and sees aligning with Forsham Hotels as the way to do it. Besides all the info I already sent you, I just found out she’s courting a contract with one of the big-name beauty suppliers for an exclusive label.”
“Do you think that’s enough to help your dad?”
“I hope so. She’ll pay top dollar for the square footage, but she’ll also bring in a huge clientele. Between the label and her own promotion, they’re going to skyrocket.” Belle considered. “I have to convince Daddy, but if it works, he’ll be able to switch all his on-site boutiques and stores. Rather than entities he runs and assumes the business expenses for, he can let his tenant take on the employee, inventory and liability risks. He’ll cut his own expenses by at least an eighth.”
Belle nibbled on her peach as they went on to brainstorm a few more ideas and kick around ways to pitch the proposal to her father. Finally deciding Belle would do it over Sunday brunch the next weekend, they wound up the topic.
“What about Lakeside?” Sierra asked. “Have you talked to Mitch about borrowing Kiki?”
“No,” she said slowly. “I just didn’t think it was a good idea until we’d worked out all the particulars.”
“In other words, you don’t want to rock the nookie boat until you’re sure your dad’s on board.”
Belle was glad her shamed flush couldn’t be seen over the phone.
“Kiki doesn’t have an exclusivity contract,” she defended.
“Doesn’t mean Mitch expects her to be stolen away by his bed buddy.”
“She’s not being stolen. After she set things up here, she planned on leaving a manager in charge anyway. Besides,” Belle justified, “it’s good insurance for her. If someone really is playing some game here and the resort is going to suffer, she needs a safety net.”
“Speaking of which, what’d you find out?” Sierra asked.
Glad to change the subject, Belle thought of the list she’d copied from Diana’s office the day before. Someone was deliberately trying to ruin the resort. Was it Mitch? Despite the note, she couldn’t believe it.
“It’s not Mitch,” she declared. “Why would he ruin his own venture? There just isn’t anything in it for him. His board of directors is made up entirely of family. It’s a family-held corporation, even.”
“So?”
“So, nothing means more to him than family. This guy has a total Brady Bunch mind-set.”
“Are you sure you’re not just trying to rationalize the fact that you’re not done playing in his pants?” Sierra asked.
Pulling a face, Belle dropped to the couch and huffed out a breath. “Do you really think sex is that important that I’d risk everything for it?”
“You did before.”
Belle frowned. It wasn’t sex, she wanted to say. It was Mitch. Just Mitch. Sex with him was her only excuse to intimacy, she realized. And didn’t that make her a pitiful love-struck idiot?
“Look, I need your input then. How’d you like to see the resort firsthand?” she asked after tucking her notes into her portfolio. “Come out, get a feel for the place, see Mitch in person and give me your opinion on what’s what.”
“You want me to come out there? Why? What’d you do?”
Belle rolled her eyes and made a huffing sound of irritation. “I didn’t do anything. At least, nothing I need you to come fix. You have doubts about Mitch, I want your feedback. And I thought you’d enjoy getting the lay of the land, so to speak, before we kick into high gear next week preparing for the first event.”
“Well, I’m grateful you don’t want me to come fix your sex life,” Sierra said with a laugh. “And you’ve already got a solid lay, so to speak, so I doubt you need me there.”
“An upside-down head needs twice the help,” Belle pointed out.
“Two heads are better than one,” Sierra corrected with a sigh.
That she was desperate for Sierra to pinch-hit for her in the security meeting wasn’t going to fly as a reason, even if it was pure truth. She was totally freaked to face Reece alone. Even worse, she was terrified he’d ruin what she’d found with Mitch.
But she wasn’t telling Sierra that.
“I’d love to have your take on who’s tanking the resort, and maybe while you’re here you can see if there’s anything I could add for the first party, the one for Mitch’s family and board, next week,” Belle claimed instead. “I’m just a little nervous about pulling this off given that someone is trying to screw things up. It’d help to have a second set of eyes.”
It was a flimsy ploy and she knew it. Belle orchestrated events for thousands on her own and never needed hand-holding. She cringed, waiting for her partner to call her on it and trying to figure out how to get out of dealing with Reece. Pretend to be sick? Really get sick? Family emergency and run home? She had to do something, anything. She so did not want to deal with the hot cowboy. Not when she knew he was just waiting to get her alone and confront her about the past.
“Okay, I can be there tomorrow morning,” Sierra agreed after a long silence.
Belle kept her squeal of triumph to herself. “You can?”
“Sure. You want my help, I’ll come give it. Why the shock? We’re partners. That’s what we do, help each other and tell each other crap.”
Interesting theory, since Belle knew damned well Sierra was keeping crap from her. But confronting her friend was pointless, so Belle kept that a silent observation.
“Great.” Never one to ruin a miracle by asking too many questions, Belle rushed on, “Since you’ll be here anyway, you can take the meeting with the head of security and go over all the details, okay?”
“I should have known there was a catch.” Sierra laughed. “Fine, I’ll take the meeting.”
Noting a movement out of the corner of her eye, Belle glanced out the window at the golf course. Mitch and Reece strode across the green expanse. Although both wore jeans and work shirts, the two men couldn’t look more different. Yet they seemed to be solid friends in addition to having that family connection that was so important to Mitch.
Family. Since it was just her and her dad, Belle didn’t quite get the whole clan feeling Mitch seemed to embrace. But she definitely knew how important it was to take care of her loved ones. Worrying over her father was proof of that.
Belle gave herself a second to appreciate Mitch’s gorgeous ass, encased lovingly in denim, before she glanced at his leggy cowboy cousin. A sneaky plan formed in her head.
Six years ago she’d thought Sierra and Reece looked great together. Both tall, dark and gorgeous, they’d been striking at the pre-wedding festivities. If Reece had Sierra to distract him, it would keep him off Belle’s back while she tried to figure out who was behind the dirty deeds at Mitch’s resort.
It had nothing to do with the fact that Belle was so far gone over Mitch that she wanted everyone to experience the wonders of coupledom. Or if it did, she forced herself to admit, it was only because good sex was something her best friend deserved.
“Great,” she told Sierra. “You’re so much better at those details than I am and this security guy is hot. You’ll have fun.”
She figured Sierra was due for a hot, wild fling and Reece Carter was the perfect man to show her friend a sexy time. Belle couldn’t wait to watch the sparks fly.
* * *
SPARKS, HELL. IT WAS like watching an inferno. Belle gaped as Sierra and Reece did everything but get naked and duke it out on the boardroom table.
“The resort has enough staff to handle the opening,” Reece said in his long, slow drawl. “We don’t need to bring in outside help and deal with more of those damned confidentiality agreements and clearances. Besides, how many people does it really take to serve a plate of mini hot dogs and tacos?”
“Don’t worry about those mini hot dogs, cowboy,” Sierra said with a wicked smile. “Nobody’s going to hold yours against you. Besides, we figure the guests will have a little more refined taste. That means gourmet food, circulated while it’s hot and fresh. And then there’s the resort’s theme—”
“Waste of time and money,” he muttered, scrawling something over his notes. “People don’t need silly games to have a good time.”
Belle started to defend the themes and Mitch shifted his chair, leaning forward at the same time to comment. But before either could utter a word, Sierra gave a deep, patently fake sigh and shook her head.
With a pitying look, she tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder and made a tut-tutting noise. “Are you afraid of games in sex, cowboy? Or is it the idea of other people coloring outside the lines that bothers you?”
“I’m all for a good time,” he said with a look that made it clear to everyone in the room just how good a time he’d like to show Sierra. “It’s when the good time veers out of easy and into complicated that I see it as a problem. Nobody should have to work for fun. Games just mess it all up.”
Belle had the feeling she was missing half the conversation. The best half, if Sierra’s breathless little laugh was anything to go by.
“As long as nobody’s trying to slap handcuffs or nipple clips on you, what do you care?” Sierra asked. Then she gave him a taunting look. “Or are you afraid to play?”
“Sweetheart, I wrote the book on how to play. And,” he said slowly, leaning across the table with a wicked grin, “how to win. You want a peek at a few pages, you just let me know.”
“I’m trying to cut back on my fiction,” Sierra told him with a wink.
Belle glanced at Mitch. He was staring, jaw slack, at the battle of verbal foreplay.
“So,” Belle said bravely, breaking in to what should have been a simple security discussion, “I can see the two of you have this in hand so I’m going to take Mitch and do a walk-through of the weekend plans.”
They ignored her.
Belle offered Mitch a helpless shrug. With one last look at the warring pair, now standing and facing off on either side of the table, she grabbed Mitch’s hand and pulled him from the conference room.
As the door thudded shut behind them, Mitch started to ask a question. Before he could do more than mutter “oh, my God,” they noticed Diana standing at the fax machine, her eyes huge.
“Guess you heard that,” Belle said with a wince.
“Is everything okay?” the assistant asked quietly. “I needed your signature on some orders, Mitch, but it was so loud in there I figured I should wait.”
“Security is a touchy issue,” Mitch quipped as he strode over to take the file and pen from her.
Belle laughed and sat on the edge of Diana’s desk to wait. She tried to think of something to say that would calm the other woman, who was visibly agitated, but all she could come up with were dirty jokes. Trying to get control of herself, she glanced away. Her gaze dropped to the computer monitor, where bubbles bounced across the screen.
Across the bottom of the open Word files was one with a stylized header. Belle noted how pretty the gold MC lettering was as the purple bubble shifted to turquoise. MC? Mitch’s logo wasn’t that girly, was it?
Before she could ask, he handed Diana back the papers and pen. “Stay out of the boardroom,” he instructed his assistant as Belle joined him at the door. “If you hear furniture breaking, call the cops.”
“But only furniture,” Belle cautioned. “Groans, yells or screams should be ignored.”
They were halfway down the hall before Mitch glanced at her in question. “Groans?”
“Oh, please, they’re so going to be doing it up against the wall before the day is over.”
She’d taken another two steps before she realized he’d stopped cold.
“Doing it?” he asked blankly.
“It. The vertical vibration. The dirty deed. Riding the wild stallion. Bumping uglies.” He still stared. Belle laughed and grabbed his hand to get him moving again. “Jeez, Mitch. What’d you think that was in there?”
“I thought it was hate at first sight,” he muttered.
“With all that sexual innuendo? Hardly.” They stopped at the front desk and Belle offered her thanks and a smile to Larry, who handed her a large picnic basket. Mitch took it from her and gestured for her to precede him out the door.
She waited until they were in the golf cart on their way to the woods to continue sharing her theory. “Heck, the sexual sparks and tension were so heavy back there I was getting turned on just being in the room.”
“Are you sure that was them and not me?” he asked, glancing over as he steered the machine toward the trees. “I’d like to think you get hot and horny just being in the same room.”
“You’d like to think that, hmm?” Belle laughed and patted his thigh before getting out of the now-stopped cart. “I admit, you do have a way of turning my thoughts to sexual escapades, whether you’re in the room or not.”
She reached for the basket, but he beat her to it. With a wink and a quick kiss, he gestured for her to step back and let him set up their lunch like the gentleman he was.
Belle settled against a tree trunk and looked out over the clearing, her entire being filled with a sense of peace and happiness she’d never felt before. She didn’t know if it was the result of a week of incredible sex, her feelings for Mitch or the utter beauty of the woods. Whatever it was, she felt great.
She was curious, though.
“Is your family going to have a problem with the sex angle?” she asked, watching him spread the thick red blanket over the lawn, then place the picnic basket on the corner before kicking off his shoes.
He laughed and held out his arm. Belle slipped off her sandals and settled on the blanket, where Mitch immediately grabbed her and rolled so she lay flat on top of him. He bunched the blanket up as a pillow and settled his hands on her waist with a sigh of contented pleasure.
“Believe me, my family has no issues with sex. From my youngest cousin to my gram, they’re all pretty open-minded. Remember that list of sex-theme ideas I gave you? Those were straight from my family. Including this picnic, which was decidedly the tamest.”
“Yeah,” she said, her attention more focused on tracing his lips with her fingernail and reveling at the sweetness of the moment than their discussion. “There were some good ideas there. I tend to think a little bigger, and Sierra a little kinkier, so those were a nice balance.”
“Kinkier? We left kinkier with my cousin?”
Delighted, Belle met his gaze and grinned. She was so in love, she realized. And even though it could be the biggest mistake of her life, right at this moment, she didn’t care. She wanted to jump up, scream from the treetops how incredible Mitch was. Equal parts happiness and terror made her light-headed. Okay, she realized as the ringing in her ears turned to a buzz, maybe the terror had an edge over the happiness.
There were so many reasons why this was insane. Why falling for Mitch was a horribly bad idea. Their history alone made believing they had a shot at happy-ever-after a total fairy tale.
But for right now, just this moment in time, she didn’t care. She was giving happiness free rein and wringing every drop of joy from this interlude. And since joy translated so easily to sexual energy between them, she wiggled her hips a little. Mitch’s body reacted instantly.
She melted at the humor in his cinnamon-sweet eyes and leaned closer. “That’s okay. I’ve got bigger here with me,” she said, referring back to his concern over his cousin being left with a kinky Sierra.
The humor left and Mitch’s gaze went dark with desire. One hand slipped from Belle’s waist down to cup her butt and press her tighter to him. The other combed through her hair.
“Why don’t we see how much bigger we can get?” he said as he pulled her mouth to his.
Just before their lips met, Belle whispered, “And when we’re done, I have a whole basket of aphrodisiacs there to prep you for the next round.”