Hurt and confused, I turned and ran from the barn across the yard, tears burning my eyes. I cut a wide berth around the house, hoping Pete and Georgia wouldn’t see me, and darted out to the road where I’d parked. When I reached the safety of my car without being seen, I pulled the door shut and collapsed against the steering wheel.
A few tears spilled over, and I wiped at them with my filthy hands, angry I was this upset over a stupid kiss. “Fuck you, Jack Valentini. I was right about you to begin with. You’re nothing but a foul-mannered jerk.”
So what if he was handsome underneath that scruff and dirt? So what if he had a big, broken heart somewhere inside that massive chest? So what if he had a big dick and probably knew how to use it?
He was an asshole.
And he was a client.
But that kiss…that kiss.
Why did the best kiss I’d ever had have to be with him?
“Dammit!” I banged my head against the steering wheel a few times, then pulled myself together.
In my purse, I found a handkerchief and dabbed at my eyes and nose, dismayed by the amount of dirt that came off my face. I stared at it, noticing how the embroidered navy blue M of my monogram was beginning to fray. Tossing the soiled linen aside, I started the car and drove back to the cottage, berating myself the whole way.
What the hell had I been thinking? It didn’t matter what he looked like naked or how he kissed or why he’d pushed me away. I worked for him, and that was a boundary that shouldn’t be crossed.
He probably realized that too. You should be glad he came to his senses before you started flinging your panties around.
Back at the cottage, I took a long, punishingly hot shower, vowing to put Jack out of my mind and concentrate on the work that needed to be done. I had a meeting with Pete and Brad and Georgia tomorrow, and I wanted to go in prepared. More than prepared—if Jack said anything to them about my less-than-professional behavior, I had to counter that with proof I was good at my job.
When I was finally clean, I put on my pajamas, pulled from the freezer a pitiful frozen lasagna that probably came off an assembly line six years ago, and opened a bottle of wine. While I waited for the lasagna to heat up in the microwave, I called Jaime.
“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”
“Great.” I forced myself to be cheerful. “I’m fired up. I’ve got lots of ideas.”
“Awesome. Hit me.”
I told her about some of the ideas I had—beyond the obvious ones like creating a logo, revamping the website, and using social media, I described agritourism and why I thought it would work for them. “I’ve done the research and there aren’t that many places around here offering unique experiences…I’m going to talk with Pete and Georgia tomorrow about the possibilities of a small restaurant on site with a chef’s table, cooking classes, weddings and other special events. I think their place could be a real destination.”
“Sounds great. What about the grouch? He gonna go for all that?”
I sighed as I pulled the lasagna from the microwave. It was still frozen in the center but bubbling at the edges. “Nope. Probably none of it.”
“Ugh, what a pain. Can you work around him?”
“Who knows? He basically told me earlier he doesn’t care what I do as long as I don’t involve him. Of course, he might have been mad because I saw him naked.”
“Excuse me?”
While I nuked the lasagna some more, I told her what had happened this morning, and she laughed.
“What’s going on with you, anyway? For thirty years, you’ve lived this perfect, well-mannered life and now you’re throwing scones and climbing trees to spy on naked men.”
Pulling the entree out again, I stabbed at the lasagna, now burnt at the edges. “Maybe I’m tired of behaving properly all the time. I’m experimenting with letting my gut take over.”
“I heartily applaud this experiment. You’ve always been way too well-behaved. Have some fun. Throw scones. Spy on naked men. Do more than that if you want.”
As I chewed a bite of tasteless, rubbery lasagna, I considered confiding in Jaime about what had happened in the barn. I wasn’t usually a kiss-and-tell kind of person, but maybe if I talked it out with Jaime, I could make more sense of it.
“Actually, I did a little more than that today.” I filled her in, and she was silent the whole time.
“Wow,” she said once I’d gotten to the part where he yelled at me to leave. “That is messed up.”
“I know.” Giving up on the lasagna for the moment, I took a bag of baby carrots out of the fridge and munched on them instead. They reminded me of the meal we’d had at Pete and Georgia’s house today at lunchtime—a delicious beet salad, everything from their own garden except the goat cheese (but that was made at a Michigan creamery) and some grilled pork tenderloin in barbecue sauce made with local peaches. I eyed the carrots in the bag, perfectly uniform and lacking in any personality whatsoever. Perfect could be so boring.
“And he’s a client,” Jaime reminded me.