Stay (Dunham series #2) (32 page)

“I
will
come back to you, Vanessa,” he rasped
as he kissed her harshly and she met each stroke of his tongue,
each shift of his mouth on hers. “Don’t doubt that.”

Oh, she doubted that very much.

She walked down to the mansion attempting to pull
herself together. This was important and would cost millions of
dollars. She couldn’t afford to be thinking of anything but this,
but that was difficult while the thought of Eric going home a week
earlier than expected looped in her head.

The morning kitchen staff greeted her and she nodded
as she walked up the back stairs into her office. Knox lazed in his
chair at the conference table reading
Twilight
as fast as he
could turn the pages, his open laptop ignored.

Once the architects arrived, they would all be
served breakfast.

She took a seat across from Knox and opened her
laptop, but saw nothing.

“You don’t look any happier now than you did last
night.”

She pursed her lips. “He has to be in court tomorrow
morning,” she finally murmured without looking up from the screen
she stared at.

Knox sighed.

Eric showed up just before eight dressed as sharply
as ever and sat down beside Vanessa. “May I?” he asked politely,
and Vanessa slid her computer to him.

“What happened?” Knox rumbled.

Eric didn’t look up from whatever he was doing. “One
of my new hires decided to quit. Unfortunately, he told everyone
but me two weeks ago. And—get this—nobody saw fit to mention it to
me until today. Davidson decided he ought to double check with me
since he went into the office this morning and the dude’s crap was
gone. He was in the middle of a trial and everybody else is stacked
up to their eyeballs in their own cases.”

Knox pulled out his cell and punched a couple of
numbers. “Hey . . . Oh, sorry. Can you come to the office for a
minute?”

Vanessa could feel her heart begin to lighten, but
she didn’t dare look at Eric in case it didn’t pan out.

Soon a very rumpled Justice appeared in an oversized
black bathrobe, a very crabby toddler tucked under her arm like a
football. She sat and the baby decided she wanted her daddy.

“Am I late for something?” she asked warily, casting
a suspicious glance at Knox, who rolled his eyes. As Mercy played
with his lips and his ears, he said,

“Would you be willing to go up to Chouteau City this
afternoon and catch a case midstream tomorrow morning?”

Her brow wrinkled. “Why?”

“Romeo and Juliet here are two days into their
week-long fuckfest and there’s already a crisis.” He speared Eric
with a glance. “You need to get yourself an executive. You’re the
reason I could actually have a life.”

Justice yawned and shrugged. “Okay.” She looked at
Eric. “Do I have to be reinstated as an employee first or can we
get away with backdating the paperwork?”

“Really?” Vanessa squeaked. “You’d do that for
us?”

“You have no idea how bored I’ve been since we moved
to Utah and back again.”

“The forms are in the big filing cabinet in my
office, top drawer,” Eric murmured as he dug in his pocket for his
keys. He took one off and gave it to her. “You know the drill.
Davidson will probably be there until late tonight and can let you
in, but go ahead and get that key duplicated.”

She looked at Knox. “Are you going to take me to
Springfield to catch a plane?”

Knox snorted. “Of course.”

Justice rose and she looked at Eric and said, “You
already said you’d hire me back so now you’re stuck with me.”

He laughed, and it was the most wonderful sound
Vanessa had heard since she’d come out of the shower. “
Thank
you
, Justice. I owe you. Just try not to terrify the new
people, please.”

Justice yawned while reaching out to take Mercy, but
the child protested vehemently. “Too bad, my wee faery princess.
Daddy’s got business and Mama wants to go back to bed.” Knox handed
her over with a loud smack on her chubby little cheek. Mercy
squalled and kicked all the way back to the elevator.

Both Vanessa and Eric opened their mouths to thank
him and Knox held up a hand. “Don’t.” He looked at his watch. “I’m
now officially annoyed.”

* * * * *

28: Busman’s Holiday

Nia Desmond, the architect who had built Whittaker
House and painted it in oils, and Corey Leonard, the landscape
architect who had designed the grounds and determined the placement
of the cottages, shops, and outbuildings, rolled into the office
twenty min-

utes late, which was about twenty-one minutes past
Knox’s patience for tardiness.

“And this is Eric Cipriani, my, uh . . . ” Vanessa
stumbled over her introduction.

Lover.

Eric shook their hands and said, “Here helping out
for the week.” Knox coughed and Vanessa flashed Eric a grateful
smile.

“Vanessa,” said Leonard while he unrolled golf
course blueprints, “These plans are by four of the country’s
leading golf course designers. Out of all the ones we got, these
are the ones I felt best suited your land. Everything’s ready to go
as soon as you choose the blueprint and we get them finalized.”

Then he launched into the plans. Eric watched
Vanessa and Knox attempt to follow along gamely, but they both grew
more and more bewildered by the features, the jargon that explained
each, and why one plan’s feature was better than another’s. Leonard
was so obviously in love with Whittaker House and the chance to
build its golf course, that he completely missed the fact that the
owners were lost—so lost they didn’t even know what questions to
ask.

“Okay, hold up,” Eric finally said, when Vanessa and
Knox’s confusion got too painful to watch. “Stop. We’re going to
start over again. Slowly, this time.”

Both architects and Vanessa and Knox stared at him,
surprised.

“This,” Eric said, pointing to a blue spot on the
plans, “is a water trap. I don’t like its placement.” Then he
shuffled through the plans to another with the water trap in a
place he liked. “I do like it here because it makes the course more
difficult.” He flipped back to a different plan. “This,” he said,
pointing to a yellow spot, “is a false front. My partner is really
good at spotting those and it’s one reason his handicap is so high.
This is the only plan that has one.”

Warming to his topic, he took the plans and spread
them out on the floor. “I’m a golfer,” Eric began. “Not as good as
Bryce, but I haven’t been playing as long as he has. If you want a
course that will attract a prestigious tournament, you have to make
it difficult or winning won’t mean anything.”

The landscape architect arose to stand by Eric and
look down at the plans.

“Knox, hand me that pencil, will you?” Eric looked
at Leonard and said, “Do you mind?”

“Uh—” Leonard looked to Vanessa whose mouth quirked.
“Um, okay. Sure.”

The morning flew into afternoon as Eric, on his
knees, very lightly drew arrows and connected the different plans
by the features he liked and didn’t like, ones he knew his various
golf partners liked and struggled with. Eric felt Knox looking on,
interested in what he had to say, and felt Vanessa watching him. He
glanced up at her once, saw her intense focus, and knew she had no
interest in the architecture of her golf course.

Her interest was in
him
. She trusted him with
her plans, trusted that he knew what he was talking about and
wouldn’t let her spend millions building a crap course out of
ignorance. Her expression held no lust, no desire or longing.

Trust.

A little heartbreak. He knew that expression only
too well, and felt himself responding to it.

But then she relaxed back into her chair with a
smile, and Eric turned back to the plans with a deep satisfaction
that he had pleased her.

At 1:30, Knox’s phone buzzed and he looked at the
text message. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said as he rose. The
architects followed his lead, and shook his hand. “I need to take
my wife to Springfield. You don’t need me here anyway. You and
Vanessa always work together well, and apparently Eric has an eye
for good golf.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Vanessa said softly, and Knox’s mouth
twitched.

“You’re welcome.” He looked at Eric, snorted and
shook his head as he walked toward the door. “Pot. Kettle,” he
called over his shoulder and Eric laughed, then, more lighthearted
than he remembered being in a long while.

*

As promised, one of Vanessa’s guests did indeed
fault her and Whittaker House for his lack of rest.

“I apologize for whatever we did,” Vanessa replied
to his pronouncement that he wanted his money back. “Could you be
more specific as to our shortcomings so I can address them with the
staff?”

“Well, for one thing, this place is one big
hotspot.”

“That’s absolutely true. We need it to be in order
to do business. Of course, the only way one would know that we’re
wired would be to open one’s laptop to work, and I’m quite sure you
wouldn’t do something like
that
.”

“You could put a lock on it.”

“Mr. Rorys, my inn is a respite from work. There are
no phones, no TVs, no computer room, no gadgetry of any kind, not
even clock radios—for a reason. People come here to rest and relax
the old-fashioned way. It’s not one of the services we offer to
guarantee that our guests don’t work.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. His mouth pursed.

She gently wrapped her arm in Mr. Rorys’s elbow and
snuggled up against him while guiding him slowly out the door, down
the stairs to the driveway where his packed car stood running,
waiting for him. A valet held the car door open. “Perhaps Whittaker
House is not up to providing the services you need? I would
completely understand if you find us not to your standards and
choose not to return.”

By that time, she had snuggled him all the way
around his car and handed him in.

“My dear,” he purred. “You
are
vicious,
aren’t you? Yes, it was my own fault. Happy now?”

Vanessa flashed him a mischievous grin. “Bless your
heart.”

He drove away after kissing the back of her hand and
promising to return after all because he couldn’t resist her.

Eric had stopped at the edge of the porch and leaned
against the post, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched her
work that charm, that graciousness. It amused her to play such
games, to get the result she wanted with as little effort as
possible.

The afternoon dragged as one thing after another
kept Eric from hauling her back to her cottage and making love to
her, as she’d warned him. He could even give her credit for casting
him frustrated and apologetic glances when the crises piled up.

There was no bartender—Vanessa had fired him last
week.

The concierge was gone—Eric had thrown her out.

Knox had left—to do Eric a favor.

He couldn’t complain that Vanessa was too hounded to
spend the afternoon in bed with him.

At four, he decided to handle some of these matters
himself. Management was management, and he’d managed people since
he was a teenager managing the feed store. Then he’d shown up at
the Chouteau County prosecutor’s office fresh out of law school to
manage Knox. If a Whittaker House problem didn’t involve food, he
intercepted the messenger.

The staff looked at him strangely, hesitant to tell
him anything at all, but he asserted authority as if he had some,
and took over. In half an hour, he had them coming to him directly,
and the thing they learned to say first was, “It’s not about
food.”

Eric copied Vanessa’s style in telling another
workaholic guest to go to hell when she demanded her money back. He
had her flirting with him by the time she drove off.

He dealt with a housekeeper’s childcare issues.

He found that a waitress, pressed into service as
bartender, was about to fall down from hunger, and sent her to the
kitchen for food. He mixed customers’ drinks from the Whittaker
House recipe book, and grinned to himself when presented with one
particular order. He carefully prepared a sterling silver tray with
two shots of absinthe, two drip spoons, sugar cubes, and ice
water.

He interviewed the two bartender candidates, who’d
shown up on time, though Vanessa was nowhere to be seen. He hired
both of them for different shifts, offering them salaries he
thought might be a little high. It took some doing for him to find
the appropriate forms, but he couldn’t help that all the file
cabinets in the room looked like fine furniture. When he asked if
either could start right then, they were both shocked, but
one—Yolanda—was absolutely delighted. He sent her off to the bar to
mix orders. He’d help her deal with the tabs later.

He was stopped by a guest or two (since he was
dressed in a suit on a Sunday evening, he must be official) to
answer questions and chat.

Eric hadn’t seen Vanessa once all afternoon and into
the evening, but he was so busy that he forgot about his goal of
getting laid before nightfall.

Then it was dinner time for the regular guests and
shift change. He wasn’t quite sure how shift change was supposed to
happen, but there was a protocol list in Vanessa’s office that he
compared to what he observed the staff do. Occasionally, he asked
questions as to why something was done in a certain way.

He went back to the bar and sorted tickets. He
figured out Vanessa’s system, such as it was, pretty fast with the
help of the waitress he’d relieved earlier, who was thrilled that
she didn’t have to tend bar anymore.

Vanessa’s way of doing things was somewhat
efficient, but incomplete, as if she’d been interrupted in creating
a protocol and had never finished it. She expected her staff to
cross-train in all positions so no one job ever went vacant, but
often, stragglers didn’t know when to take over and when not. While
looking for employment forms, Eric had found a to-do list—well,
three of them—and a handful of sticky notes here and there. They
were prioritized. Somewhat.