Taking Over The Tycoon

It didn’t matter, Kristy thought, beginning to feel completely overwhelmed again. She turned and headed for the reservations desk. To her chagrin, Connor was right behind her.

“I have a lot to do between now and then,” she told him bluntly.

“Such as…?”

His sympathetic attitude invited confession. And right now Kristy needed someone to unburden herself to. “Clean rooms, do something about the ratty-looking carpet in the one-hundred wing, see if I can’t get a crew in to paint the hallway. Polish everything until it gleams. Wash windows. Scrub down bathrooms that haven’t been touched in over six months. Need I go on?” Feeling as if she was wasting time standing there gabbing—or flirting—with him, she yanked open the drawer where all the room keys were kept. Grabbing the old-fashioned master key ring for the north wing, with all twenty-five keys on it, she brought it out and clipped it to the belt loop of her shorts.

As if he had all the time in the world, Connor lounged against the polished wooden counter. “Sounds like you have your hands full.”

Kristy shot him a wry look. “Gee. You think?”

He straightened. “What would you like me to do?”

Stop standing there as if you were my white knight, riding in to the rescue, she thought. But not about to say that, she brushed past him purposefully and headed for the end of the reservations desk. “Besides leave me alone and stop badgering me about selling the resort?”

He followed her through the swinging wooden door that separated guests from the check-in clerk. “I won’t say another word,” he promised as he caught up and fell into step beside her.

Kristy narrowed her eyes at him. If she didn’t know better, she would think she wasn’t hearing right.

“I’m serious, Kristy,” Connor insisted softly. He reached out and gently clasped her upper arm, stopping her headlong flight. “I’d like to help you.”

She folded her arms and regarded him skeptically. “Why?”

Once again the agenda he wasn’t quite willing to reveal to her—in its entirety, anyway—became part of their conversation. Connor rubbed his chin and sent her a playful grin. “Because I’m trying to get on your good side?”

Telling herself she was not going to get involved with a man who deliberately kept things from her—hadn’t she already done that once, with disastrous results?—Kristy responded, “Not possible.”

He merely smiled, looking every bit as determined to have his way in this as she was to have hers.

Which brought them to another subject Kristy knew they had to discuss. “Also, while we are on the subject of you helping me out…”