Married to His Business / Six-Month Mistress: Married to His Business

The Donovan contract, she reminded herself. That was why she was here. Not for…anything else. “So, um…what’s the, uh…the problem with the, ah…the Donovan contract,” she finally got out.

For a moment, he looked at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about. Then, “Right,” he finally said. “Come on in.”

He stepped aside to let her enter, and as Kendall pushed past him, she tried not to notice how the fragrance of the coffee mingled with a scent that was distinctly Matthias, something spicy and woodsy whose source she’d never been able to identify. It was probably from the soap or shampoo that he used, though she’d never known another man to smell the way he did—or as good as he did. And smelling him again now, after being deprived for two weeks…

She sighed. What was the matter with her this morning? She was reacting to Matthias as if he were an old boyfriend she hadn’t been ready to break up with.

She reminded herself again that she was nothing more to him than a former employee, and that he was nothing more to her than a former employer. She’d come here because of a professional obligation, not a personal one. The sooner she fixed whatever she’d done wrong with the Donovan contract, the sooner she could get back to work. Her new work. At her new job. With her new boss. One who appreciated her business degree and knowledge. One to whom she owed the greater obligation now. Matthias was her past. No, Barton Limited was her past, she corrected herself. And OmniTech Solutions was her future.

Period.

She spun around as Matthias closed the front door. “What’s the problem?” she asked point blank.

Instead of answering her, he tilted his head toward the sweeping staircase behind him and said, “This way.”

She rankled at the order, but followed him, noting how beautiful the lodge was. Wow. Whoever’d furnished the place had great taste. And they knew a thing or two about making a home comfortable without making it too feminine. Although the colors were bold and the fabrics a little masculine, Kendall would have felt perfectly content staying here herself. And the view of the lake beyond the picture windows was spectacular.

She wondered again about the details of the bequest that required him to be here. It must have been a pretty major requirement to make him take an entire month away from the office. Especially in a place like Lake Tahoe, where there were so few corporate concerns, and no one she could think of that Barton Limited did business with. Then again, in the whole time she’d worked for him, she couldn’t remember him ever taking a vacation of more than a couple of days. So maybe it would do him good to be here for a month. Maybe he’d learn to relax a little. Realize there was more to life than work.

Yeah, right, she thought. And maybe the next World Wrestling champion would be named Stone Cold Sheldon Abernathy.

As her foot hit the stairway landing, her gaze lit on a photograph that was hanging there, and Matthias’s reasons for being in the lodge became clearer. Unable to stop herself, Kendall halted for a moment, smiling at the picture of the—she quickly counted—seven men, all college-aged, one of whom was obviously Matthias. But one was his twin brother, Luke, too, so she wasn’t sure, at first, which was which. Then she noted the way one of the boys’ smiles curled up a little more on one side than the other, and she knew, without question, it was Matthias. Interestingly, he was the one with the longer hair, and was the more raggedly dressed of the two. Funny, because Matthias had always talked about his brother as if Luke were the black sheep of the family, the rebel, the one who wanted to make waves. Looking at the photograph, however, it was Matthias who better fit that description.

“The contract is in the office,” she heard him say from some distance away.

Looking up, she saw that he had continued to the second floor and was striding down the hall without realizing she had stopped. “Hey!” she called after him, surprising herself. She’d never said Hey! to Matthias before. It had always been Excuse me, sir or Pardon me, Mr. Barton, something that had been in keeping with their relationship—which had always been fairly formal. It was just that, being here in this beautiful, comfortable lodge with him, seeing him in sweats and a T-shirt and finding a picture of him from his youth, formal was the last thing she felt.

He spun around at the summons, at first looking as surprised by the casual address as she’d been. Then he saw what she was looking at and…

Huh, she thought. She would have thought he would smile in much the same way as he was smiling in the photograph. Instead, he looked kind of annoyed. Probably because he didn’t want an employee—even a former one—seeing him as anything but the businessman that he was.

Well, tough, she retorted silently. If that was the case, he shouldn’t have made her drive down here. And he certainly shouldn’t have answered the door in his jammies.

He walked slowly back down the hall, and then the stairs, until he stood beside her, hooking his hands on his hips in a way that made him look very put out. “What?” he asked. Interestingly, he didn’t look at the picture, even though he had to realize that was why she’d called him back.

Unfortunately, she suddenly realized she wasn’t sure what she’d intended to say when she’d called him back. She’d mostly just wanted to look at him now and compare him to the boy in the photograph. So she pointed to the picture and said, “Who are these guys you’re with?”

It was with obvious reluctance that Matthias turned to look at the picture. He studied it for only a moment, then turned back to Kendall. “Friends from college. We called ourselves the Seven Samurai.”

“Akira Kurosawa fans, were you?” she asked, proud of herself for knowing the name of the director of the film made half a century ago.

“Actually, I think Hunter was the only one of us who even saw the movie. He’s the one who named us. God knows why.”

“Which one is Hunter?” Kendall asked.

With even more reluctance than before, Matthias lifted his hand and pointed at the young man who was laughing right at the camera. He looked the happiest of the bunch, and gave the impression, even on film, of being their ringleader.

“Where is he now?” Kendall asked.

Matthias hesitated a telling moment before revealing, “He died.”

Something hard and cold twisted in Kendall’s belly at hearing the flatness of Matthias’s voice. Even more than he sounded sad, he sounded…tired. As if the weight of his friend’s death was too much for him to bear.

“What happened?” she asked softly. “He was so young.”

“Melanoma,” he said. “This is his lodge, even though he never lived to see it completed.”

“I’m so sorry, Matthias,” she said quietly. Impulsively, she extended a hand and curled her fingers over his upper arm, giving it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. His skin was warm beneath her fingers, solid, strong. But in that moment, he didn’t seem any of those things himself. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories,” she told him.

He shook his head. “Actually, since coming here, I’ve had one or two good memories,” he told her. “Things I’d forgotten about.” He did smile then, albeit sadly. Still, it was better to see that than the look of desolation that had clouded his features a moment ago.

She waited to see if he would elaborate on his memories, but he didn’t. And Kendall didn’t want to pry any further than she already had. Even if she was massively curious about the other young men in the picture. And even more curious about the young Matthias.

“So the rest of you will share the house now?” she asked.

“None of us owns the place,” he told her. “But each of us is spending a month here before it goes to its rightful owner. Which will be the town of Hunter’s Landing.”

Kendall smiled. She hadn’t made the connection until now. “So Hunter came from here? Or he’s named after the place?”

Matthias shook his head. “No, I think he just stumbled onto the town and liked that it shared his name. And since it was on the lake, he thought it was the perfect spot for the lodge. We’d all talked about doing something like this in college, building a big party house we’d share someday, but after graduation, we never followed through. We were all too busy,” he said, the last word sounding as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “Busy working,” he added, emphasizing that word in a way that was even less complimentary. Which was strange, since Matthias was the kind of man for whom busyness was one of the seven virtues and for whom work was sheer Nirvana. “Too busy working for useless things like following dreams,” he concluded softly.

His expression had gone soft, too, as he spoke, Kendall noticed, and when he turned away from the picture to look at her again, there was something in his eyes she’d never seen before. Melancholy. It was almost tangible.

“So do you still see the other Samurai?” she asked. “Besides your brother, I mean?”

Who, she had to admit, he hadn’t seen much of. It had only been a couple of months ago that the brothers had even spoken to each other after years of estrangement. And then only because Matthias had needed Luke to switch months at the cabin with him so he could take his trip to Stuttgart. It had been that or break the terms of the will, and Matthias hadn’t wanted to do that. Neither had Luke, which was the only reason he’d gone along with the switch. Ultimately, once everything with Lauren Conover had been smoothed out, the Barton brothers had renewed their relationship. But it was still, Kendall knew, a little strained at times.

Matthias looked at the picture again, seeming to take in each of the men one by one. “I haven’t seen any of them for years,” he said. “Though we’ll all be here for the dedication in September.”

“What dedication?” Kendall echoed.

He nodded, still looking at the photograph. “Once each of us has spent a month here, the house will go to the town, and I think the plan is to turn it into some kind of medical facility or something. Anyway, there’s going to be a big ceremony with the mayor and chamber of commerce or something. All of us will be here, too.”

She smiled. “Sounds like Hunter was a good guy.”

“The best,” Matthias immediately replied. “He was the very best of all of us.” This time, when he smiled, there was genuine warmth, and genuine happiness, in the gesture. Then the smile fell, and he grimaced a bit. “I’m sorry. I’m keeping you longer than I meant to.”

Actually, Kendall thought, she was the one who was holding up things by asking all these questions. She was the one who would make herself even later than she’d intended getting back to Stephen DeGallo. Funny, though, how she hadn’t given Stephen a thought since entering the lodge.

“Hey,” she said again when he started to turn away, more softly than she had the first time.

He spun around again. “What?”

She smiled and pointed to him in the photo. “You looked good with long hair.”

He looked at where she was pointing and asked, “Are you so sure that one’s me? It could be Luke.”

She shook her head. “No, I know it’s you.”