Millionaire: Needed for One Month: Thirty Day Affair

He didn't have an answer. Strange, but he'd never really thought about it. “I'm always working.”

“Well, let's see what we can do about that.”

Nine

An hour later, Nathan rolled out of bed, his body replete, his mind racing. He glanced at Keira languidly stretching on the mattress and had to fight down an urge to lay back down and gather her up close. And because that thought was uppermost in his brain, he took a step or two away from the bed just for good measure.

“Now,” she said, sweeping her hair up to lay across the pillow like a red-gold banner, “wasn't that more fun than planning schedules?”

He grabbed his robe from the end of the bed, slipped it on, then stood up to look down at her. “If we spend the next few days like this,” he said with a smile he couldn't quite prevent curving his mouth, “by the time the storm ends, we'll be dead.”

“I can think of worse ways to go.”

So could he. That was one of his problems. Always before, Nathan's relationships with women had been uncomplicated and straightforward. Before he took a woman to bed, he made sure she felt as he did about affairs—that they should be undemanding, easily slipped in and out of, with no hard feelings, no promises made, so no promises broken.

Ordinarily, he never would have become involved with a woman like Keira. She had “complications” written all over her. And yet, at this moment, he couldn't really bring himself to regret what he'd found with her.

Regrets would come later. Once he was gone and safely wrapped up in his normal world. Once he was far enough away from her eyes that they didn't haunt him every damn minute.

“You're an unusual woman.”

She sat up, completely comfortable with her own nudity, and swung her hair back from her face. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” he said, his gaze dipping to the swell of her breasts, then back to her fathomless green eyes. She was tempting. More tempting than anyone he'd ever known before. He was walking through unfamiliar territory here and he felt as though he were trying to negotiate his way through quicksand.

What he needed was a little space. A little time to himself to gather his defenses and shore up the inner walls she seemed so determine to shatter.

Decision made, he said, “I'm going downstairs to get some work done.”

She looked at him for a long second or two, shook her head, then flopped back onto the bed, dragged the quilt up to cover herself and muttered, “Of course you are.”

A few hours later, Nathan was hunched determinedly over his computer, doing an excellent job of pretending Keira wasn't in the room.

Tossing the book she'd been trying to read for the last half hour onto the sofa cushion beside her, she frowned at the back of his head and said pointedly, “What're you doing?”

“Working.”

“Again, you mean. Well, I can see that, Mr. Chatty. Working on what? Still trying to find a way to schedule spontaneity?”

“No.” He shook his head, turned back to the computer and typed something else.

“Then what?”

“You're not going to give me any peace at all, are you?”

“Probably not,” she said.

“Fine.” He leaned back into the couch, winced and retrieved the book she'd dropped out from behind his back and set it on the coffee table. When he was settled again, he glanced at her and said, “I'm making some notes on how to confront the manager of the Gstaad Barrister.”

“Switzerland,” she said with a sigh. Then she asked, “Confront? About what?”

“I gave him specific instructions last time on how I wanted him to deal with the housekeeping staff, and they haven't been implemented.”

“Why not?”

He looked at her. “How the hell do I know?”

She curled her legs up under her, propped her elbow on the back of the sofa and leaned in. “What's wrong with the way he's handling things, then?”

Nathan sighed. “He's very … relaxed in his position. He allows the employees too much leeway in their work.”

“Does it all get done?”

“Yes, but—”

“So maybe,” Keira said, “he knows his people better than you do?”

“Maybe, but—”

She smiled. “So if you weren't stomping around bellowing orders like a bully, maybe you'd get more cooperation out of him?”

“I do not bellow,” Nathan said and sat up straight.

“But you do bully.”

He blew out a disgusted breath. “You don't understand. There's a right way and a wrong way to run a business, Keira.”

“Oh, I understand,” she said, reaching out to pat his shoulder, then letting her fingertips linger there just a moment or two. “Believe me, as mayor, I have to deal with people all the time. And it's just not logical to assume you can use the same strategy when dealing with different types of people.”

“It's always worked before,” he pointed out, scowling at her.

Keira scooted closer, leaned down and looked him dead in the eye. This she knew about. He might own all of the gorgeous hotels in the world, but Nathan Barrister was not a people person.

“But the thing is, Nathan, you don't know if it might work better doing things differently.”

“The company's policy has been in effect since my grandfather started the first hotel.”

“Jeez,” she said softly. “No wonder it's out-of-date.”

“I didn't say it was out-of-date.”

“Nope. I did.” Turning around, she sat back beside Nathan, tucked her hand through the crook of his arm and cuddled in. “Like, for instance, when Donna—she owns the pottery shop on the outskirts of town—wanted to increase her number of parking spaces in front of her shop, I went to bat for her with the town council. After all, her shop is out of the way, it wouldn't infringe on anyone else's parking. Why not?”

“Okay …”

“But, when the Clearwater wanted the same deal, I had to tell them no. Because they're in the middle of town, lakeside, and we just couldn't afford to lose tourist parking slots to make more room for their customers. Different situations, different rules.”

“Ah,” he said, smiling at her, “but the situations in my hotels are all the same. Each one is a Barrister. So the rules should apply evenly.”