of one kind or another, or their public profiles needed a boost. They hired him to pull them out of the bad and into a better standing in the community.
This job wasn’t difficult.
Even if one might label the circumstances he dealt with...complicated.
He was this close to landing the Japanese account, and that would secure Hayes Consulting’s position in the Asian market. Brodie liked to joke that the Japanese account would put him one continent closer to world domination.
It was a pretty serious joke.
When he walked into the restaurant, the hostess, a woman with long, dark hair greeted him with a bright smile.
“Good evening.” Her lilting voice was bright and solicitous. “Welcome to the Hollows Cantina. How many in your party?”
“There will be two of us.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m a little early. I’ll wait in the bar until my dinner partner arrives.”
“Have you dined with us before?” she asked.
“I have, but it’s been a while. Since February.”
“I thought you looked familiar.”
Her comment gave him pause, and that’s when he realized that she was looking up at him through long, dark lashes. She was an attractive woman, no doubt, but he wasn’t even tempted to flirt with her. Flirting was one of his favorite sports. But he had enough sense to know that Horseback Hollow and London were worlds apart. The last thing he needed was to get himself into another romantic conundrum.
“I’ll just—” He pointed toward the bar area to the left of the hostess stand and started to walk away.
“There’s about a twenty-minute wait for a table,” the woman said. “What’s your name? I’ll add it to my list.”
Really? How strange, he wasn’t even tempted.
Even stranger, he was relieved when Caitlyn chose that moment to enter the restaurant.
“There you are,” Brodie said, realizing a little too late that he’d infused way more enthusiasm into his voice than he would have liked.
“Hello.” Caitlyn cocked a brow. “Did you miss me?”
And that was another thing about her. She was cheeky. She had just enough sass to keep him from labeling her a total pushover. Probably because that sass was mostly directed at him.
The woman was a delightfully aggravating dichotomy. Just when he thought he had her figured out she pulled a U-turn and took off in the opposite direction.
“There’s a bit of a wait for a table,” Brodie said. “Why don’t we have a drink in the bar in the meantime?”
As they turned to go, the hostess said, “If you want a table, I need a name.” She tapped her list with her pen.
“Fortune Hayes,” he said. “Brodie Fortune Hayes.”
Caitlyn stopped. “What? You’re a Fortune?”
Never mind that she’d met Brodie at a Fortune wedding and that they’d skipped the last names and jumped right to the sex. Finding out this way that he was part of the illustrious Fortune clan felt like she’d discovered an enemy who’d infiltrated her family’s camp.
The Fortunes were vehemently opposed to Cowboy Country because they were afraid that the park would bring in too many outsiders to Horseback Hollow and ruin the idyllic small town. Since the park meant so much to her father, Caitlyn couldn’t help but take their scorn personally. Now here she was sitting at the bar with Brodie, while he perused the wine list as if the revelation of who he really was hadn’t made things strange and different and even more wrong.
“Does my father know you’re a Fortune?”
It took him a minute to look up from the leather-bound listing.
In that time, she thought about calling her dad. But then reality set in. If he didn’t know, the shock would upset him. After his heart attack, he was supposed to remain as stress-free as possible. That was the whole reason she’d moved to Horseback Hollow, to steer Cowboy Country to a successful opening.
“Of course he does.” He looked at her as if she’d suggested they order orange soda rather than the bottle of wine, which, given his upper-crust airs, was sure to be the best the restaurant had to offer. “Why does my being a Fortune bother you?”
Why did it bother her?
He’d done nothing to indicate he’d taken the job for nefarious reasons—to spy and report back...to whoever he’d report back to... Umm, okay, so that sounded far-fetched. But wait! What if he’d come on board to wreak sabotage to keep them from opening?
The moment the thought formed, it seemed equally ridiculous. After all, he had been the one who’d exercised tough love on Clark Ball, sending him back to work rather than letting him take the afternoon off. If Brodie wanted to sabotage them, he could’ve simply let the electrician walk off the job. They wouldn’t have met the deadline to fix the electrical problems, and Cowboy Country would’ve failed the inspection.
Why did it bother her?
“Because it feels like you haven’t been honest with me.”
That seemed to wipe the smug smirk right off his face.
For about two seconds.
“I haven’t been honest with you?”
She let his words hang in the air, knowing where he was going with this.
“I suppose I could say the same about you, Cait from Chicago.”
She refused to let his words faze her. Until he said, “Do you see how bloody ridiculous this is?”
She sighed. “Oh, my God. I do. As hard as we’ve tried to skirt the issue, we’re going to have to talk about what happened that night.”
“Well, I don’t know if we have to go that far.”
“Brodie, we do. Because if we talk about it—or at least acknowledge it—then we can move past it and get to work.”
“Fair enough. We had sex and it was quite wonderful, if you must know.”
She felt her face flush. “Well, I really wasn’t thinking we should editorialize, but thank you.”
Dammit, it had been good. One night of pure pleasure that would’ve been pretty darn-near close to perfect if he hadn’t reappeared in her life and reignited that longing she felt every time she looked at him...or caught him looking at her...like he was doing right now.
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