for. An affair with Sean was just too risky. It had been more than two years since she’d been with a man. In that time, Kate had managed to convince herself that whatever sexual needs or desires she’d had, had died with her husband, Sam.
It was lowering to have to acknowledge, even silently, that her theory had been shot to hell by Sean Ryan’s appearance in her life.
She shifted her gaze to the hotel, where firelight danced and glowed behind the window glass. Only midafternoon and it was already getting dark.
The wall of snow between her and the hotel was thickening, letting Kate know that this was a big storm. She and Sean could be stuck here for days.
How weird was it that she could be both annoyed and excited by the prospect?
Inside, the fire was already spreading heat around the wide room. Firelight flickered across Sean’s features as he bent low to gently lay another log across the already burning wood. He turned his head to look at her, and Kate’s breath caught. Fire and light burned in his blue eyes and seemed to settle inside her, where that heat flashed dangerously bright.
A second or two of unspoken tension hummed in the air between them, making each breath she drew a victory of sorts. When she couldn’t take it another moment, Kate shattered the spell of silence by speaking. “If you bring in one more load of wood, that should see us through tomorrow.”
“Right.” He straightened slowly and shoved both hands into the back pockets of his jeans. Nodding at the pile of things at her feet, he said, “You carry a lot of emergency supplies.”
Happy to be on safe territory, she glanced down at the things she’d brought inside. “I’d rather be prepared than freeze to death,” she told him with a shrug. “You never know when your car won’t start or you’ll blow a tire or slide on some ice into a ditch...”
“Or get stranded in a blizzard?”
“Exactly.” She gave the black nylon sleeping bag a nudge with the toe of her boot, edging it closer to the two wool blankets beside it. “Blankets to keep warm and in the box I’ve got a battery-operated lantern, PowerBars, chocolate and coffee...”
“There’s that magic word again,” Sean said with a half grin.
“Finally something we can agree on,” Kate answered, a reluctant smile curving her mouth.
Sean’s grin only widened, and her heart tripped into a gallop. “Yeah, we’ve had an interesting week, haven’t we?”
“That’s one way to put it.” Kate sighed, bent down and opened the box to pull out her ancient coffeepot. Snatching the bag of coffee, too, she stood up again and met his steady gaze. “You’ve argued with every one of my suggestions for this place.”
“My place,” he said simply. “My decisions.”
She’d never had a client fight her on nearly everything before Sean. Normally, Kate didn’t mind trying to incorporate a client’s wants into the required work. But she also knew what was possible and what wasn’t. Sean, though, didn’t consider anything to be impossible.
“My crew. My work,” she countered.
“And here we go again,” Sean said, shaking his head. “Yeah, you’ll be doing the work, but you’re going to do it the way I want it done.”
“Even if you’re wrong.”
His mouth tightened. “If I want it, I’m not wrong.”
“You don’t know anything about construction,” she argued, even knowing it was fruitless. Her hands fisted on the coffeepot and the bag of coffee. The man had a head of solid rock. Hadn’t she been hammering at it for the last week?
He pulled his hands from his pockets, crossed his arms over his chest and stood, hipshot, giving her a look of resigned patience. “And how much do you know about video games? Specifically ‘Forest Run’?”
“Okay. Not much.” This argument was circular. They’d had it several times already, so Kate knew nothing would be settled and still, she had to admit again that he was right.
“Or nothing.”
“Fine. Nothing.” Her voice sounded defensive even to her, but she couldn’t seem to help it. “I’m a little too busy to be wasting my time playing video games.”
Briefly, insult flashed across his features. “Thankfully, there are a few hundred million people worldwide who don’t feel the same way.”
In a heartbeat, he’d reminded her of the difference between them. He was the billionaire. She was the hired help. “You’re right,” she said, though the words burned her tongue and nearly choked her. “I don’t know what gamers would want in a hotel designed especially for them.”
He gave her a short, nearly regal nod.
“But,” she added, “you don’t know about construction. What can and can’t be done and more importantly, what should and shouldn’t be done. You hired me because I’m a professional. When I tell you a wall is load-bearing, it’s not because I want to deny you the ‘open space to reproduce the sorcerer’s meeting rooms.’ It’s because if I take down that wall it destabilizes the entire building.”
His mouth worked as if he wanted to argue, but all he said was, “You have a point.”
“Thanks, I thought so.”
A brief twist of a smile curved his lips and was gone again in a flash. “You’re the most opinionated woman I’ve ever met.”
Kate took a breath. Strange but it was only Sean Ryan who brought out the argumentative side of her. Normally, she found a way to deal with clients with patience and reason. But he pushed every button she had and a few she hadn’t even been aware of. She found herself digging in, defending her position and never giving ground, which was no way to complete a job. Especially this job. She was going to have to learn how to deal with Sean Ryan in a calm, rational way, and she might as well start now. “Okay, I guess you have a point, too.”
His eyebrows lifted and amusement shone in his eyes. “Are we having a moment, here?”
Why did he have to be amiable along with irritating? Something inside her flipped over, and Kate took a long, hopefully calming breath. She’d been so solitary, so insulated, since Sam died, being this attracted to a man was staggering. And a little nerve-racking. But all she had to do was get through this storm. Survive being stranded with Sean Ryan long enough to see him get on his private jet and head back to where he belonged. Then everything would get back to normal and she could forget about how he made her feel.
“Why don’t you bring more wood and I’ll make that coffee.”
“And the moment’s over,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’ll let it go for now, though, since I really want some caffeine.”
Kate held her coffeepot and the bag of grounds up like trophies. “The gas is connected. All I have to do is light a pilot light and we can use the stove.”
“You’re a goddess,” he said with a dramatic flair.
Amused, she shook her head. “You’re easily impressed.”
“Really not,” he told her and winked.
He winked, she thought as she walked to the kitchen and got things started. Why did he have to be gorgeous? she wondered. Was it some sort of trick by Fate, to send a man like him to her when she least wanted him?
Mumbling under her breath, she filled a pan with water and used a kitchen match to light one of the gas burners. While she waited for the pot to boil, she headed for the kitchen pantry to look through the food supplies she and her men had left here over the last week.
On normal jobs, they kept a cooler on the job