Читать книгу Taking Over The Tycoon - Cathy Thacker Gillen - Страница 8

Kristy Neumeyer waited until the tall, sexy man in front of her finished his silky-smooth spiel before she put her paintbrush down and wiped her hands on the rag looped into the belt of her jeans. Turning back to him, she decided not to mince words this time, and she gave him her most stubborn smile. “I’ve got just three words for your proposition.”

He waited, hope shining in his gorgeous gray eyes, as Kristy tightened her lips and continued. “Not. Gonna. Happen.” Not ever, no matter what he did. No matter how attractive Connor Templeton looked standing there with his neatly cut, dark blond hair, the hint of autumn tan on his handsome face. No matter how easily his confident and commanding presence could take her breath away. And it was high time the ultrasuccessful real estate tycoon realized that, Kristy determined. His development projects might attract gold, not just in Charleston, South Carolina, but all up and down the East Coast of the United States, but they did not interest her. Not for a red-hot second.

For the briefest moment, Connor Templeton’s chiseled jaw dropped, and he regarded her in stunned amazement, as if unable to believe she was going to pass on the oh-so-lucrative proposition he had just politely and painstakingly laid out for her. His own smile fading, he watched as she finished painting one of the shutters beside the double lobby doors a deep pine-green. “You obviously haven’t fully calculated my offer,” he stated finally.

As the warm October breeze ruffled her hair, Kristy picked up her bucket and brush and moved a little farther down the covered porch that faced the Atlantic Ocean, to the next double hung window. Ignoring his frank perusal of her, she took a tranquilizing breath and continued painting. She’d had the outside of the 1950s lodge painted a snowy white by a professional crew, but to save money, had left the trim work around the first floor doors and windows for herself. “And I don’t intend to, either, Mr. Big Business,” she said. If he had his way, he’d swiftly have her leading the life of the rich and idle, instead of bringing life back to the resort she had inherited from her beloved aunt Ida.

Connor followed her, being careful not to get paint on his casually elegant clothes as he leaned against one of the square posts that supported the porch roof. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his khaki slacks. “The name’s Connor,” he reminded her cordially. “Connor Templeton.”

Kristy slanted him a glance, ignoring the way his broad shoulders filled out his classic navy blazer and patterned shirt. “Daisy Templeton Granger’s older brother, I know.” Daisy was a good friend of hers. They had gotten to know each other through mutual friends the previous spring.

“Then you should also know,” Connor insisted, “if you’re friends with my baby sister, that I am a nice guy.”

Who wouldn’t hurt a flea? “I don’t care if you’re the king of England, Mr. Templeton,” Kristy told him firmly. “I’m staying put. So take that back to your business partner and all the investors you and Skip Wakefield have rounded up.” She stopped what she was doing and marched forward until they were standing nose to nose. Refusing to let that slow, sexy smile of his turn her knees to jelly, she continued, “Because I am not selling Paradise Resort. Not now. Not ever.”

The oceanfront lodge, twelve cottages and a stretch of beautiful private beach that comprised the Folly Beach, South Carolina resort, was not just Kristy’s inheritance, it was her future and long-held dream. And she was not parting with it. Not even for the five million dollars purchase price Connor Templeton and his partner, Skip Wakefield, were waving in front of her nose. Money that would more than obliterate both mortgages on the resort and Kristy’s own mountain of debt.

She knew she still had a lot of work to do on the interior of the lodge, particularly in the individual guest rooms. But thanks to the grueling work she had put in all summer, the rest of it, including all the common areas, were shaping up nicely. Plus the resort had old-fashioned charm, reminiscent of relaxing family vacations of a bygone era. There were no tennis courts here, no golf courses or video arcades, just the lodge, the dunes and the beach. It was quiet and low-key and appealing, a place where people who simply wanted to spend time together could come. The two-story, white clapboard lodge had a dramatically pitched gable roof over the lobby, club and dining rooms, kitchen, reservation desk and private office, all located in the central part of the building. Two rectangular wings spread out on either side. Native palmetto trees thirty feet in height surrounded the hotel and stood sentry on the short drive from Folly Beach Road to the parking area. An array of flowering bushes—camellias, bougainvilleas, magnolias and azaleas—added color around the lodge and cottages.

“You don’t have to decide today,” Connor continued, persuasively stating his case. “You can take some time to think about it.”

“I don’t have to think about it,” Kristy stated. What was it about these two guys that they didn’t understand when a business offer was being refused?

Before Connor could reply to that, Kristy’s obnoxious neighbor to the south, Bruce Fitts, suddenly rounded the side of the lodge. As always, the too-tanned, penguin-shaped man with the thin black mustache was dressed in swim trunks—trunks that were, in Kristy’s estimation, way too brief. He also wore expensive Italian sandals and an open shirt accessorized with several thick gold chains.

“I told you and your partner she was unreasonable!” Fitts declared as he rushed across the wide front porch the locals liked to refer to as the piazza. Looking to Connor for help, Fitts ran a hand over his slick-backed ebony hair.

Kristy turned to Connor, barely able to believe that an aristocratic man like Connor would associate with the oily “entrepreneur” inhabiting the luxurious new beach house just south of her resort. Unlike the other hardworking inhabitants of Folly Beach, Bruce Fitts made his money from sleazy schemes. He was constantly threatening lawsuits, ripping off insurance companies and doing whatever he could to rake in easy money. And when he wasn’t scheming and conniving, he was spying on other residents, including Kristy and her girls, through the telescope mounted on his deck. She had been trying to ignore him, and his near constant complaints, but with him in such close proximity, it wasn’t easy.

“What are you doing here, Fitts?” Connor turned to glare warningly at Bruce.

“Yeah,” Kristy said sarcastically to Connor, “I bet you’ve got a real deal on some prime marshland you want to sell me. For a friendly little discount, of course.” How stupid did Connor and his partner think she was? Clearly, they would do anything to get her to throw in the towel, even, it seemed, employing her thoroughly disreputable neighbor. Not that the idea was without merit, Kristy had to admit. Being around Bruce Fitts for any length of time did make her want to split.

Bruce glared at Kristy resentfully as he declared, “You’re just like your aunt.”

Kristy smiled. Her poor aunt had had to put up with this, too. “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I’ll consider that a compliment, since my aunt Ida was one of my all-time favorite people.”

“Forcing the rest of us homeowners to look at this eye-sore!” Bruce sputtered.

Kristy conceded that Paradise Resort was in need of a lot of tender loving care. But that was why she was here—to bring it back to life.

“Mr. Fitts, please leave us,” Connor stated firmly.

Bruce stared at Connor. Obviously realizing that he was not a man to tangle with if you could help it, Bruce backed down reluctantly. “Fine.” He snorted, then wagged a finger at Kristy. “But not before I tell you, missy, that I am not going to let you keep on devaluating my property with this dump for very much longer, even if I have to personally find a way to shut you down!”

There was no way he could do so legally, Kristy knew. She had complied with all state and local regulations as she worked to get the aging property looking good again.

Letting her neighbor know with a glance that she had no intention of falling victim to any of his shenanigans, she warned right back, “Try it. Give it your best shot!” She marched closer, fists knotted at her sides. “Now get off my property, Mr. Fitts, and stay off, before I call the police!”

Bruce Fitts glared at Kristy, unwilling to budge, until Connor clapped a hand on his shoulder and murmured something in Fitts’s ear. Kristy had no idea what he said, but Fitts calmed down immediately, and with a last condescending glance at Kristy, headed off the porch and back down the beach toward his own home, a luxurious beachfront house overlooking the Atlantic.

“I would thank you for getting rid of that horse’s behind,” Kristy said, turning back to Connor. “Except I have the distinct feeling you’re on Fitts’s side in all this.”

He focused on her face and loosely pinned up hair. “I’m not on anyone’s side.”

Kristy shot him another disgruntled look. In her thirty-three years, she had never met anyone quite this persistent. “A few minutes ago you were trying to convince me you were on my side.” At least that’s how his sales pitch—and the sum he was offering to buy the place—had sounded to her.

Connor folded his arms in front of him, leaned against the wooden post again and looked deep into her eyes. “I want everyone to be happy,” he explained. “And I honestly think, if you were to listen to me and sell this property to people who could afford to build the kind of luxury condo project this area of Folly Beach needs, we would all be better off.”

THIS WAS THE POINT in the conversation, Connor thought, when Kristy Neumeyer was supposed to relax and begin to seriously consider his and Skip Wakefield’s very generous offer to purchase her property. Instead she was glaring at him as if he were a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe. Sighing, she shook her head, picked up her paintbrush and went back to the louvered shutter she had been painting. Her back to him, she said, “I think we’ve said everything there is to say.”

Or in other words, Connor thought, it was time for him to be shoving off. The only problem being he didn’t want to leave. And that was a little hard to fathom. At thirty-eight, Connor had long ago given up on spending time with people who did not enjoy his company, or vice versa. In his opinion, life was too short to force personal relationships, even the most useful or casual of ones.

But there was something about the delectable beauty next to him that completely captured his attention. And it had to do with more than her incredibly sexy looks. Although those were pretty remarkable, Connor had to admit. Even in the midst of what looked to be a very physically challenging workday, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Her hair was a glossy dark brown, and the straight, silky locks had been loosely twisted and caught at the back of her head in a tortoiseshell clip—a look that would have been very neat and businesslike had it not been for the wispy tendrils that had escaped along her cheekbones and neck. She didn’t seem to be wearing any makeup, but then, Connor noted with a satisfied sigh, she didn’t need it. Her skin was flawless and golden, her lips pink and luscious. Color bloomed in her cheeks, emphasizing the delicate bone structure of her face. Her nose was slender, her dark brown eyes sparkled—especially when she was sparring with him. And as for her stubborn chin…it was as pretty and feminine as the rest of her.

She looked to be several inches shorter than he was—which made her about five feet five inches tall, he guessed. The snug-fitting jeans and cap-sleeved, yellow T-shirt she was wearing made the most of what was a very nice figure—so nice that Connor was having trouble keeping his eyes off her slender, showgirl-sexy legs.

Determined to find some way for them to connect, as friends as well as future business allies, he walked over to stand beside her. What was that old saying? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em? “I could lend a hand here,” he said, noting she still had several shutters to paint.

Kristy made a face at him. “In those clothes? I don’t think so.”

So okay, he wasn’t dressed for hard manual labor. That didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of it, however. Connor took off his sport coat, loosened his tie. Still searching for some way for the two of them to connect, he said easily, “Daisy says you’re great, that you gave her a place to stay when her whole world was turned upside down.” Connor knew his little sister was a great judge of character. Plus Daisy never said anything she didn’t mean.

Kristy shrugged off the praise and continued painting. “It’s Jack Granger you should be thanking,” she said softly. “Jack’s the one who helped her get her life back together.”

Connor knew that, too. Jack and Daisy were not just married, they were crazy in love. The way he wanted to be someday. If he ever met the right woman, that was. One who wasn’t the least bit interested in his blue blood or his wealth. Thus far, he had yet to meet a woman who loved him more than his pedigree or bank account. Connor looped his jacket over the railing that edged the piazza and removed his tie. “I understand you’re a widow.” Losing a spouse was something they had in common…

Kristy turned to give him a frosty look.

So she didn’t want to talk about that, Connor noted.

Moving on. “You have twins.” Who would likely be needing college funds. And many other things that money from the sale of Paradise Resort would provide. If he could get her to sell it, that was.

Kristy regarded him with exasperation. “Did you ever hear the expression about wearing out one’s welcome? Well—” She broke off when she heard the sound of a car in the parking lot on the other side of the lodge.

“Expecting someone?” Connor said, aware that the place wasn’t slated to reopen for another week or so.

“No,” Kristy admitted as the car motor shut off. She set down her paintbrush and regarded Connor smugly. “But then I wasn’t expecting you, either.”

Touché.

Connor followed her around the building and down the walk that led to the parking lot. When she spotted the two people inside a late-model station wagon, she released her breath in a low hiss and muttered a most unladylike phrase.

“Problem?” Connor asked. He was surprised because up to now, Kristy had seemed so cool, calm and collected. Now she looked anything but.

“My mother and brother.” More color swept into her cheeks.

“You don’t look very happy to see them.”

Kristy released an unsteady breath. Dread filled her dark brown eyes. “That’s because I’m not.”

Connor knew all about unpleasant family situations. He had grown up with them. He started to put on his jacket.

Kristy wrapped her fingers around his forearm and gave it an imploring squeeze. “Please stay. They’ll be less likely to go on the attack if you’re here.”

Connor always had been a sucker for a damsel in distress. And to have Kristy Neumeyer looking at him so imploringly…

“Kristy! Hello, dear!” A woman emerged from the driver’s side of the car, just as a big guy got out of the passenger side. Both resembled Kristy in looks and were also dressed casually in jeans, sneakers and shirts.

Kristy’s smile looked frozen as she exchanged hugs with her mother and brother. “What brings you to this part of the world?” she asked cheerfully.

Her mother removed her sunglasses and placed them atop her soft gray curls. “A medical conference on the latest in ultrasound techniques at Hilton Head. We’re on our way down.” Unlike Kristy, though, her mother and brother looked genuinely happy to see her, Connor noted.

Her slender shoulders relaxing slightly, Kristy turned to Connor. Urging him forward, she made introductions. “Mom, Doug, this is Connor Templeton. Connor, this is my mother, Maude Griffin, and my brother, Doug. They’re both obstetricians. They practice in Raleigh, North Carolina.”

“Nice to meet you.” Connor shook hands with both. As the silence strung out awkwardly, he began to regret staying. Clearly, there was something that needed to be said here….

Kristy latched on to his arm in a way that seemed to indicate the two of them were very close. “I wish I’d known you were coming,” she said. “I would have cleared my schedule.”

“Or been out,” Doug said dryly.

Kristy gave him a tolerant smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “But the twins are still in school,” she continued, as if her older brother had not spoken.

Maude beamed. “Darling, we’re spending the night!”

Kristy blinked. Obviously, Connor thought, this was not in Kristy’s game plan.

“Here?” she said.

“Well, yes. It’s not as if you don’t have plenty of room.” Maude gestured expansively at the lodge and the dozen or so cottages fronting the beach. “There are…how many cottages here?”

“A dozen,” Kristy admitted reluctantly.

“And how many rooms in the lodge itself?” Doug inquired.

“One hundred. But only one of the four wings is open, and those rooms are still undergoing renovation,” Kristy warned. “None of those rooms are ready for guests.”

“So, we don’t mind roughing it as long as we get a chance to see you and the twins and have dinner together this evening. Do we, Doug?”

“Not in the slightest, Mother.”

Kristy looked at Connor as if somehow expecting him to bail her out. No way was he going to do that. If there was a family problem—and it looked like there was—then it wouldn’t help any of them to sweep it under the rug. As his family had for so many years. No, they needed to deal with it, like it or not, and if the rest of Kristy’s family was ready to do so… “I think it’s great your mother and brother are here,” he said kindly.

“Would you like to join us for dinner then?” Kristy replied, just as sweetly. “Good!” she exclaimed before Connor had a chance to reply. “We’ll eat at seven, in the dining hall. And in the meantime…” she gestured for everyone to follow her around to the lobby entrance “…I’m going to have to send you and Mother to the market, Doug, because I wasn’t planning on feeding quite so many people this evening.”

CONNOR WATCHED as Kristy quickly wrote out a grocery list, produced some cash—which was summarily rejected by both her mother and brother—and then waved them off, with directions to the closest food store.

“A little rude, weren’t you?” Connor said dryly, as the station wagon moved through the palmetto trees and disappeared down Folly Beach Road.

Kristy scowled and sat down in one of the green wooden rocking chairs on the piazza. She leaned forward, her paint-stained hands clasped between her knees. “You don’t know them.”

True, Connor thought, as he sat down in the chair beside her. He turned it so they were sitting knee to knee, then he leaned forward and looked into her eyes. “It sounds as if I’m going to get to know them, though.”

“I’m sorry about that. I…” Kristy floundered, for the first time that afternoon looking regretful. “I was desperate.”

Connor had seen that, and for that reason, his heart went out to her. He knew what it was like to want to connect closely with family, and be unable to do so. For years he had not been as close as he wanted to be to anyone in his family. Since his parents’ acknowledgment of their problems, that had changed. But he still regretted all the years when he and his mother and father and two sisters hadn’t been able to talk. Or even spend any meaningful time together.

He took one of Kristy’s hands in his. “Why are they here?” he asked.

A demoralized expression on her face, she pulled away. “The same reason you are. To talk me into giving up the ghost, so to speak, and sell the place to a high roller like you.”

Connor sat back in his chair, began to rock. “But you’re not about to take the money and run, are you?”

“Nope.” Kristy pushed against the floor with the toe of her shoe. “I love this place. I know it’s still a work in progress,” she confessed as she rocked gently back and forth, “but I am determined to return it to its former glory and then some.”

Connor was beginning to see that. Which, of course, made his own mission all the harder. “You have a history here?” he asked.

She nodded. “My siblings and I visited here every summer when we were kids,” she told him, oblivious to the way she was sitting, giving him an unobstructed view of her fabulous body.

She turned to look at him, a mix of subdued temper and sentimentality glowing in her dark eyes. “When we got older, I worked here in the summers while my brother and sister were off at science camp, or volunteering at the hospitals in Raleigh, in hopes of getting into medical school.”

“Which they did,” Connor guessed.

“Oh, yes.” Kristy squared her shoulders, took a deep, regretful breath. “Both my brother and sister followed in our parents’ footsteps.”

Connor took a moment to consider what that must be like. “Everyone in your family is a doctor?”

Kristy nodded. “Except me. My father is a lung transplant surgeon and my sister is a pediatric oncologist. My late husband was a pediatric heart surgeon. I’m the only one who didn’t choose medicine as a career.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Kristy said dryly, rolling her eyes at his reaction. “Wow.”

Before Connor could comment further, they heard a large vehicle lumbering slowly up Folly Beach Road. Kristy glanced at her watch. “That’s the school bus!” She jumped out of her chair and headed around the lodge again, just as a big yellow bus pulled up Folly Beach Road and stopped at the entrance of the resort. Two little girls got off the bus and began walking up the palmetto-lined driveway. One had shoulder-length corkscrew curls, the same rich hue as Kristy’s, and was dressed in a pretty pink cotton smock and lacy white apron. The other’s hair was caught in two messy braids. She was wearing shorts and a striped T-shirt and sneakers. Only as they neared could Connor see, by the sameness of their charming features, that they were indeed identical twins.

They were halfway to Kristy and Connor when the one in the smock said something to the one in shorts. The second little girl took offense, dropped her book bag onto the grass and shoved the one in the dress. She shoved back, even harder, and the next thing Connor knew, the two were down on the ground tussling and rolling.

Kristy gaped at them as if unable to believe what she was seeing, then rushed toward them. She separated the twins, who came up kicking and screeching. “Stop it!” Kristy demanded as Connor caught up with her. “Both of you! Stop it right now!”

The cute little girls glared at each other and Kristy tearfully. “What in the world has gotten into you?” Kristy demanded as the twins wiped the tears from their long lashes with the backs of their hands. “I’ve never seen you fight like this before!”

“It’s all her fault!” the one in the dress yelled abruptly, her frustration with her sister apparent. “She is just so dumb sometimes!”

“No, it’s not! It’s your fault, you big scaredy-cat!” the one in shorts shouted back.

“All right, you two, that’s enough,” Kristy said firmly. The girls faced each other, sniffling. “Go on inside. I’ll be in directly to talk to you.”

As the twins meandered off, still glaring at each other intermittently, Kristy turned back to Connor. “I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what’s going on.” She paused, her expression conflicted. “About dinner… Forget the invitation, okay?”

“You’re sure?” For some reason Connor didn’t mind being used by her like that, although in any other situation, with any other person, he would have.

“Positive,” Kristy said, smiling apologetically, as if trying to make it up to him.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks. Now he was the one feeling bereft. “What about your mother and brother?”

Kristy shrugged as if it were no big deal. With barely a backward glance in his direction, she strode resolutely after her girls. “I’ll tell them you couldn’t make it, after all,” she said.

“SO SHE’S NOT GOING to sell,” Skip Wakefield said, when Connor got back to the downtown Charleston office of Wakefield-Templeton Properties.

Connor draped his sport coat over the back of a stylish chrome-and-leather chair and dropped into the one next to it. He faced his old friend. “Not yet.”

“Meaning what?” Skip asked, his probing green eyes alight with curiosity as he ran a hand through his close-cropped, reddish-brown hair. A risk taker with a practical streak, he was always focused on the bottom line. “You think you can change her mind?”

Connor reached for the necktie in his coat pocket and began to put it back on. “I think it’s possible, given enough time.”

His expression thoughtful, Skip watched as Connor buttoned the top button on his shirt and pushed the knot into place. “We don’t have a lot of time,” Skip warned as he tapped the end of a pen against his desk. “The investors we’ve rounded up to underwrite the costs of building the condo project aren’t going to wait around indefinitely. Even though suitable beachfront property is so darn hard to come by these days, and this place is ideal. If this project doesn’t come together soon, they may find another place to put their money.”

Connor had to agree with his partner on that. It seemed everyone wanted to live at the beach, and no one wanted to sell what they had. Not a twenty-five acre parcel, the amount Skip and Connor needed, anyway.

“Kristy Neumeyer’s property is worth waiting for.”

“Only if she’ll sell. If she won’t—” Skip shrugged, looking unhappy again “—then she and her resort are of no use to us.”

Speak for yourself, Connor thought. He had spent only thirty minutes or so with her, but she had definitely made an impression on him.

Skip tilted his head. “You’re not getting sweet on her, are you?”

Guilt swept through Connor, even as he denied the possibility. “Why would you think that?” he demanded. He had never been one to mix business and pleasure. Not since Lorelai, anyway.

“I don’t know.” Skip studied Connor. “Maybe because I haven’t seen you look that starry-eyed when talking about a woman since junior high.”

Connor grinned. “Are you sure those aren’t dollar signs you’re seeing in my eyes?”

Skip clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “I wish your main desire was to make money because if it were, our partnership would be a lot more profitable. Instead, you want everyone to like you.” He said that as if it were the worst quality on earth.

Connor knew differently. “It helps if people don’t hate your guts when you’re trying to broker a deal between two warring parties.”

His partner’s eyes gleamed with a cynical light. “It’s more than that, and you know it,” he scoffed. “You just can’t stand making an enemy of anyone.”

It was true, Connor admitted to himself. Probably because he had spent so much time as a kid feeling caught up in the animosity simmering between members of his family. For years he had suspected that his parents and his older sister had secretly resented the heck out of each other, but he hadn’t understood why. Not that his younger sister, Daisy, who had been adopted as an infant, had escaped the family penchant for stifled emotions and supersecret angst. No, she had been as unhappy as all the rest, albeit more openly so. To the point that everything had finally exploded during the course of the previous summer. The truth had come out. And his parents had reluctantly ended the deception as well as their forty-eight-year marriage. Now, everyone seemed content to go on with their lives. Only Connor, it seemed, was still reeling, still trying to take it all in. Still wondering where the hell it left him.

Aware that Skip was waiting for a response, Connor stood and moved lazily about the office. “So I don’t like fighting.”

“I know, you just want everyone, and I do mean everyone, to get along,” Skip intoned dryly, shaking his head. “Speaking of which, that neighbor, Bruce Fitts, called here, said you weren’t doing a good job with Kristy, not at all. He suggested I go back out there myself.”

Connor objected fiercely to that. “It was you talking to Kristy in the first place that really set her off.”

His partner spread his hands wide. “All I did was offer her a cool five million dollars for her land and buildings.”

“Which wouldn’t have been a problem had she been at all interested in selling.” She wasn’t.

Skip flashed him a sly smile. “She’ll come around—if I know you. And I think I do.”

“I hope so, too,” Connor allowed. “But in the meantime, Skip, where Kristy’s concerned, let me do the talking.”

His partner agreed without argument. “When are you going to see her again?”

“Tonight.”

Skip blinked. “You got her to agree to go to dinner?”

“Actually, she invited me to have dinner there.” Then she had dis-invited him, but Connor figured that was beside the point.

“Way to go, buddy!” Skip came out of his chair to high-five Connor. Grinning, he predicted, “You’ll have her seeing things our way in no time.”

Connor hoped that was the case.