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“You don’t know what I was going to do. You think you know me, but let’s face it, Andreas, you thought I’d be okay with the bride pimp and I’m so not. You thought I’d be okay with selling the company and I still kind of want to shred your closet of suits over that one. You thought I’d want to leave KJ Software to start a new company and you couldn’t have been more wrong about that. I’m not sure you know me very well at all.”
He couldn’t argue a single one of those sentences.
And something about six years ago had gone down very differently than he’d thought too, or it wouldn’t have come up today. Andreas had the unpleasant sensation that she was right and that he did not know Kayla Jones nearly as well as he thought he did.
And if he didn’t figure her out, he was going to lose the one person he still considered family.
That was not going to happen. Andreas Kostas had lost all the important people in his life he was going to let go of.
Kayla Jones was never going to be one of them.
* * *
Andreas finished answering emails, ignoring yet another text from Genevieve. He’d had no idea she was so demanding when he hired her. She’d acted very accommodating and happy to have him as a client. Her tenacity was well-meaning no doubt, but he had other things on his mind at the moment. Her in-depth questionnaire and business-mogul makeover were going to have to wait.
Why did he need to change his clothes and haircut anyway? He didn’t have any trouble finding companionship dressing like a high-powered businessman. When he’d mentioned that to Genevieve, she’d replied he was looking for a wife, not a hookup.
He was still unconvinced.
He didn’t want a wife who expected some laid-back guy who was going to spend every evening and weekend playing happy families. That wasn’t Andreas.
Dismissing thoughts of his matchmaker, he replied to another text.
Satisfied with his morning’s work, he was considering ordering breakfast and waking Kayla when the second bedroom door in the suite slammed open. She appeared, no wakeup knock necessary, her curls tied up in one of the scarves she wore to bed to keep them tamed. Its bright color at odds with the dark visage of her face. Her glare shot around the sitting room until it landed on him with the weight of a fully locked-and-loaded missile.
Gray eyes narrowing even further, she stomped toward him. Her body moved in ways his couldn’t help taking an interest in, what with the way her peach satin sleep shorts and silky spaghetti-strap sleep top clung to her bouncing curves.
Damn it, he needed to remember that the passion they’d shared had been too consuming for good decisions.
She slammed her beloved smartphone down in front of him. “Fix it.”
The phone beeped, indicating a text.
“Fix what?” They’d long ago established she was the more technically savvy of the two of them.
“That!”
The phone beeped again.
“What?”
She shoved it in his face.
His eyes focused on the screen. The text was from Genevieve. Demanding Kayla get Andreas on the next plane back to Portland.
“You gave your bride pimp my phone number.”
“Yes.” It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
“Call her right now and tell her to stop using it.”
“Just ignore her texts.”
“That’s what you’ve been doing.” Damn, Kayla’s voice could register pissed-off woman when she wanted to, with a heavy dose of disapproval. “And her phone calls, I bet.”
“She’s not on this morning’s agenda.” And Genevieve needed to learn that Andreas dealt with things in his time, not someone else’s.
Kayla’s glare went nuclear. “Well, putting up with her harassment isn’t on my agenda at all. Call her off, Andreas. Right now.”
“You’re in a bad mood this morning.”
“I was woken out of a sound sleep by incessant calls and texts from someone I shouldn’t have to speak to at all.”
“I told you she wanted to talk to you.”
“Andreas, I’m not kidding.”
“You never sleep this late.” Kayla was an early riser, like him.
“I wanted to sleep in. That’s my prerogative. I’m on vacation.” She looked at him like he was the one who was acting entirely out of character and suddenly not making sense.
Andreas didn’t know what Kayla saw in his face, but whatever it was, she got that supremely annoyed, impatient “I’ve had it” look. He’d seen it very rarely, but when she got it, he knew things were about to go pear-shaped. He despised that look.
The one person in the world he actually minded being at odds with was Kayla Jones. “Listen, Kayla—”
She put up her hand, cutting him off. She didn’t say anything, just made a production of turning off her phone and dropping it onto the table in front of him. Then she went back into her bedroom and slammed the door.
Since the day before she’d left her phone in the suite and gone off exploring New York alone, that didn’t bode well. Andreas had been forced to resort to other means of tracking Kayla down. Means he preferred not to rely on today.
Not to mention, he did not like thinking of her being without a means of communication.
He picked up his own phone and dialed Genevieve’s number.
“Finally,” the woman exclaimed. “Andreas, you have to treat this endeavor with more respect than you have done so far.”
“I did not give you Kayla’s number in order for you to harass her. Do not use it again, for any reason. In fact, I want it deleted from your file immediately.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Andreas. Clearly, contacting your assistant got your attention.”
“She is not my assistant, she is the director in charge of research and development. Show her the respect she deserves.”
“Be that as it may—”
“Delete the number.”
“Excuse me?”
“I will not. Your behavior toward Miss Jones has been in every way rude and unforgivable.”
“You left in the middle of your own bride search. Matchmaking is a delicate and complicated process. It requires your full attention.”
“No, it requires your full attention. That is why I paid you such a high retainer. I explained that I had a business emergency.”
“Since your Director of R & D is there, can’t she handle the emergency?”
“We are handling it together.”
“I’m sure—”
“That you will take care of your business while I take care of mine.”
“Part of my business requires your participation, Andreas. Had you forgotten the makeover? I suppose I could fly out there and do it in New York.”
“No. There will not be time.” Andreas didn’t feel in the least guilty putting Genevieve off. “I will call you when I return to Portland.”
“What about the questionnaire? Will you have some time for that?” she asked, trying to sound ingratiating, but only managing to be annoying.
“I will get to it when I can.” Andreas allowed his growing irritation to leak through.
“I can’t help feeling you’re not as committed to this as you originally led me to believe.”
“Genevieve, you will learn that I do not like being questioned.” He allowed his displeasure at the continued questioning of the parameters he had already set to ice his voice over. “I will speak to you when I return to Oregon.”
He set his phone down and noticed Kayla standing in the doorway to her room, her expression no longer all narrow-eyed anger. Andreas wasn’t exactly sure what that particular look meant, however.
“Was that Genevieve?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her to stop calling and texting me?”
“I told her to remove your number from her files.”
“If I was home, I could take care of that myself.”
He had no doubt Kayla could do exactly that. You didn’t become a world-class designer of security software without being able to circumvent it. “You scare me sometimes.”
“Nothing scares you.”
Nothing he was going to admit to. “How easily you get into other people’s computers and phones is going to get you into trouble.”
“It’s a natural by-product of designing the best security software.” She stretched and yawned, her breasts pressing enticingly against the silk of her pajama top. “I’m going back to bed.”
“What about breakfast?”
She shook her head at him, a barely there smile playing at the edge of her lips. “Nothing is stopping you from ordering.”
“But you are going back to bed. How long will you sleep?”
“As long as I want, I’m on vacation.”
“But if we are not at the pier in in an hour, we will miss the harbor cruise.”
Kayla’s generous lips thinned. “Harbor cruise.”
“I thought you’d like to see a little of New York while we are here.” She kept harping about being on vacation.
“Jacob was going to show me the city last night.”
The unnecessary reminder set Andreas’s teeth on edge. “He wanted to show you his bedroom.”
“Maybe it had a great view.”
Andreas stood up, suddenly too restless to sit. “Maybe if you want some good views you should get in the shower and get dressed so we can make the harbor cruise.”
“I never said I was going with you.”
“Don’t be stubborn for stubborn’s sake.”
She frowned. “I was going back to bed.”
“You can sleep later. Right now, we have sights to see.”
“No wonder you’re not wearing a suit.”
He’d put on slacks and a button-down shirt, no tie, no jacket. He was dressed down. For him.
“You still look like a power broker.”
“I am a power broker.” And it would do her little actor friend well to remember that.
Andreas Kostas might not recognize Barnabas Georgas as family, but there was no denying the bastard’s blood ran through his veins, as did his ruthless nature.
Kayla sighed. “I didn’t plan on staying here in the hotel with you.”
“Where would you go?” Andreas demanded, not liking the sound of her plans at all.
Kayla got harebrained ideas in her head and sometimes she stuck with them. It had taken him three years to convince her to move into his condominium building and only after he persuaded the complex to offer her a unit at a significant discount that he secretly subsidized the purchase of. She could never find that out, or she’d move out of spite.
The woman had an independent streak a mile wide.
“A hotel without you in it.”
“Am I really so abhorrent to you?” he asked, hurt in ways no other person would be able to cause.
Her mouth twisted and she stepped away from the door, toward him, like she couldn’t help herself. “Of course not. It’s just...” She looked up at him, appeal in her big gray eyes. “This is hard for me, Andreas.”
(#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)CHAPTER FIVE (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)
