скачать книгу бесплатно
Only about a million times.
Not that it would have made any difference. According to the office gossip she couldn’t avoid, Neil’s idea of a long term relationship was a weekend in the Bahamas.
“There isn’t any point in discussing it,” she said.
“It’s getting in the way of us working together.”
“No, it isn’t,” Libby said.
It was true.
Their disastrous date, embarrassing as the memory might be, wasn’t the real reason they didn’t get along.
“Then what’s the problem?” Neil’s gray eyes had darkened, and his gaze moved deliberately over her. “Is it because I called you the virgin queen? I’ve never apologized for that, and I am sorry.”
He sounded sincere and Libby couldn’t control the flush rising in her cheeks…or the instinctive warmth sliding through her veins. “That has nothing to do with it. There are lots of reasons we don’t get along, but it’s mostly because we’re poles apart in the way we look at life.”
Because I’m a small town country girl and you’re a big city snob, she added silently. She didn’t like cities, fast nightlife, or the high-stakes gambles that Neil O’Rourke thrived upon. Dealing with Neil was like dealing with unstable dynamite—no matter how careful you were, in the end you got burned.
“Maybe. But there’s still an attraction between us.”
“I’m not attracted to you,” she denied instantly. “And if you’re attracted to me, it’s only because I said no. If we’d slept together I would have been old news before the week was out. You have the staying power of an amoeba.”
“Really? I’m told I have more stamina than most men.” His tone was so outrageously suggestive she wanted to scream.
“And like most men, all you ever think about is sex. If you ever had an honest-to-God tender emotion for a woman, I think you’d jump off a building just to get rid of it. Now get out.” Libby slammed the door behind him and stormed back to her desk.
Men.
They were the rottenest, most unreasonable creatures imaginable. She didn’t know why a woman would bother with them, except they were necessary to keep the human race going.
Chapter Two
Neil couldn’t keep a grin from splitting his face as he strode away.
Libby might be an innocent, but that unexpected temper was priceless. Of course, he shouldn’t have said he was still attracted to her. It just made things more complicated, but it was entertaining watching her blush and react so strongly.
No matter what she claimed, he wasn’t attracted to her just because she’d refused him. Absolutely not. He had his moments he wasn’t proud of, but he wasn’t that shallow and immature. He could keep things under control without actually doing anything about it.
“Any messages?” he asked his secretary.
“They’re on your desk, Mr. O’Rourke.” Margie turned back to her desk, avoiding his gaze.
He hesitated. “Is something wrong?”
“No, of course not.”
Neil waited, then decided not to say anything else. She was new and apparently having personal troubles, but he didn’t want to make either of them uncomfortable by asking too much.
“Thank you. I have an appointment with Libby Dumont at one this afternoon. Keep my schedule clear.”
“Yes, sir.”
Going into his office, he tossed the bed-and-breakfast file on his desk. “B and B’s,” he murmured, shaking his head as he swiftly scanned the pages.
After several hours of making notes and jotting down figures, Neil got up and stretched, realizing he’d worked through lunch again. He had to admit the bed-and-breakfast project had some interesting aspects, but what still boggled his mind was that Kane had promoted Libby Dumont. Vice president? She might be all right in a division that handled corporate giving, but new developments?
His brother was going soft in the head. Beth was a great wife and sister-in-law, but if that’s what falling in love did to you, the rest of the world could keep it.
Love did strange things to people.
Restless all at once, Neil paced around the room, then stood at the window and looked out at the Puget Sound. It was a rare, cloudless day in Seattle, the sun shining brightly on the water. A ferry chugged away from the shore, with seagulls soaring and swooping in the air above.
He usually tried not to think about how his father had given up the work he cherished—handcrafting fine wood furniture—to take a higher paying job in the forest industry. A job that eventually killed him, just to support a growing family.
There were too many tradeoffs to love and marriage, and Neil knew he was too selfish to make them. It was better to be honest with himself, than to get married and end up in a bitter divorce, making everyone miserable.
The phone on the desk rang. It was Margie, telling him that Libby was waiting for their appointment.
“Tell her to come in.”
Libby walked inside with an I’m-going-to-be-nice-to-the-jackass-if-it-kills-me expression on her face.
“Good afternoon, Mr. O’Rourke.”
He looked at her narrowly. That “Mr. O’Rourke” nonsense would have to end. Sooner or later he’d get her to call him Neil. It was a challenge, and he loved challenges.
“Good afternoon, Miss Dumont,” he mimicked back. “You do know my first name, don’t you?”
“Of course,” she said evenly.
“Then use it.”
“I’m not the only employee who calls you Mr. O’Rourke,” Libby murmured.
Neil frowned. Come to think of it, she was right.
“But just your subordinates,” she added. “So you have nothing to worry about. I mean, it’s a little stuffy, but who cares when you’re in charge, right?”
“I’m not a snob, Libby. I’ve never insisted on that kind of formality,” he said, stung.
“But you’ve never invited us peons to call you Neil, either.”
“I did this morning and it didn’t do any good. You still insist on using Mr. O’Rourke,” Neil snapped. “And nobody’s a peon at O’Rourke Enterprises. You damn well know that.”
Libby took a breath. She couldn’t believe she’d let her tongue run away with her that morning, and now she was doing it again. After a lifetime of being a well-behaved preacher’s daughter, watching what she said and trying to be tactful no matter what the situation, she’d totally lost it.
Of course, by all accounts, tact wasn’t high on Neil O’Rourke’s list of priorities.
“Maybe we should just talk about the B and B proposal,” she said quickly.
“Suits me. Where do you think we should start looking for properties? I’ve made some notes, but I should hear your ideas about it before we go ahead.”
Libby wanted to say Endicott, her hometown. If a community ever needed development, it was Endicott. But that would convince him more than ever that she was too sentimental to be “executive” material.
“We could write various historical societies and ask if they know of any likely houses that would meet our purpose,” she suggested instead.
Neil shook his head. “It’s bad enough we have to talk to them at all, but you’ll get them up in arms before we even start,” he declared.
“They might decide to work with us, you know. For the chance of saving a piece of history.”
“Sure, and I believe in leprechauns.”
Libby doubted Neil had ever believed in something so whimsical, even as a boy.
“Do you have a better suggestion?” she asked.
“Yes. We could assign a team to scout locations. Other teams can work on acquisitions and restoration.”
Her chin lifted. “Well, that certainly has the personal touch Kane and Beth have in mind for the project.”
Neil glared. “Fine, then we’ll do it together. All of it. The two of us, every step of the way. That should have a personal enough touch to suit you.”
Swell.
She really wanted to spend more time with him—about as much as she wanted to slam her hand in a car door. It was more opportunity to say something foolish, something he’d laugh about. She was still squirming over the things she’d said earlier, making it sound as if just thinking about sex was a terrible sin.
Libby thought about sex.
She thought about it a lot.
Actually, sometimes sex was all she could think of, though she usually tried to blame it on hormones and being that time of the month. But she wanted to be with someone she loved, who loved her, someone who wanted to hold her during the night instead of calculating the fastest way out the door the minute his breathing slowed.
That someone wasn’t Neil O’Rourke.
He wanted success, power, and a life of travel and accomplishment, equating marriage to sacrifice. Sacrifice. No woman in her right mind wanted a man who considered her a sacrifice, no matter how good-looking he might be. It wasn’t worth the heartache.
And she didn’t even know why she was thinking about it except she’d never reacted to any man more strongly than Neil.
Blast.
It wasn’t fair that he could turn her inside out with-out even knowing he’d done it. She’d gone for months at a time without thinking about the man, and then only in passing, but now her head was filled with wayward thoughts.
Maybe it was knowing he wasn’t going anywhere. This time she was stuck with him.
“A historical bed-and-breakfast line wasn’t my idea,” she said, trying to sound calm. “You don’t have to be annoyed with me for wanting to do things the way Kane asked.”
“Whatever. Just stay here,” Neil ordered, getting up and stomping out.
“Stay?” Libby scowled at his empty chair.
She wasn’t a golden retriever he could order to stay put. Then she shrugged, deciding she’d have to pick her battles carefully when it came to Neil. Otherwise she’d never stop arguing with the man, being as he was the most annoying person on the planet.
After a few minutes he returned with a load of phone books in his arms.
“I got these from the secretarial pool,” he said, dropping them in a heap on the couch. “We’ll go through them and start making calls to real estate agents about likely properties.
Libby lifted one of the dog-eared phone books in disbelief. The thing was eight years old. Hadn’t Neil ever heard of the Internet? The information highway loaded with helpful items like up-to-date phone numbers? He must have dug these out of a back cabinet somebody had forgotten.
A bubble of laughter struggled for release in her throat.
He had to be totally rattled, beyond thinking clearly. They hadn’t even talked about what towns to start in, but his first course of action was to bring in some ancient phone books and randomly start contacting real estate agents?
“Start calling,” Neil said. “That’s a separate phone line over by the couch.”
Within seconds he was talking to an agent, crisply barking out his “needs” and asking that a list of suitable properties be faxed immediately.
She followed suit, glancing at him from time to time, and realizing that maybe his plan wasn’t daft after all. It could be more organized, but at least it had a personal touch.
At one point Neil smiled so warmly that Libby was startled. Then her gaze narrowed. From the bits of conversation she could catch, he was obviously talking to a woman who was doing her best to flirt.
What about his precious professionalism?
Why did she care?
Libby hastily looked back at her own phone book. It didn’t sound like he was flirting back with “Sue,” but he was such a stickler for being cool and professional she’d have expected him to end the conversation with the first calculated giggle.
“How many agents have you talked to?” he asked after another hour.
She counted. “Eight who promised to fax something today.”
“I’ve got fifteen. Let’s see if anything has come in, and we can decide which properties we’re going to look at first.” He picked up the phone. “Margie? Yes, I know a lot is coming in on the machine. Bring it in.”
Margie sidled into the office like a frightened rabbit and handed Neil a stack of paper. Libby gave her an encouraging smile before she left, recognizing the sign of fresh tears on the other woman’s face.
Neil didn’t even look up and Libby wanted to kick him. Granted, Margie was new to working in an executive suite, but she’d been with the company for a long while and she was going through a tough time with a sick daughter. A little sensitivity from her equally new boss would help.
“Looks like some good stuff to start with,” Neil muttered, sitting next to Libby on the couch, and flipping through the faxed sheets.
He recognized the ones from the agents he’d talked with. They were adequate, but Libby’s faxes were much longer, provided more material, and the cover sheets contained hand-written notes saying things like “enjoyed talking with you,” “anything we can do to help,” and “sounds like a great project, love to be a part of it.”
The only personal note to him was a message from Susan Weston, who asked if he wanted to have dinner the next time he was in Olympia.
“Olympia?” Libby asked, looking over his shoulder at the boldly scrawled invitation. “It’s a beautiful city, but I thought the idea was to look for places in small towns, especially towns needing revitalization.”
“It is.” Neil crumpled the sheet and tossed it on the floor, unaccountably embarrassed. He hadn’t encouraged Sue to flirt. He’d dealt with her before on land deals in the south Puget sound area, so had naturally called her to see if she had any likely listings for a bed-and-breakfast inn. “Susan has a big agency. She lists property from Lacey to Aberdeen.”
“Oh. Personal friend?”
