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“Count on it.” Nina thrust up her chin as though trying to make herself taller.
“I’ll call you,” Brooke said to Greg.
No, you won’t, he thought. He could see it in her eyes, because he’d seen it before. His life was way too complicated to appeal to a woman like Brooke Harlow, a fresh transplant from the city, looking for a simpler way of life. He was divorced, had custody of two kids and was about to launch a new business, all of which meant he didn’t have unlimited time to give to a relationship. Okay, he had maybe five minutes a day to give to a relationship.
Still, he watched Brooke leave with a twinge of regret. She had runway-model legs, long blond hair, a great smile and … He tried to figure out if he liked her personality. Did she have one? With those looks, did she need one?
Max tied the canoe to a cleat. “I’m going to go fishing, okay, Dad?” he asked.
“Okay, but stay on the dock,” Greg said, glad that the kid wanted to do something more wholesome than checking out Brooke Harlow.
Greg turned to Nina. She was facing the inn, her dark eyes diamond-bright with … He couldn’t read her expression, but he could tell she wasn’t happy. Dripping wet, she looked even smaller than she usually did, her jet-black hair hanging limp and her spandex shorts and T-shirt clinging. He could tell at a glance that under the shirt, she was wearing one of those heavy-duty athletic bra things. Whoever invented that garment lacked imagination.
“Well,” Nina said as she bent down and started bailing water from the kayak. “Well, doesn’t this just make my day?”
Greg wondered why—besides being soaked to the skin—she was acting so hostile. This was not a good sign, since they would soon be working together. One thing he had never figured out was how to penetrate a woman’s anger. He hadn’t been able to do so back when he was married, and he wasn’t able to do it now. He’d known Nina off and on over the years—mostly off. He remembered her as a lively kid some years his junior, a local girl he saw when he came to spend his summers at Camp Kioga. He recalled more about her than she could possibly know, but it was probably not a good idea to bring that up, especially with her in this mood. When he’d first moved back to town last winter, she’d made what he thought might be an overture, but he’d been reeling from the divorce and hadn’t taken her up on it. Now, looking at her, he called himself a fool. There was more fire and appeal in a wet, angry Nina than in a hundred blond Brookes.
The old planks of the dock creaked as Nina bent to hoist the kayak out of the water.
“I’ll give you a hand,” said Greg. He felt mildly annoyed that she hadn’t asked for help. The kayak was heavy, and as they upended it a slew of water soaked their feet all over again. They set it up on the dock to drain some more. Greg watched Brooke and Shane cross the broad lawn. For their first—and apparently final—date, Brooke had brought her own car to the inn. Although he hadn’t been divorced for long, Greg had learned the separate cars ploy right away. When arranging a rendezvous—date, hookup, whatever—it was safer to arrive and depart separately. This evening, Greg had planned to leave Max with his older sister, Daisy, and take Brooke to dinner, after which—please God, it had been so damned long—he would get laid.
But no. Clearly, that was off the table. Now he was wet and cold and stuck with an equally wet, cold and ticked-off Nina Romano.
The last time he’d seen her was at high school commencement a few weeks before. He and Nina each had a graduating senior. Sonnet Romano and Daisy were friends, but the future lying before each girl couldn’t be more different. Sonnet was headed for travel and adventure and college, as he recalled, while Daisy was—
“I’d better be going,” Nina said, interrupting his thoughts. “My car’s clear across the lake at the municipal boat shed.” She bent to relaunch her kayak.
“Forget that,” Greg heard himself say. “Let’s go inside and dry off.”
He gestured toward the inn. The main building was a house of wonders, having been built in the 1890s as a vast family summer compound by a railroad baron with more money than common sense. Over the generations, the place had undergone a number of transformations, ultimately becoming the sort of cozy lakeside resort people thought of when they needed to escape somewhere.
“What do you mean, let’s go inside?” Nina asked. “The place is closed.”
“True.” He dug in his pocket. “Luckily, I have a key.”
She gaped at him. Her face paled and her voice was a rasp of disbelief as she said, “I don’t understand. What are you doing with the key?”
Oh, boy. This wasn’t the way he’d planned to tell her. He’d envisioned a business meeting, both of them in dry street clothes. What the hell? he thought. “The Inn at Willow Lake belongs to me now.”
Not only did Nina Romano have a Sophia Loren face, with those large, gorgeous eyes and full lips; she had an expressiveness about her that showed every emotion. She wasn’t reserved and cool like the girls Greg had grown up with—bloodless, sleek-haired schoolgirls or the queen of all suppressed emotion, his ex-wife, Sophie. Nina instantly expressed everything she felt. Maybe that was why Greg found her a little scary. Unlike the Brooke Harlows of the world, he sensed Nina could be a real threat, because she might actually make him feel something besides plain lust.
At the moment, she had an entire succession of emotions on display—shock, denial, hurt, anger … but no acceptance.
“So you’re the one who bought this place while I was away,” she said, anger shaping every word.
“Gilmore didn’t tell you?”
She glared at him. “I didn’t actually give him a chance.”
Greg didn’t know why she was so pissed off, or why he felt defensive. “It’s probably serendipitous that we both ended up here. I know you hold the general management contract. We’ll need to renegotiate that.”
Still radiating fury, she said, “Renegotiate.”
“You made the agreement with the bank. The contract was sold with all the other assets, but we’ll have to change some things.”
“No shit,” she said, and marched toward the inn.
The moment she stepped from the wraparound porch into the sunroom of the inn, Nina was transported. Even though the place had seen better days, an air of faded gentility and elegance lingered in the arched doorways and carved wooden mouldings and railings, the tall ceilings and carpenter-Gothic window casements. She had spent a lot of time here, both in person and in her dreams. The smell of fresh plaster and paint indicated that renovations were already underway.
When she was a little girl, she and her best friend, Jenny, used to watch the Rainbow Girls in their white dresses and gloves going there for their monthly meeting. The Rainbow Girls were a group of privileged young ladies who gathered to work on charitable pursuits, and they’d always seemed like a breed apart to Nina, like fairies who lived on a special diet of meringues and cream. She never actually wanted to be one of them—they seemed a bit boring to her—but she wanted to be their hostess. When she and Jenny would ride their bikes past the inn, she’d say, “I’m going to own that place one day.”
The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Weller, lived on the premises and ran the place as a quiet retreat for tourists and people from the city. Nina had worked there each summer, beginning when she was thirteen. The work was not glamorous, but she’d been fascinated by the operation of the hotel, the array of guests from all over. Later, as a young mother, she’d moved up from housekeeper to desk clerk, bookkeeper and assistant manager, learning every aspect of the business. Even dealing with plumbing woes and cranky guests hadn’t discouraged her. After Mr. Weller died, Mrs. Weller carried on, but never with the same spirit she had when he was alive. When she passed away, she left the place—along with its mortgage—to her only living relative, a nephew in Atlantic City. He entrusted its management to a contract firm that let everyone go and sent in their own staff. Nina went to work as the mayor’s assistant while she finished her education. The experience had led to her being appointed to office when the mayor had been incapacitated by illness. Her friends and family thought her head would be turned by city politics, but she always came back to the idea of the Inn at Willow Lake.
Due to neglect and mismanagement, the inn went into foreclosure. It seemed a perfect opportunity for her, a time to take a risk, to start something new.
Her first step had been to approach Mr. Bailey, the bank’s asset manager, and propose to him that she reopen the inn, managing it on behalf of the bank while she applied for a small-business loan. It seemed like the perfect arrangement.
Now she stood dripping on the faded cabbage-rose carpet in the salon and stared at Greg Bellamy, the new owner of the inn.
Funny, he didn’t look like the kind of guy who stomped people’s dreams into the ground. He looked—God—like Mr. Nice Guy. Like Mr. Nice Guy with an incredible body and killer smile and hair that was great even when it was wet.
Still, she had no trouble hating him as he hurried to a supply closet and grabbed some towels and a spa robe and slippers. “You can dry off and put these on while I throw our stuff in the dryer,” he said.
The man was clueless, she thought, grabbing the bundle and heading into the closest guest room. The Laurel Room, it used to be called. Oh, she remembered this place, with its beautiful woodwork and lofty ceilings, the white porcelain sink set into an antique washstand. Apparently, Greg had wasted no time fixing the place up. The walls bore a fresh coat of sky-blue paint and a new light fixture hung from the ceiling. From the window, she could see Max out on the dock, casting with a fishing rod.
She tried to numb herself to all feeling as she peeled off her cold, clammy things and put on the robe. The thick terry cloth fabric felt wonderful against her chilled skin, but she was in no mood to feel wonderful. Bitterness and resentment filled her up like poison, and it was hard not to feel utterly persecuted by fate. It seemed that every time her turn came up, something happened to snatch it away.
All her life, she had made every choice for practical reasons, governed by what was best for Sonnet. Finally she had reached a point where she could take a risk. If not the inn, then something else. It was true that because of area covenants, there could never be another inn on the lake, but there were other options. She could become a painter, a bookseller, she could train for a triathlon, open a dog-grooming parlor, drive a bus … a thousand possibilities lay before her.
The trouble was, she wanted this. The Inn at Willow Lake. Nothing else would do. Only she wanted it on her terms, not Greg Bellamy’s.
Snap out of it, she scolded herself, cinching the robe’s belt snugly around her waist. She had a great kid, a loving family, the chance to serve as mayor. She ought to be counting her blessings, not tallying up her losses.
Yet when she marched back to the lobby with her clothes in a squishy bundle, she was far from calm. She was still a seething ball of fury.
Greg had managed to scrounge up a pair of painter’s pants and had paired them with a slightly-too-tight T-shirt. His hair was attractively mussed. The fact that he looked completely hot only made her madder. The friendly, warm gas fire he’d ignited in the salon’s fireplace made her madder still.
“I’m glad I ran in to you,” he said. “I’d heard you were back from your trip. Is Sonnet okay?”
“She’s fine.” All right, so he was being nice, asking about her daughter. Of course, he could afford to be. He already had what he wanted.
“I wanted to set up a meeting this week. We have a lot to talk about.”
Hugging the oversize robe around her, she went to the settee in front of the annoyingly cheerful fire. “I don’t think there’s anything to say.”
He smiled. Smiled. “This is an opportunity for both of us. I’m going to need a general manager, and the bank already had a deal with you. Now, about your contract—”
“The contract.” She rubbed her temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “It was supposed to be so simple. How did this happen?”
“It is simple. Bailey retired from the bank and Brooke took over the asset management. She sold me the inn.”
Nina glared at him. “What did you do, sleep with her to get a good deal on the place?”
He glared back. “That’s none of your business.”
All right, Nina thought, that was probably a low blow, but she didn’t care. “I don’t get it. What on earth do you want with this place?”
“It’s exactly what I’ve been hoping to find. A business that keeps me close to home for my kids, something I like doing. And I know you’re the ideal manager. You’ve got a history with the place, experience running it. You’re perfect.”
This was so classic. The Bellamys were a favored family. It seemed to Nina that every last one of them had been born with a silver spoon in their mouth. It seemed that fortune denied them nothing. While ordinary people like the Romanos struggled for everything they had, the Bellamys swept in and helped themselves.
For Nina, even traveling was bad luck. “The deal’s off,” she said tightly.
“Are you always this angry, or is this something special, just for me?”
“I had plans,” she snapped. “I know that doesn’t matter to you, but—”
“Come on, Nina. At least hear me out.”
“Why should I?”
He didn’t react to her challenging tone. Instead, he said simply, “No reason. We barely know each other. For what it’s worth, I had plans, too.”
Plans. “You probably want to turn this place into some kind of overpriced corporate retreat,” she said. “And wouldn’t that be just charming.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“I’ve seen the numbers. It’s the best way to turn a profit.”
“And that’s what I’m all about. Turning a profit.”
To be honest, she didn’t know what he was about. She didn’t know much about him at all. That hadn’t stopped her from jumping to conclusions about him. She took her fury down a notch.
“So tell me. I really want to know.”
He studied her, and there was something in his gaze, some level of trust and confidence. “All my life, I’ve done what I thought I was supposed to do. Ten years ago, I started my own firm in Manhattan because it seemed like the responsible thing to do. What I ended up with was a job I didn’t like and one that made me ignore my family.”
All right. So he wasn’t a complete selfish bastard. But why on earth did his act of redemption have to step on her toes? “There are lots of ways to do that,” she told him. “You don’t need this place.” I do, she thought. I always have. When she was fifteen years old, the roadmap of her life had unfolded, and she’d always known her final destination was here.
“You don’t know what I need. Maybe this will give you an idea.” He went to the front desk, already furnished with computer and phone. She heard the breathy whisper of a printer, and then he brought her a copy of the contract. She’d been so excited the day she’d signed it. Now she felt sick to her stomach.
“The modifications are in bold,” he said.
“You think you can come in here with your money, buy this place and me along with it, a single woman with limited options,” she said. “Well, think again. You can’t—”
“When you buy a business, you buy all its assets and liabilities. This contract with you is one of its assets.”
She grabbed the document from him and studied his suggested changes. She blinked to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks. He had increased the salary and added a profit-sharing option and pension.
Just for a moment, she wavered. This was real money. For once in her life, she would be financially secure. She could help out Sonnet, because even with the scholarships she’d won and her father’s contributions, it didn’t mean her education would be without cost.
No, Nina thought. No. She recoiled from the contract as though it had turned into a snake. For all the incentives he’d added, he’d still taken away the one thing worth having—the possibility of owning the place one day.
She got up and went to the window, knowing she probably looked completely undignified in a robe three sizes too big, but she didn’t care. She studied the view outside—a broad, sloping lawn dotted with Adirondack chairs, the belvedere, carriage house and caretaker’s quarters, the boathouse, dock and the lake in the distance. Max had apparently grown bored with fishing. A pole lay abandoned on the dock. “I’m not signing that,” she said over her shoulder. “Find someone else.”
“I suppose I could opt for a commercial management company from out of town, but I’m hoping to avoid that. I want you,” he said simply.
She swung around to face him. “You can’t have me.”
His expression indicated that this was not something he often heard from a woman. Well, of course not. He was a Bellamy. He looked like the American Dream come to life. He was not the kind of guy a woman refused. “You were perfectly happy to make a deal with the bank,” he pointed out.
“That was different. I—” She stopped herself. She wasn’t going to tell him her hopes, the future she’d imagined for herself. It was none of his business, and she already looked pathetic enough, standing here in her borrowed robe. “I have to go,” she said, heading down the hall to the laundry.
“Your clothes aren’t dry yet.”
“I’ll live.” She’d survived worse.
He intercepted her in the hall. For a second, his nearness shocked her and she didn’t know why. Her skin flushed and her heart sped up, and all he was doing was standing there. He smelled of the freshness of the lake, and unlike some guys, he looked even better up close. Kissing Shane Gilmore hadn’t affected her like this, and Greg wasn’t even touching her.
She glared at him. “You’re in my way.”
“I’m just not getting the rage, Nina. What is up with you?”
“You don’t get me, that’s what. This was supposed to be my time to shine. My whole life has been reacting to a change of plans. I never dreamed I’d be realigning my thinking about this and now here I am … I don’t walk away from a challenge.”
“Then why would you do that now?”
“There’s nothing here for me, nothing but a job, working for you. I don’t need this. I don’t need you. I have options.”
“I want you to stay,” he said, still close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath. “Let’s talk about this.”
She suspected he started a lot of sentences with “I want.” She kept her gaze steady as she said, “There’s really nothing to talk about. I suggest you get busy trying to find someone to sign your contract.” With that, she pushed past him with as much dignity as she could muster, and ducked into the laundry. She slammed the door and opened the industrial-size dryer. Sure enough, her clothes were at that lukewarm, half-dry stage that made them clammy and supremely uncomfortable. She didn’t care. She had to get the hell out of here.
She could feel the fury and resentment pouring off her as she returned to the salon with the damp clothes stretched over her, probably in the most unflattering fashion. Greg either didn’t notice or didn’t care about her appearance or her state of mind as he followed her outside, across the lawn and down the dock.
“Let’s put the kayak on my truck and I’ll give you a lift back to your place.”
“No, thanks,” she said pulling on her vest. Such a gentleman, ripping her future to shreds while offering her a lift to nowhere. In one angry movement, she launched the kayak, got in the rear seat and pushed off.
“Nina,” he called.
Forget it, she thought. He can beg all he wants. In so many ways, he was still that too-handsome, too-lucky guy she remembered from the past. She wondered what he remembered about her. Sure, it was a long time ago, but still…. Clearly the meetings had meant more to Nina than to Greg, which only fueled her anger at him.
“Nina.” His voice was a bit more urgent. “I don’t care how pissed off you are,” he said. “You won’t get far without this.”
She glanced back in time to see him standing on the dock, holding out a double-ended paddle.
So much for her exit. Leaning forward, she reached for the paddle. She couldn’t quite touch it, so he leaned a little farther over the water until she was able to grasp the blade. At the same time she gave it a slight tug—an accident, of course. For a split second, they engaged in a tug-of-war, angry gazes locked, the paddle between them. Seized by a childish impulse, she gave one final tug on the oar. He wobbled for a moment, then pitched forward into the water, making a splash that didn’t quite drown his curse.
