She was about to leave. Again.
The moment he slid under the sheet, she unbuttoned the borrowed shirt and dropped it to the floor. And then joined him, burrowing under the covers to snuggle up next to him, warm and comfortable.
“You’re staying?” he asked needlessly, but in his surprise, thought it was worth the clarification.
“This is where you are,” she explained simply and laid her head against his shoulder as if she belonged there. “I want to be with you. Turn off the lamp and stop talking.”
But once it was dark, suddenly he couldn’t shut off the swirl of unexpressed commotion in his head. The longer he stayed silent, the worse it grew.
“You know why I don’t babble on about all my innermost thoughts, right?” he blurted out.
“You’re a guy,” Cara responded sleepily and kissed his throat.
Yes, but...it was a flimsy excuse and his DNA wasn’t the real reason. Normally, he’d let it go at that but she’d been so accepting, so easy to be with. So forthcoming about her own struggles. Somehow it loosened his vocal cords. “It’s because of my mother.”
“Isn’t it always?”
He laughed and the heaviness inside melted away. “Yeah. It wasn’t okay to talk about how something made me feel. She would cut me off, change the subject. Mitchells don’t talk to each other about anything except money. It’s what makes the Mitchell world go ’round. Money is a tangible reward for your effort and it’s the only thing that lasts.”
According to George and Judith Mitchell, anyway.
“Is that how you feel about money, too?”
“Money is a by-product of success. I like the things it buys but I get more satisfaction out of seeing what I’ve done with this property than seeing my bank balance grow. That’s the difference between my father and me. His success was measured in zeroes. It was almost like play money to him. So what if he lost a million or so dollars of a customer’s money? He got a commission regardless.” Unrepentant anger swept up from Keith’s gut to inflame his chest. “He was so furious I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps. But I didn’t want money to rule me.”
And he didn’t want a trophy wife either, one who cared only about money, cared only about Keith’s ability to earn it. Like his mother. If Keith decided to chuck it all to go live in a fishing village in the Philippines, he could and no grasping, money-grubbing woman would ever stand in his way.
In talking this through, he got the one thing he’d always wanted from his mother but never received—someone to simply listen to him. His arms tightened around Cara and she slipped one sexy leg between his, but instead of feeling like an invitation to physical intimacy, it was all about growing closer emotionally.
He kissed her forehead. “That was probably more than you wanted to know.”
“On the contrary,” she corrected softly, “it was exactly what I wanted to know. I like you, Keith Mitchell. Now that I’ve glimpsed who you really are inside.”
His lips curled up in a genuine gratified smile. She’d gotten him to share without intruding into an area he wasn’t comfortable with. It was nice. “I like you, too.”
Drifting in the silence, he blessed the storm that had brought them together.
* * *
The morning dawned through the floor-to-ceiling glass, nearly blinding Keith. So he shut his eyes and held the sleeping woman still tangled around him as if she couldn’t get close enough.
Her firm breasts were pressed against his side, nipples rubbing his skin with every breath he took. And the more they rubbed, the faster his lungs pumped. Last night had been about something other than sex, and that had been great. A totally different experience from any he’d ever had with a woman.
But this morning, all bets were off.
They were in bed—naked—and he wanted to connect with Cara more than he wanted his heart to beat. She’d unlocked all sorts of raw, primal emotions inside and he wanted to grab on to them, before they faded.
Nudging her legs apart, he slid his thigh between them, tight against her sex. He tipped up her chin and kissed her awake. She arched against him languidly and kissed him back, slow and deep.
He was so hot and hard and ready for her, he couldn’t wait. Poised at the entrance to heaven, he groaned, savoring the sensations, contemplating how slow he could reasonably take this before he came apart.
Suddenly, she broke the kiss and angled her body away from his. “Condom,” she murmured.
The reminder shocked him. How could he have almost forgotten? Hadn’t they both gone through enough anguish from the first pregnancy? They didn’t need another one.
So why was he thinking about what it might be like if they weren’t worried about an accidental pregnancy? If they had the kind of relationship where birth control wasn’t a consideration?
What was he doing to himself? That was crazy talk, and a little misplaced sadness that nothing in his life lasted longer than a few weeks was not a good enough reason to go off the deep end.
He fumbled around on the nightstand until he found a foil packet and rolled on the barrier quickly. Satisfied, she wiggled back into place and made short work of setting off fireworks behind his eyes.
As he sank into her, spiraling into oblivion, the rawness inside blossomed into something huge and real and so perfect, there should be a whole aisle at the greeting card store devoted to it.
He just wished he knew what the aisle would be labeled. Happy Temporary Fling Day didn’t have the right ring.
Finally, they heaved from bed at half past seven, a good hour later than he should have gotten up. But he wouldn’t have missed that round of good-morning sex for any price. Saucily, Cara paraded around in his unbuttoned shirt and he almost blurted out an invitation to take a real vacation with him after the expo—with limited luggage, a lot of water and no cell phone.
But he didn’t. If things went well, they’d both be very busy very shortly.
Before he lost his mind, he shooed her out the door with a kiss and a heartfelt “See you later.” She took half a step and his hand shot out to snag hers before she could fully leave. “Stay with me again tonight.”
Surprise danced around in her expression but she nodded. “Okay.”
Her concession gave him perma-grin. She’d stayed last night and it had ended up being unexpectedly amazing. Maybe he could do “more” after all. Maybe they both could.
Checking his text messages wiped the smile from his face in an instant. Elena had sent him a list of items that needed attention before nine o’clock, the witching hour. Regent executives would be arriving from the airport on the dot and the resort was not ready for prime time.
While he’d been lost in his little bubble with Cara, the show had come to a screeching halt. For crying out loud. Was he the only one around here who could make decisions?
Cursing, he stabbed Elena’s number and when she answered, he barked, “Talk to me.”
“Where have you been?” she demanded. “I sent you like ten emails and normally you respond within a few minutes. It’s like you dropped off the face of the earth.”
Close. He’d dropped off the face of the resort and it was unacceptable to have left things hanging. This was his job, his reason for being in Grace Bay. Cara wasn’t.
“Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll meet you in the lobby. Bring able bodies and sharp minds.”
Keith threw himself in the shower and scrubbed all traces of hot tubs, hot honey brunettes and intimacy from his body. He wished he could say the same about his head. Because Cara was firmly in it and no admonishment in existence could remove the memories from his mind.
He crossed the Regent emblem in the lobby in thirteen minutes.
Elena, dressed in a crisp Regent uniform, hair smoothed into a bun, waited by the front desk. Staff buzzed around the lobby, similarly dressed, attending to various duties with a heightened sense of urgency.
Regent Resorts at Grace Bay was open for business.
Keith dived in. Instead of diminishing, the list of problems grew exponentially as he began investigating.
“Pool furniture.” He pointed at two uniforms. “Spread it out and make it look like we didn’t lose so many pieces in the storm.”
They scurried off. Keith grabbed a handful of groundskeepers. “Retrim the palm trees. They still look like they were hit by a tropical storm.”
Elena rolled her eyes. “I think the executives are going to have to understand the property was just hit by a tropical storm.”
“No. They will understand this is the premier wedding destination resort on the planet and tropical storms do not interfere with an engaged couple’s plans when they stay at a Regent property.”
Keith Mitchell might not control the weather but he controlled his destiny, and it was not going down in flames because he’d stumbled and fallen into the eye of Cara’s whirlwind.
He sent the resort’s limo to the airport to retrieve the executives and put the fear of God into the rest of the staff. True to his nickname, Mitchell the Missile’s heat-seeking radar found even the smallest unearthed issues and addressed them. A general on the battlefield couldn’t hold a candle to Keith’s natural skill with both organization and delegation.
When the limo rolled to the curb with the executive team inside, the resort was not in the shape it should have been. But it would be. Better the executive team see the mended seams instead of the expo guests, who would begin arriving at noon.