Mr. Imperfect(18)

The hot water stung a little. Her skin was still tender from the stubble  on Christian's jaw. Even if guilt and revenge hadn't motivated his  offer, accepting it was out of the question. It would strike a killing  blow to her self-reliance-a thing she clung to when she lost the people  she loved through death. Or abandonment.

Reaching for the soap, Kezia tried to ground herself. She was tired and  overemotional. Her parents' aid work saved many lives; they'd no choice  but to send their sick child home to her unknown grandmother.

A wonderful, crazy grandmother who, even in death, made people jump  through hoops. Dropping the soap, Kezia covered her face with shaky  hands. I can't take his money, Nana, please understand and forgive me. I  just can't.

Christian seemed to exist to give her impossible choices.

She turned off the shower and dried herself briskly with a threadbare  towel. She fully intended to make his remaining time here a misery and  she would smile as she made him suffer. She got dressed in the bedroom,  then, catching sight of herself in the gilt mirror-a wreck with tangled  hair and dark shadows under her eyes-fumbled for a hairbrush and makeup.

As she applied the unconcerned face she would present to Christian,  Kezia stopped fighting the truth. God help her, she still loved him.

Her course of action was clear. She had to get him out of her life  quickly and for good before he realized how well he'd exacted his  revenge. He might take her heart with him when he left, but her soul was  not for sale.



KEZIA'S CHEERFUL WHISTLE PRECEDED her to breakfast. Hunched over his  second coffee, Christian put his hands over his ears before his brain  exploded. After storming out of her room last night, he'd raided the bar  of Johnnie Walker and drank until 4:00 a.m.

"Cut the act. You can't have slept any better than I did."

She poured herself a cup of coffee from the dregs in the pot and turned  to smile pleasantly at him. "Why wouldn't I? That phone call saved me  from an embarrassing lapse in judgment, and all my responsibilities are  now on your shoulders."                       
       
           



       

"Your lapse of judgment was sleeping with me, I take it," said Christian  dryly, "and not the more serious one of rejecting my offer?"

Her smile vanished. "As it turned, out I rejected both."

"I smoked, your honor, but I didn't inhale." With grim satisfaction  Christian watched her color rise. Don't pretend with me, Kez, I remember  every touch.

He changed tactics, only because he was too hungover to do what he  really wanted to do, which was shake some sense into her, kiss her into  submission or both. Okay, and he was desperate to offload the hotel.  "Please. Sit down. Let's talk."

Clearly reluctant, she pulled out a chair. She smelled good, some sort  of apple-blossom soapy fragrance. Christian forced himself to  concentrate, to look past her mouth still swollen from his kisses to the  shadows under her eyes that makeup couldn't hide. So she was  conflicted. The sight should have relieved him. Instead he felt  protective-and more desperate to leave.

"This hotel has been in your family for over a hundred years. Don't let  our history override that." He added astutely, "Don't make me that  important."

Kezia said nothing but her hands tightened on the cup.

Encouraged, Christian went on. "You're right, there's some squaring of  accounts in my offer. But not with you. Muriel trusted me and I failed.  But it's more than that. I owed her everything and all I gave her was a  weekend of my time once a year and the occasional phone call. I wish I'd  taken her to Paris or New York … . I wish I'd told her how much she meant  to me. I wish I'd known how much I'd miss her." He stopped. The words  had poured out of a reservoir of feeling he kept dammed. "Let this be my  way of making it up to her."

Tears shimmered in Kezia's eyes. "I'm sorry," she said, "but you'll have to make your peace with her another way."

His sympathy evaporated along with his patience. "And you accused me of  petty revenge," he said softly, and she paled. "All that talk about  keeping this place open at all costs, protecting jobs was just expedient  bullshit. It's not me who wants the last word, Kez. It's you. Hell, it  must really burn you up that the loser you thought you were rejecting  ended up wealthy and successful."

She opened her mouth as if to argue, closed it and took a deep breath.  "I will not be in your debt," she said quietly, and pushed up from the  table to leave. "I can be packed up and out of here in a week, although  if you need someone to oversee things until it's sold or you find  another manager, I'm prepared to stay on." She raised her chin. "As a  gesture of goodwill."

Christian lounged back in the chair. In business circles he was referred  to as the Juggler for his ability to manage multiple deals. Those  bested by him scathingly referred to him as the Jugular. Kezia hadn't  seen that side of his nature. Yet.

"Very magnanimous, but if you haven't agreed to take this place by  tomorrow, I'm going to board it up and abandon it." He watched her steps  falter and stop.

Kezia grabbed a chair back. "You wouldn't."

"What's stopping me? Money?" Christian leaned forward. "This is just  loose change. Affection for my hometown? What's it ever done for me? The  sooner it cocks up its toes, the better."

"You wouldn't do that to the people who work here."

"You're right," he acknowledged. "I wouldn't." He waited for her  expression of relief. "But it won't be me doing it, Kez. Turn it down  and it will be you."

"You're bluffing."

"You have until after Suzie's wedding tomorrow to decide."

"Bluffing," she repeated emphatically.

Christian shrugged. "Today I thought I'd go into Everton, pick out a  present for the happy couple. As my date you might like to advise me.  How about a nice pair of salad servers?"

"Bluffing." Her tone was desperate.

He smiled. "Salad servers it is, then."



"HE'S BLUFFING," KEZIA TOLD Marion later that morning as they drank  coffee on the deck of Marion's two-bedroom farmhouse rental and watched  John Jason try to make his rat jump through a hoop. The rat wasn't  having a bar of it. Good for you, Roland, thought Kezia. A rat must keep  his dignity.

"Of course he's bluffing." Marion had spoken in a soothing tone,  probably the same one she used when telling John Jason there really was  an Easter bunny.

"He's bluffing," Kezia told Don as she'd dropped another box of papers  in his cavernous office for storage. She'd figured she might as well  start moving at once and show Christian she didn't take this ultimatum  seriously. Like you didn't the last one. And look what happened then.                       
       
           



       

Don had considered her out of hangdog eyes. "Maybe."

"A typical lawyer's remark," she'd snarled, then insisted on buying him lunch.

"He's bluffing," she told Bernice May as they stood in the cemetery, the  hot afternoon breeze lifting the skirt on the old lady's mauve  housedress like a playful ghost.

"You told me that ten times," complained Bernice May. She bent her  rheumatic knees to place flowers beside Muriel's headstone. "And doing  as bad a job convincing me as you are yourself."

Kezia started weeding the grave without another word.

"Be careful of your grandma, honey," said Bernice May in a mild tone. "She's here to rest, remember?"

Kezia dropped the trowel. "I have to believe he's bluffing because I can't bear either of the alternatives."

Bernice May shook her head. "Compromise isn't in Christian's nature. He didn't grow up in a compromising world."

"Then he was lucky," said Kezia bitterly. "Compromise was all I knew.  There was always someone who needed my parents more so I compromised by  being good and useful." Her laugh was half sob. "So why am I so set on  being selfish now, when Nana was the only person who ever really loved  me? I should just take the damn hotel for her sake. But it will kill  something in me to do it."

For a while there was silence but it was a silence of acceptance. "You two need to stop fighting and start talking."

Kezia laughed at that. "Show him weakness? You're kidding!"

"Come with me," said Bernice May. She started picking her way through  the graves. Puzzled, Kezia followed. The old lady moved slowly and  paused often to pat the headstone of various old acquaintances. At last  she stopped. "This is his mother's grave."

"Neglected," observed Kezia. "Why am I not surprised?" But she looked at the gravestone. Deborah Kelly. Beloved. Rest in Peace.