The Billionaire's Kiss(11)

She was glad to have moved over for them, even if it meant a dirty look from the stewardess later on. It seemed like only the Henrys and the Evelyns of the world found love, people who could stay in one place and devote their lives to each other. Callie had been on four flights in the past week and a half, and she had worked about a hundred hours in that time. How would she ever find the time to meet someone good and decent and worth the sacrifices? Amy had lucked into it, but Callie had a feeling that she’d have a much harder time finding someone she could share her life with. Why was she even thinking about this? She didn’t even really know what she wanted in a man. As soon as this trip was over, she’d start looking for someone, but for the moment, she needed to focus on her job. She looked down at her watch and started to count down the minutes until arrival.





***

Callie parked her car and stepped out onto the cobblestone street. Despite a breeze, heat radiated up from the stones under the summer sun. Still, it was cooler than DC, and the uneven, narrow streets and clapboard houses overflowed with New England charm. Here and there a family or old couple meandered down the sidewalk. Callie couldn't see the harbor yet, but she could smell the fresh brine in the air. She stood still for a moment and strained to hear the dull murmur of the ocean in the distance. She wanted to see it. She left the car behind and started walking, winding her way down the crooked streets, following that sound.

Newport felt old in a way that DC did not. It felt like it had been preserved in time. As she walked, she admired the single paned windows with their wavy glass, and soon, she forgot all about the noise, and her desire to see the ocean, and she simply wandered, admiring the houses and the warm summer air, until finally, she realized that she had no idea where she was, and that for the first time in weeks, she wasn’t thinking about work. Maybe this place would be good for her after all. All she had to do was keep Logan Harris in line. She had dealt with worse than him before. Of course, first she’d have to find her way back to the car. She had succeeded in losing herself for a while. Now, how hard would it be to find her way back?





***

Logan hadn't meant to be in his father's house, not that late in the afternoon anyway. He was already three hours behind schedule. Traffic back from his morning meeting in Boston had been a nightmare, and he knew he wouldn't have time to head back out to his yacht to shower. That was fine anyway; the water pressure in the century old house was better than anything he could get on the boat. Logan just didn't particularly care for the way the bathroom looked out over the yard. The last thing he needed was some paparazzo sneaking over a fence and snapping a picture of him toweling off.

The morning's meeting had ironed out the final kinks with Logan's primary supplier for the restaurant. Now, he just needed to shower, throw on a suit and head to the brewery to take care of the last bit of publicity before he handed the reins over to the manager and started thinking about his next endeavor. With any luck, he'd be able to set course for a new destination by the next afternoon.

After jumping out of the shower, Logan quickly shaved. He looked at himself in the mirror as he wondered what he'd do next. He ran the water hot and took his time as he trimmed away the three-day-old stubble on his chin. After completing the process, he splashed water on his face. How did I get here? he wondered. He looked almost the same as he had when he was twenty-five. His short blond hair still fell in just the right way to look both neat and unruly. His eyes were as bright blue as ever, but now he could see the first hint of age, the crow’s feet starting to form from all those late nights and early mornings.

As Logan looked in the mirror, he caught a glimpse of something in his peripheral vision, someone walking down the path toward the guesthouse. When he turned his attention, he realized that the flash of motion was a woman, pulling a suitcase down the back walkway. He watched as she stopped for a moment and looked out over the rolling grounds of his father's mansion.

The woman looked familiar, and had the kind of face he felt like he had seen a thousand times before, too pretty for her own good. But there was something else, He watched the way the afternoon light fell across her cheekbones, the way it accentuated the little dimples she had to the sides of her smile. He liked the way the light seemed to float around her fair skin. There was something about this woman, something different, something that reached down inside him and slowly unlaced the ties that held him together. "You are Logan Harris," he whispered to himself, "and you don't let women get to you. You get to them. Stop this mushy bullshit at once."