Elizabeth Bevarly - Matchless Millionaires - An Improper Affair

As she prepared to leave the lodge late that Sunday afternoon, Ryan surprised her by saying, “Why don’t you come on in? We’ll sit on the deck and watch the sunset.”

“I should be getting back.” The words flew out of her mouth in automatic response.

“Why?” he asked bluntly. “We both know Distressed Success is closed on Mondays.” He smiled. “In fact, since you’ll want to be working here tomorrow, it makes sense for you to stay the night.”

She felt a strange fluttering sensation in her stomach, then caught the teasing glimmer in his eyes.

“After all,” he drawled, “you’re already familiar with the guest bedroom.”

She held her palms up. “I didn’t bring any clothes—“

His smile widened. “Do you really want to hear my solution to that problem?”

She felt herself heat in response. She still wasn’t used to his teasing.

The past week had been wonderful, but he hadn’t tried to kiss her again. He hadn’t done anything, in fact, that could be interpreted as a come-on, even by her fevered imagination.

She, on the other hand, had become attuned to his every breath, every expression, every stretch of hard, lean muscle.

Ryan reached out and touched her arm. “Hey,” he said soothingly, “come on. Let’s just open a bottle of wine and contemplate the meaning of the universe.”

She relaxed a little. “Okay.”

Minutes later, they stepped out onto the deck, Ryan holding two wineglasses in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other.

She tried not to look at the hot tub, remembering how she’d first spotted him at the lodge.

“I can vouch for its relaxing properties,” he murmured.

“What?” she asked, startled.

“The hot tub. It’s great.” He paused, a glimmer in his eyes. “Want to try?”

“No, thanks!”

Her response was immediate and automatic. Just the thought of getting into a hot tub with Ryan Sperling sent her senses into overdrive.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been in a hot tub,” he teased.

“Some of us weren’t born into the hot-tub-and-wine set.” Then she added, relenting, “In any case, I have nothing to wear.”

His eyes crinkled. “Why let a lack of clothing stand in your way?”

At her look of forbearance, he shrugged. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” He paused, then added thoughtfully, “I could lend you one of my undershirts and a pair of boxers. You could even keep your bra and underwear on underneath.”

His lips twitched. “I know how important underpants are to you.”

She wondered how much of his sexually charged teasing she could withstand, then asked suspiciously, “And what will you be wearing?”

“Swim trunks.”

“I shouldn’t agree to this.”

He grinned. “But you are.”

They headed back inside. He handed her some clothes and, after they’d both had time to change, she met him on the deck again, padding outside in bare feet and shivering in the cool night air.

Soft jazz filtered out from iPod speakers set up on a table.

He stood holding two full wineglasses and swept her a look from head to toe, his gaze heating. “I had no idea my shirts and boxers could look so sexy.”

She flushed. It felt impossibly intimate to be wearing his clothes, albeit over her own.

He’d already started the hot tub, and the tub’s jets created frothy water, illuminated from below by recessed lights.

It looked so inviting, she thought as she shivered again.

He set the wineglasses down on a small tray at the side of the tub, then straightened and held his hand out to her. “Come. Let’s warm you up.”

He warmed her just by looking at her with his hot eyes, she wanted to say. Instead, she put her hand in his and stepped into the tub.

“Careful,” he cautioned, but she knew she was being anything but— with him, with anything.

He followed her and settled on an underwater ledge across from her.

She sighed as the hot tub’s jets pounded her gently, massaging her muscles. She closed her eyes and leaned back, relaxing against the tub’s side.

“Better?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

After a few moments, during which she heard him lift and sip from his wineglass, he instructed, “Look up.”

She did, and gazed at the inky black sky. Dozens of little stars twinkled back at her.

“My guess is that you haven’t had much time to stargaze in your life,” he commented.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Neither have I.”

She looked down at him, and asked, “Why do you think Hunter wrote a stipulation in his will that you and his other college buddies have to stay at the lodge?”

“Why didn’t he just give the money to charity, you mean?” She nodded.

“We’d made a promise to one another all those years ago, on a night after too many beers. We’d vowed to become huge successes—on our own, not riding on our families’ coattails—and then reunite in ten years. Once Hunter got sick, the rest of us forgot that crazy night. But Hunter never did.”

He looked heavenward. “Maybe he knew we’d need to do this. And somehow he knew it would be up to him to get us to come here just to take a moment and look up at the stars.”

“I guess he was right, because it’s been a while since you’ve taken time to look at the stars.”

“Ages,” he answered absently, then he lowered his head to look at her. “How about you?”

“Ages,” she concurred.

A companionable silence followed. She sipped her wine and looked off into the dark trees, then out at the dark waters of Lake Tahoe.

Finally, she asked, “So you and Hunter were close friends?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. I didn’t have siblings, so all six of the guys from college were like brothers to me.” A wry smile touched his lips. “We called ourselves the Seven Samurai.”

She laughed. “Who came up with that name?”

“Blame it on too many late nights chowing down on bad pizza and watching Kurosawa movies. We studied hard, but partied harder.”

“You talk about it as if it’s one of the better times in your life.”

“It was.”

“Did you find it difficult being an only child?” “Did you?” he countered. “It was more difficult being Brenda Hartley’s daughter.”

He raised his wineglass in silent salute. “I felt the same way.”

“It was as if the college partying days never ended for Brenda,” she elaborated, “except she never went to college….”

“But you did,” he prompted.

“Yes,” she said, looking at him in surprise. “How did you know?”

He shrugged. “A good guess.”

“I worked my way through community college in Reno to get a degree in business administration.”

The conversation moved to the challenges of starting a business. Kelly found herself fascinated by the tales he had from his climb to the top of the cable-communications world.

After a while, he said, “Now I have a question for you that I’ve been wondering about. Why did you settle around Tahoe or, more specifically, Hunter’s Landing?”

She sighed. “How I got where I am is a lot less interesting than how you got where you are.”

“I’m all ears.”

She regarded him. He really did seem genuinely curious. “I knew I had to get out of Clayburn,” she said eventually. “I knew I didn’t want to go to Vegas, but Reno wasn’t too far. Once I found a job in Reno, I enrolled at a community college and, on weekends, I’d take cheap day trips to Tahoe.”

She shrugged. “I fell in love with the area and, since there’s a big tourist trade here, not to mention lots of seasonal residents, it seemed like the perfect place to try to open a business.”

“You’ve got good instincts,” he said.