Maureen Child - Millionaire - Needed for One Month - Thirty Day Affair

She followed him down the stairs, keeping one hand on the banister to make sure she didn't fall down the damn stairs and break her neck before she got some answers. She made a sharp right at the bottom of the stairs just in time to see his black robe disappear into the distant kitchen.

Well, if he thought she was that easy to get rid of, he really didn't know her well at all. Walking quickly, her bare feet hardly making a sound on the area rugs tossed across the gleaming wood floors, Keira got to the swinging door to the kitchen, slapped her palm against it and sent it crashing open.

He was at the fridge and raised his head to look at her when she stepped into the room. Then he dismissed her coolly, reached into the freezer and pulled out a long, flat aluminum tray.

“The housekeeper fills the freezer for me once a week. I think this is …” He read the label. “Fettuccine Alfredo with grilled garlic chicken. It's from the Clearwater, the restaurant you seem so fond of.”

“Their fettuccine is great,” Keira said, walking toward the granite counter and one of the stools pulled up beneath it. She sat down and tucked her bare feet up to get them off the cold floor.

“Glad you approve,” he said, and turned to quickly take off the lid, turn on the oven and pop the tray inside. “Shouldn't take too long,” he said, and walked to the wine cooler along the wall. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

“Sure,” Keira said, trying to figure out a way to get past the wall he'd erected around himself so quickly and so completely. “Nathan, is everything all right?”

“Why wouldn't it be?”

“You're just acting a little … weird.”

One black eyebrow rose as he set a bottle of white wine on the countertop. He opened a drawer, took out a corkscrew and then tore off the foil top from the bottle. Keira shivered a little and he said, “Cold?”

“A bit.”

There was another fireplace in the kitchen, but this one was cold and dark. Beyond the windows leading to the covered deck, the world was a whirl of white. Light faded from the sky, the heavy clouds dropped even lower, and the flurries of snow were thick enough that it looked as though someone had hung a sheet from the edge of the patio cover.

“There's extra firewood on the deck. I'll get some.”

“Okay, fine,” Keira said as Nathan walked to the back door, “but first, tell me what you were going to say upstairs. When you were looking at me so funny. When you said, ‘oh, it's nothing, never mind.’ “

“Keira,” he said with a sigh, “just let it go.”

“Oh no,” she assured him, shaking her head at the sheer folly of the man. “That's never gonna happen. So it'll be quicker and easier on both of us if you'll just spit it out.”

“It's nothing.”

“Then say it,” she insisted.

One hand on the doorknob, he stared at her for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether to speak or not. At last, though, he nodded and said, “Fine. I was thinking about the sex. And I wondered just how far you were willing to go to get me to stay here for the whole month.”

Keira felt the slap of his words like a physical blow. Stung, humiliated and furious, she glared at him with enough heat that, if there were any justice at all, he would have been a pillar of fire. “Are you serious?”

“You asked what I was going to say,” he said and watched her through narrowed eyes.

“I didn't know you were going to say that!”

“Don't sound so offended.” Nathan looked at her for a long minute. “It's not like I'm surprised.”

“Is that right?”

“For God's sake, Keira, you think this is the first time a woman's used her body to get me to do something for her? We're both adults. You wanted something from me and you used sex to get it.”

Fury whipped through Keira. “You … you …”

He shrugged and headed for the back door. “It was good for both of us. We each got what we wanted. No point now in trying to make it something it wasn't.”

He opened the back door to a gust of icy wind and said, “Look, let's just forget it, all right?”

“Sure,” she whispered as she watched him hurry barefoot across the icy deck toward the neatly stacked pile of firewood. As he gathered up a few logs and some kindling, the wind whipping the edges of his robe around his calves, Keira jumped off her stool, crossed the floor and quietly closed and locked the back door.

Instantly he straightened up, whirled around and shocked, stared at her through the glass. He crossed to the door and gave the knob a turn and a shake. “Keira, open the damn door.”

“I don't think so,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and tapping one bare foot against the cold wood floor.

She'd never been so mad in her whole life. Or so humiliated. For God's sake, she'd let him do things to her no one had ever done before, only because she'd felt a connection to him somehow. Some minuscule, apparently clearly one-sided, feeling. How could he ever think that she would have slept with him just to make him stay?

Did she really give off such a slutty vibe?

And what the hell kind of people was he so used to dealing with that would make him assume she was so coldblooded?

He shivered, clutched the firewood tighter to his chest and gave her a glare she was sure sent his employees scuttling for cover.

Keira, however, remained unmoved.

“Damn it, Keira, it's snowing out here!”

“You're under the porch roof.”

“It's freezing.”

“Start a fire.”

“On the deck?”

“Frankly, I don't care if you freeze solid to the spot. I'll put up a small but tasteful plaque, something like Here Stands An American Moron.”

“This is not funny!” he shouted, and hunched deeper into his way-too-thin-for-snow robe.

“No kidding!” Keira walked closer to the glass so she could burn her stare into his eyes. “I cannot believe you. You actually think I'd prostitute myself to get you to stay here?”

“I didn't say that,” he reasoned.

“Oh, yes you did, you pompous, self important, miserable son of a bitch.”

“Look, I was wrong, okay?”

“You're just saying that so I'll open the door,” she snapped.

“Damn straight.”

“Well, forget it! You deserve to freeze, but you probably won't. You're so damn cold already, I don't see how you could possibly get any colder!”

“Can you let me the hell in the house and then yell at me?”

“Why should I let you in?” she demanded, so furious she was seeing red at the edges of her vision. Amazing. You really did see red if you were angry enough.

“Because … because …”

“See? Even you can't think of a reason!” Keira shouted.

“Hah!” Nathan raised one hand in the air, dropped some kindling on his foot and hopped in place. “Because if I die out here, I won't be able to stay the damn month and your town won't get the money you want so badly.”

“Funny,” she said, thoughtfully tapping one finger against her chin, “but I don't remember it saying anywhere in the will that you had to be alive and here for a month. It'd probably be okay if we just prop you up out there on the deck.”

“You are the most infuriating woman I have ever met.”

“You've got a heck of a lot of nerve, Nathan Barrister. You call me a ho, and I'm the one who's infuriating?”

He flicked a glance behind him when the wind shifted and a flurry of snow rushed at him from the lake. Turning his gaze back to hers, he said tightly, “Keira, open this damn door and let me inside.”

“And if I don't?”

“Then I'll break the glass with one of these logs and we'll both be freezing our asses off.”