Karen Whittenburg - The C.e.o.'S Unplanned Proposal

Hard to deny, since the traffic noise was all around her. “Yes, but—”

“Wonderful. If you’ll give me your directions, Benson will pick you up within the next thirty minutes, drive you to the estate and bring you back this evening. I’m so glad this has worked out. Mr. Braddock would be most upset if we’d failed to make this connection. He’s anxious for you to see Braddock Hall. It’s a lovely place and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the drive down, as well as touring the grounds. This is a good time for you, then?”

Katie debated with her conscience. She would be going under false premises, true. But she hadn’t misled anyone and she had tried to correct the misunderstanding. While only a precocious preteen, she’d adopted the physicians’ creed of First, Do No Harm as her own…and really, what harm could there be in her going for a drive with Benson in the Rolls? Adam Braddock was no closer to finding a legitimate party planner whether she took a ride in his car or not. And she could always figure out some way to pay Benson for the gas. She knew she’d regret not taking the chance and, when all was said and done, her main goal in living was to end every day with as few regrets as possible.

“Now is the perfect time for me,” she said, decision made. “Tell Benson, I’ll be waiting on the corner of—” She glanced up at the street signs, “Weybosset and Orange whenever he arrives. And thank you.” Katie clicked off the phone, dropped it into the depths of her bag, and gave her new crop of curls a saucy toss to shake off the nagging voice of reproach.

Okay, so she could have, probably should have, tried harder to explain. But life was short and she’d vowed to experience all that it offered with her chin up, and her hopes high. She owed that much to the family she’d lost so long ago that she couldn’t even remember their smiles. She owed that much and more to the lost little girl she once had been. To live every moment as if it were a gift was the only promise she’d ever made to herself…and right or wrong, she was taking a ride in Adam Braddock’s Rolls-Royce. She was going to enjoy every moment of the experience, too. And if tomorrow it still seemed necessary, she’d do her penance by looking up party planners in the Yellow Pages and phoning Nell with a selection of names and phone numbers. It was the least she could do.

Someone in the milling crowd jostled her as the light changed from Don’t Walk to Walk. As people moved past her into the crosswalk, busy with their own agendas, she backed up to the wall of the building on the corner and allowed her lips a whimsical grin. Anticipation bubbled inside her, and she felt a little sorry for anyone who wasn’t her, standing on the corner of Weybosset and Orange, waiting for the Rolls to come for her.

SO MUCH FOR ANTICIPATION, she thought as she stepped into the back of the silver-gray automobile and came face-to-face with Adam Braddock. What the heck was he doing here? And what would she say when he demanded to know what a waitress was doing climbing into his Rolls-Royce?

“Ms. Canton? I’m Adam Braddock,” he said, glancing up and extending his hand over the top of the small computer on his lap. “So nice to meet you.”

“Hello,” she said, realizing he hadn’t recognized her. Yet. The door closed behind her with a sturdy ka-thud and as it was too late to make a run for it, she settled onto the seat with a soft, leathery sshhplop, and returned his solid handshake with a limp-wrist brush of her fingers. “Nice car.”

His handsome face barely registered a vague smile before his eyes were back on the computer screen. “I’m glad you were able to make the trip to Braddock Hall on such short notice.”

“I, uh, wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“It’s an unexpected trip.” He frowned at the computer screen and typed in a response.

Katie fidgeted on the seat, wishing he’d recognize her and get it over with, thinking this car seat was made of the softest leather ever to come into contact with her own seat, wondering if there was any way she could get out of this situation gracefully. “Sort of unexpected or really unexpected?”

“What?” His tone barely made it a question, his eyes didn’t stray from the screen.

“Well, if it’s sort of unexpected, like a broken water heater, then this probably isn’t the best time for me to visit and we ought to just reschedule, but if it’s really unexpected, like someone in the family has appendicitis, then I should just get out of the car now and let you make the trip by yourself.”

“No.” His voice for all its vagueness, sounded pretty authoritative. “That isn’t necessary.”

But Katie wasn’t giving up on escape that easily. “But if someone’s ill—”

“Christmas decorations,” he said succinctly.

“What?”

“Christmas decorations,” he repeated, displaying not a single other sign he realized she was sitting beside him in the car.

“Christmas…in May?”

He picked up a phone—conveniently positioned in the door console—and punched in a number. One number, rapid dial. Naturally. “Lara,” he said sharply into the phone. “The stock’s moving. Any word from Wallace?”

He listened so intently Katie could all but feel the energy of his thoughts. He was as smoothly controlled as the car in which they were riding and exuded the same sort of luxuriant power. Harnessed. Refined. But there was frustration beneath the surface, and it was a quite incredibly perfect surface, too. His dark hair was cut with the precision of a master stylist, not too short, not too long, not a hair out of place. Perfect from every angle. His clothes, too—a dark gray suit, white shirt, exemplary tie, right down to the Windsor knot—reflected a pristine attention to detail. His profile—almost the only angle she had been shown since she got in the car—revealed the same strong, even features as a face-on view. In other words, perfect. She’d thought he was attractive in the restaurant, of course, but here in his natural habitat, he was quite extraordinarily handsome. Even better to look at than the Rolls…and that was saying something. Katie leaned back against the supple leather seat and watched him in profile, deciphering from his intense expression and his silence that he was capable of listening when he wanted to do so. Or when he was interested. What would it be like, she wondered, to have a man like Adam Braddock focus that same intensity on her? What would it take to engage his interest?

Of course, when he realized she was a waitress at The Torrid Tomato and not the events planner he’d hired, sight unseen, for an exorbitant amount of money, she just might find out. She figured he’d be angry with her, even though the fault was largely his. No doubt he had yes-women at his beck and call, in the office and out of it, too, and she didn’t imagine he ever took kindly to hearing explanations. It was too much to ask of perfection, she supposed, to expect him to entertain the idea that had he only listened to her for two minutes in the first place, she wouldn’t be in his car right now.

Okay, so it was her own choice to be in the car. She couldn’t exactly blame him for that. But still he ought to be gentlemanly enough to share some of the responsibility.

“Good work, Lara. Remember, as far as Wallace knows, I’m unavailable the rest of the week. Let’s see if he doesn’t break a sweat by this time tomorrow.” He hung up without another word. No good-byes necessary with Lara, apparently. Or perhaps he was already so engrossed in the activity on his little computer screen he didn’t know he hadn’t given a polite “over-and-out” to the conversation. That made more sense, she decided, as he didn’t seem to remember he wasn’t alone, either.