Fallling for the Prodigal Son (11 page)

"What is 'this'?" Lucy replied.

"You know what 'this' is. About what happened between us. About why we still act like teenagers around each other."

"We were teenagers."

"That makes it nothing?"

"It makes it awkward for me to be working with you. You can't see that?"

"And you think it's not awkward for me? I don't know what your memories of that night are, but my recollection is of being a terrified, fumbling teenaged boy who had no idea what he was doing."

"Well, I had no idea what you were supposed to be doing." Lucy gave Sterling a wry smile.

"So I was your first
," Sterling mused.

"Is that a surprise, Mr. Matthew? I was sixteen, you know."

"You came across back then as someone who was far older than her years. Too cool for school."

Lucy laughed, a short sharp laugh. "Yeah, I was too cool for school alright. That's how I ended up at your parents' camp."

"I thought you were going to teach me the ways of women."

"You've got to be kidding.
At sixteen?" She turned serious. "But you're my boss now. And I'm the employee you don't particularly like. So we need to pretend that we didn't deflower each other fifteen years ago."

Sterling groaned inwardly. There were two things Elle hadn't factored into her great seduction strategy. One was that most women didn't put up much resistance to Sterling's advances. Women generally threw themselves headlong into his arms. Indeed, Lucy had done so herself fifteen years ago. But apparently she was not that kind of
girl anymore.

Two, the plan had seemed much easier back when Sterling really hadn't liked Lucy that much, when she had been simply a two-dimensional nuisance in his mind. He'd tried to stay away from her all week, to the point where even Elle had noticed his blatant avoidance tactics. "How are you going to seduce her if you keep scheduling phone meetings around the clock?"

He had slipped into a couple of the conference sessions he assigned her to attend. Both times, he waited until after the speaker began and then quietly took a seat in the back, where he could watch her. He was careful to leave halfway through the session, before there was any chance of a five-minute coffee break.

Seducing Lucy wouldn't be a problem. He was confident enough of his abilities in that area. And part of him wanted to make up for that miserable first time with Lucy. He was an expert lover. Okay, he could admit it—he didn't like that there was a woman out there who'd had a bad experience in bed with him. He certainly wouldn't mind correcting that perception with Lucy.

What gave him pause, though, was the way the air seemed to vibrate around him even after she left. The way thoughts of her arose, unbidden, when he was doing the most mundane things. What if he couldn't stop after once or twice? What if he made love to Lucy Wyndham ... and then needed more? He'd made a fool of himself over a woman or two in the past, and it hadn't been pretty. The fiancee of a businessman who owned half of Lichtenstein. The daughter of one of the biggest rock'n'roll bands in history. He couldn't afford to be a fool over an employee. He'd lose what little authority he had over the rest of the staff.  

An image of an adult Lucy in cut-off denim shorts and a tight tee shirt floated through his mind. He turned and walked down the boardwalk that served as a path through the forest.
Focus, my man, focus,
he ordered himself. He had to execute on this plan. Elle was right. He couldn't afford not to have the cooperation of the one person who knew more about how to market the Inn than anyone else. And he had a feeling Lucy'd had a lot of practice at digging in her heels and being stubborn. He knew he could get his way eventually, but he really preferred not spending three more months going round and round with her on the issue of the camp. He needed to put her hormones in play, in play long enough to kill that damn camp. But he had to be smart about it.

He stepped to the side of the path and leaned his back against another giant tree. To his surprise, Lucy was right behind him. He thought she had gone back to the car. She had a ...
look
on her face. Sterling knew that look. Her lips were parted, just ever so much. Her eyes were dark as they looked straight at him. He could swear she was going to stride right up to him and kiss him, just like Lucy Lou had. And he wanted her to. Wanted her warm lips pressed hard against his. Wanted the soft curves of her body crushed against his hard chest. Wanted ...

His stomach let forth with a loud, hungry rumble. The moment was broken.

Lucy tilted her pretty head back and laughed.

"Well, obviously I'm starving. I'm guessing you haven't eaten either," he said

Lucy rolled her eyes at him. "Sherlock."

"I know a great little cafe tucked away in North Beach. How about dinner? No business tonight." Business strategy, he thought, but no business.

"I can't make any promises about that."

Oh, I can.

Chapter 13

Sterling had been right. The North Beach cafe
was
great, dark and quiet and intimate. Jazz was a sexy, rumbling soundtrack in the background. The other diners looked young and hip and smart. Outside, well-dressed men and women strolled past on the sidewalk. Lucy sat back and swirled the sambuca in her glass. It took no effort at all to imagine this cafe in Paris or Rome, not that San Francisco wasn't a romantic city in its own right. Or it would be, with the right person.

Lucy had wanted to spend her honeymoon in San Francisco, but Josh had wanted the Caribbean. Hot sand and warm ocean. So the Caribbean it had been. It was bittersweet for Lucy to be in San Francisco now, for the first time and by herself. She pushed the thought out of her mind. She hadn't wallowed in pity over the demise of her marriage for years, and there was no reason to start again.

She was relaxed tonight. For the first time in weeks, really. A plate of hot pasta, the cool fog outside, a glass of wine and now the sambuca. And Lucy had formulated a Plan B in case Derrick's publicity storm didn't work. This plan had hatched back in the Muir Woods, after the kiss with Sterling. You catch more flies with honey, right? That's what her mother used to tell her all the time. As a teenager, she'd been incapable of understanding that idea. Back then, Lucy came across socially as something akin to a battering ram.

But maybe—just maybe—she'd been going about Sterling Matthew the wrong way.

There was still chemistry between them. That much was crystal clear. Lucy had no idea how it had survived fifteen years of wildly different lives—not to mention other lovers—but somehow it had. The kiss back in the forest proved that. Maybe there was a way she could use that chemistry to get what she wanted ... another year for the Kids Kamp. If she could just buy one more year, she'd have another chance to convince whomever succeeded Sterling as head of the Inn.

Sterling was looking at her intently. She saw a gently smoldering flame in his eyes.
Oh this might be like taking candy from a baby.
"Penny for your thoughts," Sterling said.

"Inflation?"

"Nickel for your thoughts."

"They're not for sale."

Sterling tilted his wine glass back and let the last half inch of wine pour into his mouth, an action that he made look outrageously sexy. He set the glass back down on the table. "Last week in your office," he began. "You said you came back to the Inn with your husband. But you didn't say what happened after that."

"I thought you said no shop talk tonight."

"I thought I was asking a pretty personal question, actually. But you don't have to answer if you don't want to."

Lucy shrugged. She wasn't ashamed of what had happened. She had been, for a couple years afterward. But it was what it was. She wasn't the first person whose marriage went up in smoke.

"We had plans to celebrate our third anniversary at the Inn. The night before, he informed me that he had fallen in love with someone else and wanted a divorce."

Sterling grimaced. "The night before your anniversary? That's callous. And ... you went to the Inn by yourself?"

"Why not? It was too late to cancel the reservation. And after that, I needed a little pampering at a resort. If I'd stayed home, I might have killed someone. Then I met your father, he was looking for a marketing director, I was working in marketing at Marriott at the time. By the end of the weekend, I had a new job."

"And you don't get bored in St. Caroline?"

"No. I have a job I love. Friends I love. I live right on the water in a beautiful, historic town. Nothing boring about it." Skepticism flickered in Sterling's eyes. "Why did you come back if you hate it so much?" Lucy challenged.

"I have to run my parents' business."

"Can't Sarah hire a CEO?"

"Actually, no. The Inn can't afford to. I'm working for free. And my mother can't afford to have the Inn go under."

"Couldn't you sell the Inn?"

"We could. The land alone is worth a fortune. But my mother doesn't want to. Or my father doesn't want her to, which is what I suspect is the case, and she will honor his wishes even after he's gone."

"Your parents love each other very much. I can't tell you how much I enjoy seeing them together. My father got the hell out of dodge when I was eight, and my mother never met anyone else. No one else who stuck around."

"Yeah well. That's part of the problem here. Love doesn't have the rationality that sound business decisions require."

"I thought we weren't supposed to be talking about business," Lucy pointed out.

"No, we're not. Let's go back to talking about you." Lucy heard the challenge, the dare, in Sterling's voice. She also heard the low huskiness of his voice, and she couldn't help wondering if that's how he sounded in bed. As teenagers, they hadn't really spoken much. Their lovemaking had been all urgent mouths and jumbled limbs.

"So what did you do after that summer?" Sterling asked. "No, wait. Where did you come from before then?"

"I
s this like twenty questions?"

Sterling leaned back in his chair and regarded her serenely. "Maybe."

"I grew up in southwestern Virginia."

"What is that like?"

"Mountains. Poor. Beautiful."

Sterling nodded thoughtfully. "And so you went back there after camp."

"I went back and finished high school, then got a scholarship to Virginia Tech. After that, I moved to Washington, DC. That's the nearest big city, the nearest place with any jobs."

"And what kind of job did you get?"

"I got a job in guest relations at a Marriott downtown, then moved over to corporate headquarters in Bethesda."

"And you got married at some point."

"Yes, I married Josh when I was twenty-three. Too young, in retrospect."

"And what did he do?"

"Well, he was in law school when we met. Then he was an associate at a law firm. I thought I was all set when it came to life. I had a stable job at a big company and I'd married a lawyer. Then it all came crashing down around me."

"That's when you moved to St. Caroline."

"Hmm-hmm. What about you? What did you do after camp?"

"I went off to college. Brown University, where I was
a remarkably mediocre student."

"What did you major in?" Lucy asked.

"Economics, officially. Skiing, unofficially. I can proudly say that I have skied every mountain in New England."

"And to think some people in St. Caroline say you've never accomplished anything."

Sterling threw back his head and laughed. "By some people, you mean my parents?"

"Actually, your parents haven't spoken about you much. Not to me, anyway."

"If I had siblings, I'd be the black sheep of the family." Sterling shrugged. "Actually, I seem to be the black sheep of the family even without siblings."

"Your mother seems to be happy that you're home."