Getting to Her: A Sapphire Falls BONUS Novella (8 page)

So he was saying fuck that.

If all she wanted from him was his name now that he was an Olympic Silver medalist, and his money now that he was endorsing razors and energy drinks, then fuck that.

Fuck her.

And since he paid Steve to help him avoid doing things he didn’t want to do— like showing up for court dates for bullshit charges because an ex-girlfriend threw a brick through a current girlfriend’s car window, and paying off an ex-girlfriend who claimed to have a sex tape—he’d had Steve handling her.

Was he doing it to piss her off?

Of course he was.

And he knew she knew it.

Was he doing it knowing that eventually she would come to him personally?

Abso-fucking-lutely he was.

And he knew she knew that too.

But she’d held off longer than he’d expected. It was October. Hailey and the town council had first contacted him via letter in mid-May. He knew that she’d invited a number of Sapphire Falls alums back home for the annual festival and to hear about the new venture she was calling Sapphire Hills. His mom had tried to talk him into coming home for the whole thing.

But he wasn’t going to go just because Hailey Conner snapped her fingers. That might work on the other schmucks she had on her list, but not him.

He’d also known that
she’d
known he wouldn’t show up.

Now she was here.

“No, I don’t need Steve,” Ty said. “Send her in.”

Bryan lifted an eyebrow. He was from Sapphire Falls too and knew all about Hailey Conner. He also knew that Ty had fucked her on graduation night and had been messed up ever since.

Bryan was the
only
one who knew that.

“You sure about this?”

“What do you think’s going to happen?” Ty asked. He actually really wanted to know.

“I think she’s going to walk in here, grab you by the nuts—figuratively if not literally—and get you to do whatever she wants you to do.”

Yeah, that’s what Ty was a little afraid of too.

The stupid thing was that he wasn’t that guy. He called the shots with the other women he dated. He was a demanding guy when it came to, well, everything. He was dominating in his sport, he was aggressive in business and he was in charge with women. He wasn’t quite into whips and leather, but he loved having a woman submit to him. In everything. But especially the bedroom.

Bryan knew that. Shared a lot of Ty’s tastes and then some, actually.

And the least submissive woman either of them knew was Hailey.

Sure, at the river that night she’d responded to his demanding nature. But it had been a long time since then. Ty had explored his sexual tastes and his dominant side had developed over the years.

No way would Hailey Conner go for what he liked now.

But
damn
, the idea of that was fodder for some major fantasies.

The fucking pathetic truth was that of all the women, of all the opponents, all the business executives he’d come up against in the past seven years, he’d never worried about keeping the upper hand. He was smart and he knew what he wanted and he was willing to work his ass off to get it.

But he was very afraid Hailey could bring him down.

“You ready?”

Bryan’s question pulled Ty from his ponderings.

“Uh, no,” he said honestly. “But I knew fucking around with her request was going to bring her out here eventually.”

“Okay, put your cup on brother, I’m sending her in.”

Ty had about three minutes to get his shit together before Hailey came sweeping through the door. He purposefully had his back to her, pretending to be leaning over his desk, studying the photos. But he knew the moment she stepped over the threshold.

All of his senses seemed heightened and he swore he could smell the sweet scent of coconut across the thirty feet that separated him from his office door.

“I can’t believe you’ve been making me talk to your lawyer.”

Her cool, haughty voice was so familiar that he smiled, but then composed himself before turning to face her.

“Madam Mayor,” he greeted easily.

She raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Bennett,” she replied, using the same fake-formal tone.

He leaned his butt against the edge of his desk, bracing his hands on either side of him.

Casual, calm, cool. Don’t let her know she’s getting to you
.

Because she was. Already.

She looked stunning. She was dressed in a fitted red pencil skirt that showed off her tight ass and thighs and toned calves. Her blouse was white, sheer enough that the outline of her white camisole underneath was faintly visible, molding to breasts that he could, even seven years later, picture perfectly if he closed his eyes.

Or even if he didn’t close his eyes.

Her hair was the same spun gold color as always and hung in a cascade with a soft wave almost to her lower back. Her big blue eyes were made up, her gorgeous lips painted a red that matched her skirt. But his favorite part was the four-inch blood-red heels she wore.

He’d make her leave those on when he fucked her. They were sexy as hell and would put her at the perfect height to bend her over his desk.

Want knotted his gut and his balls felt heavy, his cock thick, just looking at her.

He’d seen her about seven months ago. He didn’t make frequent trips home, his training and race schedule didn’t allow it, but he did visit Sapphire Falls a few times a year. He saw her every time. In a town that size, and her being a very hands-on, involved mayor, it would be impossible to avoid her even if he tried. Which he didn’t.

He loved running into her. He loved the way her cheeks would flush whenever she saw him and the way he could make her forget what she’d been about to say or fumble with whatever papers or folders she was holding at the time.

But Sapphire Falls made it easy for her to keep a distance between them. They ran into one another in public and there were always meetings or activities that needed her attention and kept him from having any real time with her.

He supposed he could have shown up at her office at city hall, but no doubt she would have been in meetings or out of the office doing…whatever small-town mayors had to do.

Besides, what would he have done? Locked the door, lifted her skirt and bent her over the edge of
her
desk?

Yeah right.

But his fingers dug into the wood of his desk as the images flashed through his mind.

“I’m not doing the bar and grill, Hailey,” he finally said. “Having you here in person doesn’t change that.”

“Why not?” She put a hand on her hip. “The shopping area could pull a lot of people into Sapphire Falls. It will be right along the highway. It will get people off the road and into town, spending money at the diner and other businesses. The potential is big.”

He shook his head. It really wasn’t. Out of curiosity, he’d had some people run numbers for him. The shops proposed to go into the area included a card and stationary shop, a candy shop/bakery, a furniture store and a couple of others. The bar and grill would be on one end, the bakery on the other.

He had no idea how a sports bar fit in with the rest of that and he knew nothing about running one. The idea had been proposed by the town council when they’d been brainstorming businesses and talking about success stories from Sapphire Falls.

“Look, I get that you all think a sports bar fits with my image, but I’m a triathlete. People don’t really even know what that is. If I was an NFL player or something maybe,” Ty said. “But I know nothing about running a bar and the last time I ate a burger or a steak was five years ago. My training regimen has cut out all red meat. And beer, for that matter. I’m not exactly the poster child for a bar and grill.”

Hailey wrinkled her nose at the idea of no read meat and Ty had to smile.

That’s one thing he loved about women from back home—they knew a good steak. In Sapphire Falls salad was a side dish, not an entrée.

“We just need your name and donation. You can hire someone locally to run it. You don’t even have to ever go to the place. I mean, after the ribbon-cutting. Maybe after opening week. Except that you’ll want to come back and host the occasional special event. But it’s not like you’ll have to be there all the time.”

Ty fought his grin as she rushed through the explanation.

“You can decorate it with bike stuff. Or swimming stuff. Or running…shoes.” She sighed. “I don’t know, Ty. But you said you’d do it if we got the rest of it up and running.”

He frowned. “You have the rest up and running?”

“Not quite running. But we have the building almost complete and all of the other businesses have committed.”

He pushed up from the desk. Well, shit. “How’d that happen?”

She frowned and came forward. “What’s that mean? We worked hard and got it done.”

Ty eyed her as she approached. One of two things had to happen here. He either needed to get behind his desk so there was something big and solid between them. Or he needed to lock the door. Because if Hailey got close to him without something big and solid between them, it would take about two minutes and there would be
nothing
between them, including the silky red thong he was praying she was wearing.

Chicken shit that he was, he rounded his desk and stood with two feet of mahogany between them.

“Who all donated?”

She crossed her arms. “Does it matter? We have the money. The building is going up. You gave your word that you’d be involved if we got that far.”

He had. Kind of. He’d told Steve to say that because he’d really never imagined they’d get the money.

“Did my brothers give you the money?” he asked. Surely not. But then again…if they pooled their savings and wanted to make his life hard—which, of course, they did—they could have pulled it off.

Hailey sighed again, as if he was trying her patience.

Welcome to the club, blondie.

“No. Lauren Davis gave us the remainder of the money.”

“Lauren Davis? Who’s that?”

“She’s Mason Riley’s business partner.”

“Mason Riley?” Ty knew Mason. Not well, but everyone knew the geeky genius who had skipped two grades and gone on to get something like two or three college degrees.

She nodded. “He came back for the alumni reunion. I’ll tell you that story some other time. Anyway, we have the money and you promised.”

Fuck. He did not want to own a sports bar. But he supposed if he had to, at least it was in Sapphire Falls. He could check up on it when he went home to visit and his brothers and parents could keep an eye on things, and if it helped his hometown, well then, great.

He studied Hailey. She was so fucking gorgeous and so, apparently, unaffected by seeing him for the first time completely alone since he got her naked by the river.

And that pissed him off far more than owning a sports bar he didn’t want.

“Fine. I’ll buy the fucking bar.”

“You will?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll put in the full amount, put your name on the front?”

He gritted his teeth. “Yes.”

“And you’ll promote it and show up for various events?”

“Yes,” he practically growled.

“And you’ll leave all your girlfriends and groupies behind? This might be a bar but it’s still Sapphire Falls.”

He took a deep breath. He didn’t have any girlfriends and his mother would kill him if he brought any of the groupies to his hometown. He’d been surprised as anyone to find that triathletes had groupies. “Fine.”

“And you can’t serve anything that the diner serves. Or that the Come Again serves.”

He started to respond to that by saying he didn’t give a shit what they served, but then he stopped and frowned. He could probably avoid a lot of the diner’s menu, though he didn’t know of any other bar and grills that didn’t serve burgers, but the Come Again? “The Come Again is a full-service bar. How in the hell am I supposed to avoid serving things they serve?”

Hailey narrowed her eyes and stepped up to his desk. “Exactly. That would never work. Which is why opening a bar and grill in Sapphire Falls is a terrible idea.”

Ty felt his mouth drop open. Was she fucking kidding?

“You mean the idea that I said no to from the very beginning? The bar and grill I wanted no part of from the first minute I heard about it?
That
bar and grill?” he asked. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I don’t want or need your money. Or your business anymore, Ty. The whole project is complete. Without you.” She put her hands flat on his desk and leaned in. “But you didn’t say no from the very beginning because it was a bad idea. You said no because it would piss me off. I could have asked you for
anything
and you would have said no. If you had, even
once
, sat down like a grown-up and had a
business
discussion about this, we would have agreed on this months ago.”

He didn’t know which thing to comment on first. That she was completely wasting his fucking time, that she had come all this way just to tell him that she
didn’t
need his money, or that…she was right.