Helen Lacey – A Fortunes Of Texas Christmas (страница 7)
“I’m not going on a date with you,” she refuted. “Not ever.”
“I can wait. I’ll be in town for a week or so.”
Robin planted her hands on her hips. “You can wait all you like...it won’t make any difference.”
“That’s harsh. But you know, I think you’d like me if you gave me a shot.”
She made a bored, huffing sound. “A shot? I wouldn’t go out with you even if you were a prince. And not even if I had a fairy godmother who could turn a pumpkin into a carriage or even if I owned a pair of glass slippers.”
He chuckled. “That’s an interesting idea. You have a lot of spunk, Robin. I like that about you.”
“I’m happy for you,” she responded. “Now you can leave and go back to playing with your new perfume or writing one of your cynical and witty blog posts. Some of us have actual work to do. Goodbye.” She said it to belittle and embarrass him. But he didn’t look the least bit embarrassed or belittled. He looked amused. And cocky. He looked like insults weren’t so much as a blip on his radar. He looked as though he could handle anything from anyone. Including her.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and then tossed a small business card on the table. “My cell number. Call when you’re ready to admit you want me.”
Robin stared after him for several minutes after he left. Furious. Enraged. Appalled.
And totally—and unbelievably—turned on.
“Robin, could you come up to the house when you get a chance? There’s something I would like to show you.”
“Of course,” she said in response to Kate’s request. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
It was early Wednesday afternoon, and Robin was glad for the interruption. She’d spent the last twenty-four hours deriding herself for allowing Amersen Beaudin to get into her head. Which made her even more determined to make sure he didn’t get into her pants!
Foolishly, she carried his crumpled business card in her back pocket. Not that she intended on calling him. Not ever. But she didn’t want to leave it lying around the greenhouse or her own home. The best place for it was the trash. And she’d do that when she got home. With that decided, she left her office and quickly headed up to the main house and walked through the back door.
Kate entered the room to greet her and suggested they go into the front lounge room.
Robin lingered in the large foyer for a moment. “The tree arrives tomorrow,” she told Kate and waved a hand toward the staircase. “So I can start the Christmas decorations for you tomorrow.”
“Okay, lovely,” Kate replied.
“I know I’m running a little behind schedule,” she said. “The cypress I ordered wasn’t available in the right size, so I had to find another farm to get the—”
“Robin,” the older woman said firmly, cutting her off, “I know you’ll have the house looking wonderful, just as you did for Thanksgiving, and for last year’s Christmas celebrations. Sterling and I have the utmost faith in you, and you never let us down. Now, come into the lounge.”
Robin stalled. “Is everything all right?”
“Perhaps you can tell me the answer to that.”
Concerned, Robin followed her employer through the doorway and then stopped dead in her tracks. She hoped everything was okay. Kate looked serious, and that alarmed her.
“Ms. Fortune, I’m not sure what—”
“Perhaps you can explain this,” Kate said and waved her hand in an arc, motioning toward the long buffet beside the fireplace.
Where she saw a pumpkin.
The biggest and brightest orange pumpkin she had ever seen in her life.
“It arrived half an hour ago,” Kate said and pointed to a box beside it that was wrapped in white paper and had a silver bow attached to it. “Along with this. And there’s a card with your name on it.”
Robin approached the buffet and stared at the pumpkin and the box. She knew immediately, of course, that Amersen was responsible. The relevance of the pumpkin wasn’t lost on her. She fingered the bow on top of the box and then slowly lifted the lid, gasping when she pushed aside a couple of layers of tissue paper and saw what lay within.
“Oh my goodness,” Kate said, peering over her shoulder. “Are those what I think they are?”
Robin nodded and pulled her hand away. “Yes, I think they’re exactly what they look like.”
Glass slippers.
They were exquisite. She picked one up and held it up to the light, mesmerized by the way it shimmered. It was ridiculous. And at the same time, utterly romantic. Perhaps the most romantic gesture of her life.
“Are you planning on wearing them?”
It was so ridiculous that Robin couldn’t stop laugher from bubbling low in her throat. “He’s out of his mind.”
“He?” Kate echoed. “So you know who sent them?”
She nodded and grabbed the card, pulling out a small square of cardboard and reading his dark, sexy scrawl.
I’m not a prince... I’m just a man who knows what he wants. Have dinner with me?
“Robin?”
Kate’s voice jerked her back from fairy-tale land and forced her to regather her wits. “I’m sorry about this.”
“Would you like to tell me what’s going on?” Kate asked.
Robin sighed. “It’s Mr. Beaudin’s idea of a joke, that’s all.”
The older woman’s frown disappeared, and then she chuckled. “Amersen, I see. Looks as though you made quite the impression.”
“He thinks he’s too charming to resist.”
“And is he?” Kate inquired, brows angled.
“In his dreams, maybe. I’m really sorry about this,” she said, embarrassed and increasingly uncomfortable. She didn’t want her personal life intruding on her work. And she didn’t want Kate Fortune to think that she was in any way involved with Amersen Beaudin. “I’ll make sure nothing like this happens again.”
Kate waved a hand. “There’s no harm done, Robin. Just...be careful, okay. By all accounts, Amersen has something of a wild reputation when it comes to women. I’d hate to see you get hurt.”
Robin managed a brittle laugh. “Don’t worry about that. I have absolutely no intention of getting involved with him.”
“Good,” Kate said and smiled. “Sometimes it’s easy to get swept up in romantic gestures.” She pointed to the slippers. “Although they are quite spectacular.”
Robin nodded in a vague way. “I’ll ask Otis to help me get rid of the pumpkin,” she said, feeling ludicrous having to say such a thing as she snatched up the box and card.
“It might make a nice Christmas decoration,” Kate said and grinned. “Or a pie.”
Robin chuckled. “Good idea.”
“And what girl hasn’t wanted a pair of glass slippers at least once in her life.”
She couldn’t help laughing brittlely as she left the room and then got back to work. Later, once she had the pumpkin and the slippers stowed inside her pickup, it was close to one thirty. She always finished early on Wednesdays and was glad to be heading home by two o’clock. Once she was inside, she dumped the pumpkin on the kitchen table alongside the shoe box.
And she seethed. She paced and cursed and muttered words she knew were usually heard in bar brawls. And she played with the business card twisting between her fingertips. He’d embarrassed her in front of her employer. And worse, he had made it impossible for her to not think about him every single minute of the day.
Damn him...
It was payback time. If he wanted dinner, she’d give him dinner. She’d give him a dinner he wouldn’t forget in a hurry. The kind of dinner that would make a womanizing, commitmentphobic man like Amersen Beaudin run a mile. Robin grabbed her cell and quickly dialed the number before she had a chance to talk herself out of her craziness.
“Hello.”
God, his voice was like being stroked along the spine with a feather.
“Okay...dinner,” she said quietly. “But on my terms.”
“Robin.” He said her name on a breath. “It’s good to hear from you.”
“My place,” she said and swiftly rattled off the address, specifics and directions. “Four o’clock.”
Then she hung up before he could reply. And before she lost her nerve.
* * *
Amersen was intrigued by Robin’s rushed request. And as he drove the BMW through a set of wide whitewashed gates and down the long gravel driveway later that afternoon, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so keen to spend time with a woman.