Im Patty Sweringin, she said, offering her hand. You must be young Mr. Baldwine.

Lane. He shook what she put out. How is Mother doing?

Shes resting. The smile was as pressed and professional as her { 55 }.

uniform. Shes had a busy morning. The hair colorist and stylist were here.

Ah, yes, HIPAA, he thought. Which meant she wasnt allowed to tell him about his own mothers condition. But that wasnt the nurses fault. And if his mother was exhausted by getting a couple of foils crimped on her head and a blow- dry? How the hell did he think she was doing.

When she wakes up, tell her I . . . He glanced back over at his mother.

Tell her what, Mr. Baldwine?

He thought of Chantal.

Im going to be here for a few days, he said grimly. Ill tell her myself.

Very good, sir.

Back out in the hall, he closed the door and leaned against it. Star- ing across at an oil painting of some Bradford or another, he found that the past came back again like a bee sting.

Fast and painful.

W hat are you doing here?

Lizzie had spoken the words to him out in the garden, out in the darkness, out in a hot, humid summer night. Overhead, thunderclouds had shut out the moonlight,leaving the blooming flowers and specimen trees in the shadows.

He could remember everything about the way she had stood in front of him on the brick walkway, her hands on her hips, her stare meeting his with a directness he wasnt used to, her Easterly uniform as sexually alluring as any set of lingerie he had ever seen.

Lizzie King had caught his eye the first time hed seen her on his familys estate. And with each return during semester breaks from his masters programs, hed found himself looking for her on the grounds, seeking her out, trying to get in her path.

God, he loved the chase.

{ 56 }.

And the capture wasnt half bad, either.

Of course, he didnt have much experience past that" nor did he want it.

Well? she demanded. Like if he didnt get on topic quick, she was going to start tapping her foot" and her next move was going to be knocking his block off for wasting her time.

Ive come for you.

Wait, that came out wrong. Hed meant to say that hed come to see her.

Talk to her. Look at her up close.

But those four words were also the truth. He wanted to know what she tasted like, what she felt like underneath him, what"

She crossed her arms over her chest. Look, Im going to be honest with you.

Lane smiled a little. I like honesty.

I dont think youre going to feel that way when Im done with you.

Okaaaaay, now he was getting hard" and funny, that wouldnt have bothered him with the kinds of women he usually toyed with. Standing in front of this particular female with an urge to rearrange himself in his pants, however, seemed kind of . . . tacky.

Im going to spare you a lot of wasted time here. She kept her voice low, like she didnt want to be overheard, but that didnt detract from the power of her message. I am not, and never will be, interested in someone like you. You are nothing but an entitled bad boy who gets off causing chaos with the opposite sex. That stuff was boring when I was a fifteen-year-old, and considering that Im closing in on thirty this year, Im even less attracted to it. So do us both a favor" go to the country club, find one of those interchangeable blond women by the pool, and turn them into your twenty- minute StairMaster. You are not going to get that from me.

He blinked like an idiot.

And he supposed the fact that he was so shocked that anyone would call him on his behavior proved her point.

Now, if youll excuse me, Im going home. Ive been here working since seven a.m."

Snapping out his hand, he took hold of her arm as she turned away. Wait.

Excuse me? She glanced down at the contact and back up into his eyes.

{ 57 }.

Unless you have something related to the flowers in this garden, you have nothing to say to me.

Youre not going to give me a chance to defend myself? Youre just going to play judge and jury"

You are not serious"

Have you always been so prejudicial?

She stepped out of his grip. Better that than naive. Especially with a man like you.

Dont believe everything youve seen in the papers"

Oh, please. I dont need to read about it" Ive seen it firsthand. Two of them left yesterday morning out the back of the house. The night you came here, you brought a redhead home from a bar. And then they say when you went for your annual physical on Wednesday, you came back with a hickey on your neck"

presumably from when the woman asked you to turn your head and cough? She cut him off again, putting her palm out to his face. And before you think Im keeping this happy catalog of conquests because of some latent attraction to you, its because the women on staff keep track of these things and wont stop talking about them.

You want to give me a word in edgewise? he countered. Or are you good just keeping this conversation going on your own. Jesus, and you think Im stuck- up.

What?

You think Im entitled? Well, youre putting me in the shade on that one, sweetheart.

Excuse me?

Youve decided you know everything about me just because a bunch of other people, who also dont know me, are talking about things they know nothing about. Thats pretty damn arrogant.

Which is not the same as entitled.

You really want to argue Websterss dictionary with me?

Right, the fact that they were bickering should not have been a total flippin turn- on, but holy hell it was. For every lob she tossed at him, he found himself looking at her body less and focusing on her eyes more" and that made her even sexier.

{ 58 }.

Listen, can we just be done here? she said. I have to be back at the crack of dawn, and this conversation is not as important as the sleep I need to get.

This time when she turned away, he stopped her with his voice. I saw you out by the pool yesterday.

She glared at him over her shoulder. Yes, and I was pulling weeds. You got a problem with that?

You were staring at me. I saw you.

Touche, he thought as she blinked.

I was in the pool,he whispered as he took a step closer to her. And you liked what you saw, didnt you. Even though you hate who you think I am, you like what you saw.

Youre delusional"

Honesty. You were the one to bring it up first. He leaned in, turning his head to the side as if he were going to kiss her. So do you have the guts to be honest?

Her hands fiddled with the collar of her Easterly polo. I dont know what youre talking about.

Liar. He smiled a little. Why do you think I stayed out there so long? It was because of you. I liked that you were watching my body.

Youre crazy.

God, her false denial was better than the last full blown orgasm hed had.

Am I? He focused on her lips, and in his mind, he started kissing them, licking his way into her, pulling her up against him. I dont think so. And Id rather be a philandering snob than a coward.

That was how he left her.

Hed turned away on that brick path, and walked toward the house, leaving her behind.

But hed known, with every step he took away from her, that she wasnt going to be able to let things rest like that.

Next time, she would come to him . . .

And sure enough, she did.

{ 59 }.

SEV EN.

I m sorry, what was that?

As Lizzie spoke, she stared at the flowers in the vase she was holding, and couldnt remember what shed meant to do with them" oh, right, put them in a bucket until she got off work; after which she would wrap them in a damp paper towel and a Krogers plastic bag, and take them home.

Im sorry, come again? she said, glancing across the conservatory at Greta.

I was speaking in English that time, too, you know.

Im just all up in my head.

The tent people are demanding to be paid up front? Or theyre going to take down everything theyre putting up.

What? Lizzie put the bouquet down next to the empty silver bowls. Is this a new policy for them?

Guess so.

Ill go talk to Rosalinda" do you have the total?

Tvelve sousand, four hundred, fifty- nine, zeventy- two.

{ 60 }.

Hold on, let me write that down. Lizzie grabbed a pen. One more time?

After she got the total scribbled into her palm, she glanced out to the garden. The tent people had just stretched the fabric panels out flat and were beginning to lay the poles down as some of them got to stitch-ing the huge sections together with ropes.

Two hours more work for them. Maybe three.

Theyre still going strong out there, she murmured.

Not for long. Greta resumed cleaning the pink garden roses. The rental office called me, and theyre prepared to order them back into the truck.

Theres no reason to get hysterical about this, Lizzie muttered as she headed outside.

Rosalinda Freelands office was in the kitchen wing, and she took the longer, outdoor route because she was pretty damned sick and tired of running into Lane.

She was about halfway across the terrace, passing by the French doors that led out of the dining room, when she looked over toward the business center.

The facility was located where the original stables used to be, and like the conservatory, it opened out to the gardens and the river. The architecture that had been added had been precisely matched to that of Easterly, and the total square footage was nearly the same as the man- sions. With over a dozen offices, a conference room the size of a college lecture hall, and its own catering kitchen and dining room, William Baldwine ran his wifes familys multi- national bourbon company out of the state- of- the- art compound.

You almost never saw anyone loitering around over there, but ap- parently something was going on because a group of people in suits was standing on the terrace outside of the main conference room, smoking and talking in a tight enclave.

Strange, she thought. Mr. Baldwine was a smoker, so it was unlikely those folks had been banished to the terrace just to get their nicotine fix.

{ 61 }.

And what do you know, she actually recognized the single non- smoking woman in the mix. It was Sutton Smythe, heir to the Sutton Distillery Corporation fortune. Lizzie had never met her personally, but there had been a lot of press about the fact that a female might, just might, in the next decade, head one of the largest liquor companies in the world.

Frankly, it looked like she was already the boss, with her dark hair coiffed and her no- nonsense, super- expensive, black pant suit. She was actually quite a striking woman, with bold features and a curvy body that could have taken her into bimbo territory if shed been so inclined to play that card" which she obviously wasnt.

What was she doing here, though?

Talk about sleeping with the enemy.