Fallling for the Prodigal Son Read online

  Fortunately, a few other people were quietly slipping out of the ballroom already. Lucy slipped her conference handouts and netbook into her purse and followed suit. The large open area outside the ballroom buzzed with conversation. A cart of water glasses clinked as a waiter pushed it past, expertly threading his way through the clumps of people milling about.

  Lucy held her breath as she casually glanced around, looking for a flash of Elle's red hair. When she didn't see her, she exhaled a sigh of relief and began walking as fast as she could—without breaking into a flat-out run—toward a door at the end of the hallway. She knew there was an outdoor courtyard on the other side.

  She pushed through the heavy metal door. A few groups of smokers, some of them hotel staff, clustered around the stone benches. Lucy let herself relax. The coast was clear. She headed for the furthest corner of the courtyard and sat down on a low stone wall, behind some exotic-looking potted trees. She hunched over and dialed Derrick's number.

  "Lucy! How's the conference?"

  "Ugh. But I'll survive. What's up? When does the story run?"

  "Part one runs this Sunday. But I've got bigger news."

  "Oh yeah?" Lucy scanned her surroundings again, watchful. She imagined Elle had already phoned hotel security about a missing guest, maybe even phoned the city police and the FBI too. "What's that?"

  "Simone Adkins just finished up her current tour, and she is planning a campers' reunion for next month. She's personally booked the ballroom at the Chesapeake Inn and every room that was vacant. She's also going to do a fundraising concert at the park."

  "But ... how many people are we talking about? There aren't enough vacancies in July for very many people."

  "Well, that's a work in progress. Shawn Whitney and his wife are bunking as many people as they can at their summer home. Other people are driving in just for the reunion day itself. So far, about 300 people have committed to coming."

  "Wow. We'll definitely need more accommodations than that, though. I can talk to Reverend Mike at the Episcopal Church and see if any of his parishioners are willing to host people."

  "It'll work out."

  Lucy groaned inwardly. One day, she was going to have tee shirts printed up that read, "Sometimes it doesn't work out." Not in my life anyway.

  "I don't know," she said cautiously. "What happens when Sterling gets wind of this? He'll almost certainly try to stop it."

  "What's he going to do? Cancel people's room reservations? That would be even worse publicity."

  Lucy rubbed at her temples. Spending all day in hermetically-sealed hotel rooms was not good for her. It dulled her faculties and made it hard to think clearly. She was used to being able to see the water, see the outdoors, from her office at the Chesapeake Inn. She liked the freedom to go for a stroll outside on her lunch break. She tried to get outside even in the winter, when the wind off the bay could be cold and biting.

  She was having second thoughts about Derrick's ideas. She didn't want bad publicity for the Inn. Bad publicity for Sterling, yes, but not for the Inn at large. She feared this campers' reunion was going to be too large to contain the damage to just Sterling. It could easily spill over to the entire business.

  This is either going to work or get me fired. Or both.

  Half an hour later, Lucy stepped off the elevator and strode through the hotel lobby. After a shower and a change of clothes into jeans, sandals and a floaty coral-colored linen peasant blouse, she felt like a new person. She'd managed to slip Elle's clutches and she hadn't seen Sterling since the baggage carousel at SFO. She was beginning to feel like a free woman for the first time all week.

  Her plans for the rest of the day were to walk around the city for awhile, tackle some of San Francisco's famous hills for a little exercise, and look for a quiet cafe to have dinner by herself. She had a brand new paperback tucked into her purse.

  "Lucy! There you are."

  She was twenty feet from the door. So close ... and yet so far. For a split second, Lucy entertained the idea of making a run for it, dropping into a mad dash for the exit. Instead, she stopped and waited for Sterling Matthew, who was walking straight toward her, looking freshly showered himself. His hair was still damp and curling behind his ears. He wore jeans and a black v-neck sweater over a grey tee shirt. His feet were bare inside tan suede loafers.

  He looked good.

  Lucy wanted her heart to sink in dismay. She wanted more than anything to be disappointed that her plans for a quiet evening were about to be thwarted by her boss. But she couldn't. He just looked so damn good, standing there in the middle of a fancy hotel lobby, washed in light from the giant crystal chandelier a full story above. Lucy desperately wanted the sudden image of a teenaged Sterling in faded, torn jeans and flip flops to exit her mind. He had been damned attractive back then and he was damned attractive still.

  "I tried calling your cell."

  Lucy pulled her phone out of her purse. "Sorry. I turned the ringer off while I was in the conference sessions." She flicked it back on. "Do you need me for something?"

  "I thought we'd go on a field trip."

  Of course you did. "Where to?"

  "Muir Woods."

  Sterling made no attempt to hide the fact that he was frankly appraising her. His gaze dropped slowly from her face to her blouse, pausing there before sliding down to her hips, encased in her snug-fitting jeans.

  "Muir Woods," Lucy repeated.

  "The national park, named after John Muir. He was a famous naturalist."

  "Yes, I know who he is." Lucy looked around the lobby.

  Sterling frowned and his eyebrows drew together ever so slightly. "Are you meeting someone?"

  "No. I was looking for Elle. She's usually the one lying in wait for me."

  Sterling choked out a laugh. "She can be a little intense, huh?"

  "That's an understatement."

  "Well, it's part of why she's so good at what she does. But she's an acquired taste, to be sure." Sterling took her arm and started to head toward the hotel's brass-trimmed revolving doors.

  "Aren't we waiting for her?" Lucy asked.

  Sterling slowed his stride. "She's not coming with us. She went home for the weekend. But she's invited us up, after the conference ends tomorrow."

  Lucy was confused. "Invited us up where?"

  "Her boyfriend owns a B&B in Marin with his sister. Elle lives there, too, when she's not on a consulting job."

  "But I thought ..."

  "You thought what? That Elle and I are a couple?" Sterling laughed in amusement.

  "Well, everyone in your family thinks you are."

  "Like who? My aunt Elizabeth?"

  "Actually, she thinks Elle is pregnant."

  "That old bat. Gossip is her middle name." He laughed again and Lucy was struck by how sexy the sound was. Sterling's laugh was a low throaty rumble that rolled across the air. She couldn't remember hearing him laugh as a teenager.

  "I like your aunt Elizabeth. I'm quite fond of her, in fact. And your uncle Frederick."

  "They're probably more fond of you than they are of me. But let's go. We won't be able to see the redwoods in the dark. The valet is bringing my car around now."

  Lucy slid into the front seat of Sterling's rental car, a two-door Lexus with leather seats. As he deftly maneuvered the car through the city streets, Lucy did her best not to notice his tanned fingers resting on the steering wheel or the way his thigh muscles moved beneath his jeans when braked and accelerated. He seemed content not to talk, which was a relief to Lucy. They were not the sort of boss and employee who were also friends. In fact, Lucy and Sterling seemed unable to avoid arguing with each other in a most unfriendly way whenever they were together.

  An hour later, Lucy was looking up at the deep grooved bark of a redwood. It was pretty impressive, she had to admit. No trees like this back on the east coast, that was for sure. She could barely see the top of the tree, hidden in the swirling mist of late afternoon fog. This was the bi
ggest tree she'd ever seen, easily ten feet across. She'd seen those photographs where a car was driving through a redwood tree, but it was hard to appreciate the immense size of the trees from pictures.

  Sterling was standing next to her, also looking up at the tree in awe. "Makes you feel kinda' small doesn't it? Says here that some of them live for two thousand years." He folded up a brochure and shoved it back into his pocket.

  "Is that the business lesson I'm supposed to be learning from redwood trees? Some things are bigger and exist longer than other things?"

  Sterling looked over at her, his brows knitted in consternation. "No lesson, Lucy Lou. I've never seen redwood trees before and thought maybe you hadn't either."

  Lucy Lou. Hearing him say that stopped Lucy's heart. That had been his nickname for her. So he did remember. He just hadn't been letting on. The air around her got suddenly, startlingly, quiet. All she could hear was the thin whistling of the breeze through the tree leaves, many stories above.

  "Why would you think that? Because I'm just a dumb hillbilly kid who hasn't seen the world? Because I'm not some rich trust fund kid who can just go wherever he wants without any thought to money or having to work?"

  Even as the words tumbled, uncontrolled out of her mouth, even as she fought to hold back the angry, ashamed tears that threatened to spill over her eyelashes, Lucy knew she was just as angry at herself as she was at Sterling. She was letting him turn her back into that hillbilly teenager, that skinny little girl with the big fat chip on her shoulder, the kid who used cockiness as a defensive weapon whenever she knew she was out of her league. Not even Josh had been able to do that, even when he was breaking her heart into a million pieces. Lucy had left the mountains of Virginia and not looked back. And now Sterling Matthew, of all people, was dragging her back there.

  She turned to walk away from him. She wanted to get back to the rental car, to just sit and wait while he admired his majestic redwoods. Maybe she could hitch a ride back to the city. Her teenaged self would have done exactly that. She got no more than ten purposeful steps away when Sterling grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around.

  "That makes zero sense, Lucy. Zero." He reached down and tipped her face up to look at him. "So you're a dumb hillbilly kid—your words, not mine—who has never seen a redwood tree. I'm a rich trust fund kid who has never seen a redwood tree. Seems to me like we're equal here."

  "We're equal when you decide we are."

  "No, we're equal when you decide we are, Lucy. I have never considered myself to be better than you are. I'm your boss and so I carry more weight on matters concerning the Inn than you do. But that doesn't make me better."

  "It also doesn't make you more experienced. You know, your father didn't hire me off the street, nor did he hire me because I used to be camper. That was not my sole qualification."

  "And just because I'm a rich trust fund kid doesn't mean I don't know how to run the Inn. I was practically raised by the Inn staff. I know better than probably anyone what the folks in guest relations do. I know how the kitchen operates, right down to the last teaspoon of flour in the pantry. I spent my adolescence being prepped by my father to take over the damn place. I know employees always think they know how to run the show, but I've been living in the show my entire life."

  "If you knew how HR operates, you'd know you're not supposed to be venting to employees," Lucy pointed out.

  Sterling threw up his hands in exasperation. "No. No, I'm not. But none of my other employees ..."

  Before Lucy knew what was happening, Sterling's lips were on hers. She tried to step away but he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. His kiss was surprisingly gentle, his lips tentatively exploring the softness of hers. Whoa. This was not the Sterling she remembered. That had been a mere boy, with very little experience in kissing a girl. This was a man who clearly knew his way around a kiss. He began to part her lips with his. What am I doing? She tried to pull away again and this time, Sterling let her.

  "You're not supposed to be kissing employees either," Lucy spat out.

  Sterling's gaze roamed over her face. Lucy struggled to look indignant, struggled to look as though she could breathe normally. The kiss had left her legs shaky. Her spine tingled from her neck all the way down to her hips. Her brain felt muddled, drunk. This was not how she wanted to feel.

  "But you're not just any old employee, are you?"

  Lucy turned to walk away. She needed to get out of here. This was headed somewhere she didn't think she could navigate. It had been a long time since she'd been kissed. Even longer since she'd been kissed like that.

  Sterling reached out and turned her back. "We need to talk about this."

  "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, focu
s, 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.