Taking Over The Tycoon. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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СКАЧАТЬ I am not selling Paradise Resort. Not now. Not ever.”

      The oceanfront lodge, twelve cottages and a stretch of beautiful private beach that comprised the Folly Beach, South Carolina resort, was not just Kristy’s inheritance, it was her future and long-held dream. And she was not parting with it. Not even for the five million dollars purchase price Connor Templeton and his partner, Skip Wakefield, were waving in front of her nose. Money that would more than obliterate both mortgages on the resort and Kristy’s own mountain of debt.

      She knew she still had a lot of work to do on the interior of the lodge, particularly in the individual guest rooms. But thanks to the grueling work she had put in all summer, the rest of it, including all the common areas, were shaping up nicely. Plus the resort had old-fashioned charm, reminiscent of relaxing family vacations of a bygone era. There were no tennis courts here, no golf courses or video arcades, just the lodge, the dunes and the beach. It was quiet and low-key and appealing, a place where people who simply wanted to spend time together could come. The two-story, white clapboard lodge had a dramatically pitched gable roof over the lobby, club and dining rooms, kitchen, reservation desk and private office, all located in the central part of the building. Two rectangular wings spread out on either side. Native palmetto trees thirty feet in height surrounded the hotel and stood sentry on the short drive from Folly Beach Road to the parking area. An array of flowering bushes—camellias, bougainvilleas, magnolias and azaleas—added color around the lodge and cottages.

      “You don’t have to decide today,” Connor continued, persuasively stating his case. “You can take some time to think about it.”

      “I don’t have to think about it,” Kristy stated. What was it about these two guys that they didn’t understand when a business offer was being refused?

      Before Connor could reply to that, Kristy’s obnoxious neighbor to the south, Bruce Fitts, suddenly rounded the side of the lodge. As always, the too-tanned, penguin-shaped man with the thin black mustache was dressed in swim trunks—trunks that were, in Kristy’s estimation, way too brief. He also wore expensive Italian sandals and an open shirt accessorized with several thick gold chains.

      “I told you and your partner she was unreasonable!” Fitts declared as he rushed across the wide front porch the locals liked to refer to as the piazza. Looking to Connor for help, Fitts ran a hand over his slick-backed ebony hair.

      Kristy turned to Connor, barely able to believe that an aristocratic man like Connor would associate with the oily “entrepreneur” inhabiting the luxurious new beach house just south of her resort. Unlike the other hardworking inhabitants of Folly Beach, Bruce Fitts made his money from sleazy schemes. He was constantly threatening lawsuits, ripping off insurance companies and doing whatever he could to rake in easy money. And when he wasn’t scheming and conniving, he was spying on other residents, including Kristy and her girls, through the telescope mounted on his deck. She had been trying to ignore him, and his near constant complaints, but with him in such close proximity, it wasn’t easy.

      “What are you doing here, Fitts?” Connor turned to glare warningly at Bruce.

      “Yeah,” Kristy said sarcastically to Connor, “I bet you’ve got a real deal on some prime marshland you want to sell me. For a friendly little discount, of course.” How stupid did Connor and his partner think she was? Clearly, they would do anything to get her to throw in the towel, even, it seemed, employing her thoroughly disreputable neighbor. Not that the idea was without merit, Kristy had to admit. Being around Bruce Fitts for any length of time did make her want to split.

      Bruce glared at Kristy resentfully as he declared, “You’re just like your aunt.”

      Kristy smiled. Her poor aunt had had to put up with this, too. “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I’ll consider that a compliment, since my aunt Ida was one of my all-time favorite people.”

      “Forcing the rest of us homeowners to look at this eye-sore!” Bruce sputtered.

      Kristy conceded that Paradise Resort was in need of a lot of tender loving care. But that was why she was here—to bring it back to life.

      “Mr. Fitts, please leave us,” Connor stated firmly.

      Bruce stared at Connor. Obviously realizing that he was not a man to tangle with if you could help it, Bruce backed down reluctantly. “Fine.” He snorted, then wagged a finger at Kristy. “But not before I tell you, missy, that I am not going to let you keep on devaluating my property with this dump for very much longer, even if I have to personally find a way to shut you down!”

      There was no way he could do so legally, Kristy knew. She had complied with all state and local regulations as she worked to get the aging property looking good again.

      Letting her neighbor know with a glance that she had no intention of falling victim to any of his shenanigans, she warned right back, “Try it. Give it your best shot!” She marched closer, fists knotted at her sides. “Now get off my property, Mr. Fitts, and stay off, before I call the police!”

      Bruce Fitts glared at Kristy, unwilling to budge, until Connor clapped a hand on his shoulder and murmured something in Fitts’s ear. Kristy had no idea what he said, but Fitts calmed down immediately, and with a last condescending glance at Kristy, headed off the porch and back down the beach toward his own home, a luxurious beachfront house overlooking the Atlantic.

      “I would thank you for getting rid of that horse’s behind,” Kristy said, turning back to Connor. “Except I have the distinct feeling you’re on Fitts’s side in all this.”

      He focused on her face and loosely pinned up hair. “I’m not on anyone’s side.”

      Kristy shot him another disgruntled look. In her thirty-three years, she had never met anyone quite this persistent. “A few minutes ago you were trying to convince me you were on my side.” At least that’s how his sales pitch—and the sum he was offering to buy the place—had sounded to her.

      Connor folded his arms in front of him, leaned against the wooden post again and looked deep into her eyes. “I want everyone to be happy,” he explained. “And I honestly think, if you were to listen to me and sell this property to people who could afford to build the kind of luxury condo project this area of Folly Beach needs, we would all be better off.”

      THIS WAS THE POINT in the conversation, Connor thought, when Kristy Neumeyer was supposed to relax and begin to seriously consider his and Skip Wakefield’s very generous offer to purchase her property. Instead she was glaring at him as if he were a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe. Sighing, she shook her head, picked up her paintbrush and went back to the louvered shutter she had been painting. Her back to him, she said, “I think we’ve said everything there is to say.”

      Or in other words, Connor thought, it was time for him to be shoving off. The only problem being he didn’t want to leave. And that was a little hard to fathom. At thirty-eight, Connor had long ago given up on spending time with people who did not enjoy his company, or vice versa. In his opinion, life was too short to force personal relationships, even the most useful or casual of ones.

      But there was something about the delectable beauty next to him that completely captured his attention. And it had to do with more than her incredibly sexy looks. Although those were pretty remarkable, Connor had to admit. Even in the midst of what looked to be a very physically challenging workday, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Her hair was a glossy dark brown, and the straight, silky locks had been loosely twisted and caught at the back of her head in a tortoiseshell clip—a look that would have been very neat and businesslike had it not been for the wispy tendrils that had escaped СКАЧАТЬ