Keir O'connell's Mistress. Sandra Marton

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СКАЧАТЬ an employee. She works in the hotel. She’s a cocktail waitress.”

      “Well, that certainly explains why the two of you were wrapped around each other. Doesn’t it, Sean?”

      Keir folded his arms. “You’re never going to leave me alone about this, are you?”

      “No,” Sean agreed pleasantly, “we’re not.”

      “Look, the elevator stopped and Cassie was in it. And—“

      “And?” Cullen said, with a lift of his eyebrows.

      “And,” Keir said briskly, “her heel was stuck.” Two pairs of eyebrows lifted. He decided to ignore the warning signs. “Somebody from Maintenance had left some plywood on the floor, and her heel got wedged in a knothole.”

      Sean gave a deep sigh. “Dangerous combination, plywood and elevators.”

      Despite himself, Keir’s mouth twitched. “Listen, I’m warning you both—”

      “No, it’s cool,” said Cullen. “We understand. As some men get older, they need more of, uh, more of a stimulus before they can get it on.”

      “Older? I’m one year older. One year!”

      “He’s right,” Sean said. “It wasn’t senile male hormones, it was a galloping case of ZTS.”

      “Okay. It’s not going to work. I’ve explained what happened. You want to get some more mileage out of it, go on. Be my guest.”

      “Trust us,” Sean replied solemnly, “we will.”

      Keir looked from one of his brothers to the other and saw the laughter dancing in their eyes. A familiar warmth spread through his veins. This was the way it had always been, two of them needling the other, and it had never mattered which two it was because it changed from day to day. Hell, it changed from minute to minute.

      But what bonded them together would never change. Shared memories and shared blood would always unite and sustain them, just as it had when they were growing up. Being the sons of Ruarch O’Connell had not been easy, despite the duchess’s misty-eyed memories.

      He felt a catch in his throat. He’d missed his brothers. Missed this. The teasing, the laughter, the knowledge that nobody in the world knew him the way they did.

      “All right.” He nodded, sighed, offered all the signs of peaceful surrender. “You guys want details, you’ll get them. Just come in a little closer…”

      He moved fast, as if they were all still kids and these were the old times, when they’d played their own version of touch football whenever they’d been in one place long enough to find a flat field. He took Sean out first, his shoulder connecting with Sean’s flat belly and then he spun and got Cullen before he could sidestep. Both of them yelped and fell backward into the pool hard enough to raise a geyser of water that rivaled Old Faithful.

      A spill of feminine laughter erupted behind Keir. He swung around and saw his three sisters standing next to one of the softly-lighted palm trees that ringed the pool.

      “Hey.” He grinned. Briana, Fallon and Megan grinned back.

      “And to think,” Fallon said archly, “that Mom sent us to find you gentlemen because she was afraid you were sitting around, having a long, solemn talk about what would happen now that BB’s leaving.”

      Keir raised one dark eyebrow. “You see those guys in the pool? One of the things that put ’em there was calling me Big Brother.”

      Megan rose on her toes and peered past Keir. “Poor babies,” she crooned.

      Something in Briana’s smile made the hair rise on the back of Keir’s neck.

      “What?”

      Bree fluttered her lashes. “Enjoy your swim,” she purred.

      He yelped as his brother’s hands clamped around his ankles. Keir hit the water hard, went under and came up, sputtering and laughing, between Sean and Cullen.

      “Is this the respect you show your big brother?”

      Cullen sighed. “All of a sudden, he wants the title back.”

      “Damn right.” Keir smiled. “You know what? It’s great to have you home.”

      “We agree,” Sean said, and he and Cullen proved it by shoving Keir right back under the water.

      Keir awoke at five minutes before six the next morning. He reached out and shut off his alarm clock before its shrill cry could pierce his foggy brain, then sat up and swung his feet to the floor.

      Four hours sleep was all he’d had. He and his brothers and sisters had ended up here in his suite, where they’d sat talking and laughing for hours. There’d been a lot of catching up to do. Only the prospect of having to look bright-eyed for their mother’s wedding had finally sent them scattering at almost two in the morning.

      Keir yawned, got to his feet and walked into the bathroom. The wedding wasn’t until noon but he needed time to check on things, make sure the flowers, the music, the food and champagne were as close to perfect as he could get them.

      It wasn’t every day a man had the chance to oversee his mother’s wedding, he thought as he stepped into the shower.

      He had some last minute things to do for himself, too. Falling asleep last night, he’d decided there was no sense in delaying his departure. The sooner he left Vegas and began his new life in Connecticut, the better.

      This morning he’d phone his attorney, tell him to fax some documents to Cullen’s New York office, then instruct his accountant to fax his files to Megan’s office in Boston. He’d already arranged for Deer Run’s vintner to stay on, but the woman who managed the restaurant had accepted a job in Florida.

      “Too many cold New England winters for me,” she’d said.

      That meant he’d need a new manager.

      The restaurant was handsome and the food was great. Service had been a little erratic—his main course came out at the same time as his soup—but all that could be dealt with. Instinct told him there were probably other details that needed improving.

      He didn’t know what, specifically. Restaurants weren’t his specialty. For the last six years his talent had been managing people and if he’d learned one thing, it was that the key to success was finding the right people, then trusting them enough to do the job.

      Finding the right people was relatively simple. Whenever he’d needed a manager, someone with the necessary combination of talent and brass, he’d turned to the TopNotch Employment Agency.

      They’d never let him down yet.

      Well, why not continue dealing with TopNotch? They had contacts everywhere; they’d sent him people from virtually every state in the union.

      Keir stepped from the shower and wrapped a towel around his hips.

      Okay. He’d phone TopNotch, lay out what he wanted СКАЧАТЬ