My Secret Fantasies. Joanne Rock

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СКАЧАТЬ for not aligning myself with the film industry.” He headed for the door, needing to get back to work. As much as he’d enjoyed the distraction of a female that wasn’t equine, he had ten other places he needed to be. His payroll was already ridiculously high with the specialized talent this kind of operation required, so until he could afford more help, he often had to be everywhere at once. “You’re welcome to leave your vehicle here for as long as necessary. Would you like a ride anywhere?”

      “No.” She shook her head and backed up a step, as if she was going to follow him outside. “Can I just—please. Let me just show you one thing before you leave.”

      She held up her faded floral backpack, making a barrier between him and the door. He wasn’t sure if she meant to slow him down or if the thing she wanted him to see was inside the bag. He noticed there were pins all over it—a cat with a hair bow in pink crystals, a few metal buttons advertising hole-in-the-wall nightclubs, a miniature L.A. Raiders jersey. The bag looked as if it had been around the world and back.

      “I can’t stay much longer.” He held up his phone, showing a video feed of a birthing stable. “I’ve got a mare going into labor.”

      “Fine.” Miranda was already setting her pack on the floor again and digging inside the bottomless interior. The sight of her sunburned arms and the bump of each vertebra showing through her tank top felt like chastisements.

      What if she really was in need of a break? Something about her bravado—in spite of whatever personal issues she was dealing with—spoke to him on a gut level. He’d gambled everything to escape Hollywood once, too.

      “I need some air.” Mostly because the woman smelled like peaches and he wanted to inhale her. He struggled not to feel sympathetic toward her. Or even more attracted. “So let’s talk outside.”

      “Yes.” She followed him out onto the narrow porch, where two faded rockers still sat from the building’s long-ago use as a farm stand. “Just take a look at these before you give me your final answer.”

      She held two pieces of paper in her hand. Actually, one sheet and one large photograph.

      “I drew this last night when I couldn’t sleep.” She flipped the paper and handed it to him. “I think the look is very much in keeping with what you’d want to enhance your Thoroughbred business....”

      She kept talking, but he was too distracted by the pencil sketch to pay attention. She’d drawn the farm stand building from the outside, but there was new life in it. Flowers bloomed in boxes attached to the front windows by iron brackets. Pillows and blankets were thrown over more rocking chairs on the porch, while round tables underneath big umbrellas made up a second tier of outdoor seating on a flagstone patio. The sketch was so detailed he could see some kind of flowering moss between the flagstones. A banner blew in an imaginary breeze, the flag depicting a steaming cup of tea and the name Under the Oaks.

      “...I couldn’t draw the inside because you hadn’t posted any pictures.” Miranda was still speaking. “I’m not sure I’d really call it Under the Oaks, but it fits because of the trees and—”

      “And it’s a racing term. Yeah. I know.” The whole thing was elegant and charming, just as she’d promised. He had to admit the picture she’d drawn was appealing and exactly the kind of operation he’d envisioned to complement his growing business. He actually had a few rooms to accommodate guests who visited their horses on site, but as of now, there were no facilities for feeding visitors.

      The tearoom could fill the gap for some food service. Except that she could be full of B.S. about what she’d do with a tearoom. What were the chances a young actress who’d just experienced success on a reality show would really want to come live in the anonymity of Sonoma? No, damn it. She was only conning him, to get close to the Fraser fame.

      “You could have input, of course, if my take on this is too cute. I could make it more horse-themed. Lots of hunter-green and burgundy, like a gentleman’s den.” She frowned at her sketch over his shoulder. “Usually tearooms appeal to women, so—”

      “It’s great.” He realized how close she stood. Her scent hypnotized him even as her springy blond curls brushed his shoulder. “The concept is well-targeted.” He returned the paper to her and took a step back. “But just because you’ve got the right idea doesn’t promise a successful execution.”

      She flipped a large photograph under his nose.

      “This is the Melrose Tearoom, where I worked until a couple of weeks ago.” She pointed to the picture of her with two smiling young women, at a table full of fancy silver trays, tiny sandwiches, crystal champagne flutes and porcelain teacups. In the background, a sunny atrium with uniformed waiters and linen-covered tables showed more of the same. “If you’d like to speak to my former boss, Joelle, she’ll tell you I was personally responsible for much of her return business. I’m good at being a hostess, and I helped her stock a lot of unique specialty items that really increased her retail sales.”

      “Why did you leave?” He rechecked his phone to make sure the mare in the birthing stall still looked good. Damn it, he needed to just tell Miranda no and get back to work.

      Memories of finding her walking north on Highway 1 kept biting him right in the conscience. She had to have been out there a couple hours before he’d found her. He’d been so engrossed getting the fence restrung that he hadn’t checked his messages. She must have been determined to meet with him to make that long trek in the afternoon sun. To risk sunburn on her fair skin, when beauty was such a highly sought after commodity in her world.

      “Honestly, I left because...” She met his gaze and bit her lip. “I attracted too much attention from that stupid TV show, but the fascination with stuff like that has a short shelf life. And up here, there are bound to be less tourists purposely looking for a brush with anyone remotely famous.”

      He’d heard enough. He handed her back the picture.

      “Listen, if this was just some random piece of property, I would sell it to you in a minute.” He tucked his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. “But I’ve got too much at stake in a business where the overhead is staggering. I can’t afford to have any operation on what is basically my property that might detract from what I’m trying to build.”

      He’d invested every cent of his finances and himself in the Thoroughbreds. This farm had given him stability and purpose at a time when he needed to escape escalating family drama. He’d built a very different kind of life here. A stable life. There were no more weekend trips to Europe to help his mother solve some so-called urgent crisis that turned out to be an uneven number of men versus women at her latest dinner party. No more scandals involving his father’s revolving door of twenty-year-old girlfriends. Definitely no more would-be starlets who’d do “anything” for a chance to meet his father. Even pretend to give a rat’s ass about Damien.

      Now, he kept in touch with his brothers, Trey and Lucien. But he was finished with the movie business and he was done with his high-profile parents.

      “Interest in the show is dying down,” she pressed. “And I can make this tearoom kick butt.”

      He was already heading for his truck. “I’m sure you could, but I just can’t take chances right now. If I get a bunch of tabloid reporters camping out on the property, it’s going to scare off the clients I’ll be inviting up here to check out the operation firsthand.”

      He’d worked too hard to take this place to the next level, and he owed it to the former СКАЧАТЬ