Married to His Business (Millionaire of the Month #5)(38)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

It would be strange, she thought, having an office on a different floor from Matthias. But at least they would still be in the same building. And the Public Relations office was only one floor down from his. They could meet for lunch regularly. And, it went without saying, play footsie under the table whenever there were meetings.

"Tell me about each of the Seven Samurai," she said now. "I know about Hunter," she added. "And obviously, I recognize you and Luke. But who are the others? Which one is Ryan?"

He looked at her askance. "How do you know Ryan’s name?"

"I saw the note in the office," she confessed.

He nodded. "It was waiting for me on the desk when I arrived. Ryan obviously knew that would be the first place I went once I got settled. I tacked it up with the photographs because I figured I’d need a laugh. All that stuff about finding The One."

"You think finding ‘The One’ is a joke?"

He smiled down at her. "Well. I did then. She was, after all, being so uncooperative."

Kendall gaped at him. "Uncooperative? Me?"

"Hey, what else do you call a woman who leaves you high and dry when you’ve come to depend on her?"

"You fired me!"

"You quit!"

"But I wouldn’t have left you high and dry," she told him. "If you hadn’t fired me, I would have wrapped up everything I needed to before going. I tried to give you two weeks’ notice, but noooooo."

"And what else do you call a woman," he continued, ignoring her, his smile growing broader, "who refuses to come back to work for you, even when you offer her her job back not once, not twice, but three times, even for quadruple her previous salary?"

"It was the job I quit," she pointed out. "Why would I come back?"

"And what would you call a woman," he went on, still

smiling, still ignoring her objections, "who makes you feel things you never thought yourself capable of feeling, who makes you think things you never thought you’d think, who makes you question everything you thought you knew about yourself, everything you thought was universally true."

She brushed her lips lightly over his. "You guys were in college when you made those universal truths," she reminded him. "You didn’t know jack about women then."

"We don’t know jack about women now," he told her with a laugh.

She shook her head. "You know enough. Because you know how to make us happy. Now, then," she added, pointing to the photo again. "Tell me who all these guys are."

He sighed, but this time when he looked at the picture, the sadness she’d seen in him before was gone, replaced by an unmistakable wistfulness that was captured in his voice. "This is Ryan," he said, pointing to the young man on the far right. "He was here last month and met a woman named Kelly Hartley, who I understand decorated the place."

"She’s good," Kendall said.

"Ryan seems to think so, too. They’re engaged."

Kendall grinned at that.

"This guy—" he went on to the next young man in the group "—is Nathan Barrister. He was the first one to stay here at the lodge. Then he stayed longer out of the lodge, because he ended up marrying the mayor of Hunter’s Landing."

"That was fast," Kendall said.

"Nathan’s always been the kind of guy to know what he wants, and he does whatever he has to to get it. Her," he quickly corrected himself. "You know what I mean."

"Boy, do I," she said with a laugh.

"And this," Matthias continued, smiling at the comment and moving to the guy next to Nathan, "is Devlin Campbell. He was always the dutiful one. Still is, evidently. He just got married to a woman who’s having his baby. Not that he married her out of duty," he hastened to add. "When Ryan called this place a ‘love shack’ it was for good reason. Dev met Nicole because she was working in a casino near here."

"Hmm," Kendall mused, "and didn’t Luke meet Lauren because she came to the lodge looking for you?"

Matthias nodded. "He did indeed."

"So then this is a love shack."

"Only in the literal sense," he said.

"So who’s this last guy?" Kendall asked.

"That’s Jack Howington. Excuse me. I mean Jack How-ington the third. Gotta get those three Is in there. He was Special Forces after college, but these days, he owns a consulting firm where he takes what he learned in the service and helps people keep their businesses safe in dangerous parts of the world. Interesting guy."

"Sounds like it."

"He’ll be staying here after I leave."

Kendall studied the man in the picture carefully. He was, like the rest of them, very handsome. But where the others all seemed to be generous with their smiles, Jack’s was a bit more reserved. Maybe mysterious, she decided. Hard to tell.

"I wonder what his experiences in the love shack will be," she said.

Matthias shook his head. "I don’t know. But that reminds me. I need to leave him a note, too."

He turned and made his way up to the office loft, Kendall following in his wake. He withdrew a pad of paper from the desk drawer and plucked a pen from a container full of them,

then folded himself into the chair. He tapped his mouth lightly with the pen as he thought about what to write, then smiled. Kendall moved to stand behind him, watching him as he wrote, his strong hand moving slowly, as if he were giving great thought to what he was writing. As he moved down the page, she read what he’d written so far.

Jack—

When I read Ryan’s note that called this place a "love shack," my first thought was, "What a load of B.S." But now I think he may be on to something. He was also right about how wrong we were when we compiled our universal truths about women. Remember those? Yeah? Well, now you can forget ’em. We had no idea.

Kendall smiled at that, then continued to read.

As for me, here’s what I learned during my month at the lodge: The most important work you’ll ever do has nothing to do with the job. And it’s work you can’t do by yourself. But when you find a partner you can trust, and the two of you do that work together, it pays better than any career you could imagine. And perks? You have no idea… Have a good month, pal.

She noticed that he hesitated before signing it, then finally dashed off, "Matt."

"Matt," she said aloud. "When I first saw that on the note Ryan wrote to you, I couldn’t imagine anyone calling you that. But now I think it kind of fits."