for several minutes. The Wainwright Developers Group had paid them more than three times the prevailing rate for land in a region where many people lived at or below the poverty line. Leland did not disclose the details of the negotiations between him, Giles, and Noah, and told her to use the money to make repairs and upgrade the house.
She smiled and extended her hand with Noah’s approach. He had called her the day before to inform her he had finished the blueprints for the homes he planned to build in the valley and would stay until the town council approved his prospectus.
“Welcome back to The Falls.”
Ignoring the proffered hand, Noah leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”
Viviana’s eyes caressed his face, finding him even more attractive than when she’d first seen him. She normally didn’t attribute the word beautiful to a man, but Noah was just that. “If you’d come earlier I would have introduced you to my father.”
Noah’s eyes caressed her face. “Is he coming back?”
“No. He just drove down from Philadelphia to spend a few days with me. My father is a professional artist who has just been commissioned to paint a mural for the lobby of a major bank’s headquarters.”
“That’s impressive.”
She smiled. “I agree. As an architect I’m certain the two of you would’ve had a lot talk about when it comes to shapes and colors.” Mya Wainwright had disclosed, during Noah’s visit, that he was an architect and her husband an engineer and that they talked incessantly about buying, selling, designing and erecting buildings. “Please come in, and I’ll show you to the suite I’ve assigned to you.”
Noah hesitated. “If it’s all right with you, I’d rather stay in one of the guesthouses. I need the privacy to conduct business with my home office and potential clients. Will that be a problem?” he added when her jaw dropped.
“Oh no,” Viviana said quickly. When Noah alerted her about his arrival, she’d assigned him the largest suite of the five she had set aside for guests. “I have a vacancy in the second guesthouse. A writer, who insists on anonymity and is only known by his popular pseudonym, has taken up residence in the first one for the next two months while he claims he’s writing the sequel to one of his blockbuster novels.”
“If I don’t recognize him, then I don’t need to know who he is.”
Viviana nodded. Her reclusive guest had paid for the guesthouse two months in advance. He allowed housekeeping to come in to clean only twice a week while he went for a walk to gather his thoughts. Viviana thought it weird that he only ate freeze-dried prepackaged meals people purchased in the event of a catastrophic event that would destroy the country’s food supply. But, it did not matter how eccentric he was as long as he did not burn down the guesthouse.
“Come on in. I have to get your key card. It’s too late for breakfast, but if you want I can fix something for you to eat,” Viviana said over her shoulder as Noah followed her into the great room.
“Please don’t bother. I told Giles I would hang out with him and Mya later this afternoon. I’ll probably have dinner with them.”
“The last time I saw Lily she was talking up a storm.”
“That’s because she’s a Wainwright. When everyone gets together, if you don’t talk fast you won’t get a word in edgewise.”
Viviana walked into the room next to the parlor that she had set up as her office. She swiped a key card over the sensor and pushed open the door. The room was off-limits to everyone in the ten-bedroom house. Since the bed-and-breakfast had opened for business, she had hired a part-time cook, two part-time housekeepers and a landscape company to maintain the grounds.
She opened a desk drawer and removed two key cards and activated them. “I’m giving you two in case you misplace one.”
Noah took the cards and handed her a credit card. “I don’t know how long I’m staying, but put all of the charges on this card.”
Viviana stared at the black card as if it was a venomous snake. She shook her head. “I’m not going to take that.”
“Why not?”
She glared at him. “Because I’m not going to take any more money from you, that’s why.”
Noah’s eyes flashed with glints of anger. “You’re right when you say that your brother handles the finances. How do expect to run a viable business when you let folks lay up for free?”
Viviana felt as if he’d given her a stinging slap across the face as she recoiled from his acerbic taunt. She closed her eyes and counted slowly until she felt her anger subside and could say what was on her mind without regretting what she actually wanted to tell him.
“When I told you to talk to Leland about buying the land, I didn’t think you would pay us more than the prevailing rate for land around here, and that means I’m not going to take advantage of you. Now that you own my land I consider you a business partner, and that means extending certain privileges. You can stay in the guesthouse without me charging you, or you can go and live with your cousin. If you decide not to stay, then give me the key cards and get back in your fancy little sports car and drive away.”
* * *
Noah looked at Viviana as if she had taken leave of her senses, and he wanted to tell her he wasn’t her ex looking to fleece her. The rise and fall of her breasts under a white blouse and the slight flaring of her delicate nostrils told him she wasn’t just annoyed but angry. All he wanted to do was pay her for living in the guesthouse, and she’d gone off on him.
At that point he did not want to do or say anything that would drive a wedge between them. It was apparent he had underestimated Viviana. She had come at him like a cat he’d once seen that’d had a litter of kittens. The one time he tried picking up one of the kittens, the queen sprang and dug her claws into the back of his hand until he let go of her baby.
“Okay, you win,” he said after an uneasy silence.
“It’s not about winning and losing,” Viviana retorted. “It’s about what is right and wrong.”
Noah threw up a hand in exasperation. “You’re right, Viviana.”
“Please don’t attempt to placate me.”
Noah smothered a savage expletive under his breath as he forced a smile. “I’m sorry. I think I can find the guesthouse without your assistance.” At that point he did not care if she felt he was being facetious. All he wanted to do was get away from Viviana before he said something he would come to regret.
He walked out of the house, got into his car and drove around to the guesthouses. As he unloaded the trunk of luggage and electronic equipment, Noah thought about Viviana’s attitude toward him during their first encounter. At that time, he hadn’t known what had made her unapproachable, but now he knew it had something to do with a man—a man who’d used her and nearly ruined her financially. What she would soon learn, however, was that he did not take advantage of women.
He’d sown his wild oats, and now at thirty-three, he was looking forward to finding that special woman with whom to settle down. Some of his friends teased him, saying he was still too young to talk about marrying and having
