father and a Texas beauty as his mother, Mikhail was devoted to his family and to the Amoteh Resort. As manager, he moved through the luxurious corridors like a lord cruising his fortress, frighteningly efficient, quiet, dark and dangerous. Always perfectly groomed and dressed in a suit, his dark brown hair neatly clipped, Mikhail was about as approachable as an iceberg. Maybe that was why she had loved taunting him so much—just to see if he was human…to see what ran beneath that steely surface.
Mikhail had the unique ability to challenge her at a level that made her want to taunt him, to bring out the real man. Her senses told her that beneath Mikhail’s perfectly groomed, civilized suit lurked a primitive, sensual male—one she wanted to taste and captivate before moving on….
A woman whose mother had deserted her as an infant and who had been raised by a cold, hurtful father, Ellie wasn’t one to stay in relationships that could hurt.
Mikhail couldn’t be hurt. Not once in eleven years since she’d first met him in her father’s offices did he disprove her appraisal. He’d been married and divorced in that time and so had she, but whatever nettled her about Mikhail hadn’t changed.
Ellie doubted that Mikhail had any personal weaknesses—the man was all steel and business, the same ilk as her father.
Her lips pressed tightly as she watched the windshield wipers smear wet trails across the glass. It was dangerous for her to attempt to pit Mikhail against Paul Lathrop—she could lose. Correction: Tanya could lose.
On the hill overlooking the small town of Amoteh, Ellie slowed the small station wagon and stopped briefly. Located on the Pacific edge of southwest Washington State, the town had taken its name from the Chinook word for strawberry, amoteh. The lights of the tourist town, now wrapped in rain and fog, glowed eerily in the distance.
Mikhail had fought Paul, persuading him to finance a Mignon resort in the slow-moving, quiet town. The battles weren’t sweet, but Paul had known that Mikhail’s determination would find finances to create the Amoteh Resort—Mikhail’s beloved “baby.”
Those battles convinced Ellie that Mikhail could protect Tanya from her grandfather and irresponsible mother.
Ellie shivered, despite the warmth of the mini-station wagon. Her nails, no longer long, buffed and glossed, were now short and practical as they tightly gripped the steering wheel. She despised her helplessness, the desperation that had made her contact Mikhail Stepanov.
As her resources dwindled, she’d been wrangling with Mikhail, trying to nudge him into welcoming her and Tanya at the resort; Lathrops always had free accommodations. Then, six months ago, she’d been desperate. She’d ordered him to reserve a suite for her, with one room prepared for a child. After the first telephone volley between them, he hadn’t answered her telephone calls, e-mails or faxes. Because she had nowhere else to send Tanya’s toys, she had sent them to the Amoteh Resort.
As her father’s daughter, Ellie knew how to bully and maneuver. Begging would be new and humiliating. At thirty-six years old, she was forced to deal with a man just like her father, to make concessions, to be at the mercy of his decisions…. In Mikhail’s tersely expressed opinion, she was a playgirl, a jet-setter without responsibilities, legendary for her whims and parties, and she had botched a major project for the Mignon chain.
She’d botched nothing, merely taken the blame for Hillary, and she wasn’t that playgirl any longer; she was desperate to protect her child and nothing of her former wealth remained. Ellie tightened her hands on the steering wheel; she was done wrangling, threatening and contacting Mikhail. If she had to, she’d beg….
Rain slashed against the windshield, as cold and welcoming as Mikhail would be. Ellie brushed a tear from her cheek. She hated crying, and yet with her financial reserves and strength almost gone and danger threatening Tanya, she needed the only man who could help her keep her child…if he would.
She weighed arriving at the Amoteh Resort and facing Mikhail; Tanya shouldn’t be exposed to that first clash, because they always clashed, didn’t they? Mikhail in that quiet, dark, intense way as a response to her glittering, slashing offensive. She’d circled him, looking for a weakness, and had found none.
But this time, Ellie would not let herself respond to the instincts that Mikhail always set off. She would not….
Ellie turned the car from the Amoteh and toward the Stepanov home. She had met Mikhail’s parents, Fadey and Mary Jo Stepanov, earlier, at a social dinner at the opening of the Amoteh, and had liked them instantly.
With the instinct of a mother protecting her child, Ellie drove to the Stepanov home, a bold wooden structure overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Two hours later, Mikhail Stepanov wanted to toss Ellie Lathrop out on her expensive derriere, the one clad in black designer jeans and seated on the walnut desk in his sprawling office. As manager of the expansive Amoteh Resort, he knew how to get rid of unwanted “pests.” Mikhail narrowed his eyes, considering the terms in which to best frame Ellie, and came up with “A Big Bloody Thorn in My Side, the Potential to Ruin Everything, the Woman I Wish Were Anywhere But Here.” Then he added mentally, “The woman who dumped a pitcher of ice water over my head at a business meeting when I agreed with Paul, the woman who lobbed pâté across an elegant dinner table at me, the woman who brought an entire party into my bedroom at her father’s house, the woman I want most to avoid.”
At nine o’clock at night, the rain outside Mikhail’s office window pattered softly. The Amoteh Resort, luxuriously huge and sprawling, was ominously quiet. The few off-season tourists, taking advantage of the lower rates, had settled in for the night, and the minimal staff had gone to their homes in the small, quaint oceanside town.
With a mix of rain, ice and snow expected, Mikhail would have ordinarily gone to his parents’ home to meet the guest staying there. But Ellie wasn’t just any guest, and he wanted their battle to be private.
Mikhail sent a pointed, narrow-eyed message to said curved bottom on his desk, and Ellie smiled blandly at him. She tilted her head just that bit that said she recognized his hint and wasn’t taking it. Cut in different layers, her shoulder-length hair was sun-streaked, the tips catching the light, shifting over the darker layers beneath. A smooth strand of silky hair slid across her cheek, gleaming and catching the soft lighting. Her tan was genuine, not from a bottle. But above that soft cheek, Ellie’s gray eyes were taunting and veiled by her sweeping eyelashes.
He liked order in his business and in his life, and Ellie knew exactly how to tear that order apart. He refused to let her nettle him.
Her mouth curved slightly and one fine dark eyebrow lifted, challenging him as she moved just enough to nudge a neat stack of papers. The top one slid aside and Mikhail checked himself from straightening them. She knew perfectly well that he preferred order.
All five-foot seven, sleek, selfish, spoiled inches of her, from that carefully tousled shoulder-length hair down to her neatly trimmed boots, had irritated him since the day he first met her—the boss’s daughter.
“I warned you that I was coming. You’ve had months to prepare. I told you to get a suite ready with a room for a child,” Ellie said softly in her cultured, I’ve Got You, Bub, Boss’s Daughter tones. “I sent boxes of toys. Where are they?”
If he could have tossed Ellie out into the night, he would have. From experience, he knew that where Ellie went, she brought trouble.
In this case, she had brought trouble to his parents’ home—in the form of a four-year-old girl. His parents’ delight had sounded over
