his breath.
Emmaline looked up at him and blinked, that frown drawing her brows together. “What did you say, Mr. Benedict?”
Keep it light. Surely she has a sense of humor.
“I said what a delicious shade of lipstick, Emmaline,” Ryan said with a smile. “What do you call it? Kiss-me-pink?”
For a second he thought he heard her gasp. Her eyes grew large and startled. Then, she suddenly pressed her lips together. She crossed her arms, lending some shape to the loose black dress she was wearing. He tried not to notice that her small breasts perfectly suited her slender figure.
“I’m sorry, wrong shade,” she told him, “although it is pink. Presumptuous pink, to be exact.” She gave him a slight smile, arching one brow.
Gilbert blinked. “What an incredibly odd name for lipstick, Emmaline. Is that really what it’s called? Oh well, I never did quite figure out all that girlie stuff. I probably should have been paying more attention. You’d think raising two girls I would have learned a thing or two by now, wouldn’t you?”
His voice sounded so sad that Ryan felt sorry for him. “You’ve raised two fine young women, sir,” he told Gilbert. “I’d say that that means you know quite a lot.”
“Yes, Uncle Gilbert,” Emmaline said. “Don’t mind me. Mr. Benedict and I were just—” She stopped, clearly uncertain how to go on, and Ryan wanted to laugh. She was trying so hard.
“We were just engaging in idle chatter since we don’t know each other very well. Chris tells me we’re to stand up together at the wedding,” Ryan volunteered.
Ah, she didn’t know that. Those serious gray eyes blinked. “Holly?”
Holly shrugged. “Well, of course you’re going to be my maid of honor, aren’t you, Em? I know we haven’t discussed the details of the wedding. I’ve been gone so much lately and been so wrapped up in Chris that I…well, I forgot to ask. But I just assumed you knew that I’d want you. Who else would I choose? And who else would Chris choose but his best friend?”
“I wasn’t thinking that far ahead, and I wouldn’t make that kind of assumption,” Emmaline said. Ryan noticed that she didn’t look at him. “But…thank you, Holly.”
“And never mind about arguing about shades of lipstick,” Gilbert said to Ryan. “You and Emmaline will have plenty of time to get to know each other, especially since you’ll be working together closely.”
Working together? Closely? Despite the warnings echoing through his brain, Ryan thought of that kiss. How right it had felt, how wrong it had been. Glancing to the side, he locked eyes with Emmaline who was looking just as shocked as he felt.
“We’ll be working together? What do you mean?” she asked.
Ryan had a feeling he knew and he was surprised that Emmaline hadn’t been told, but he wanted to be very clear on this. “Yes, what exactly will Ms. Carstairs and I be doing together, Mr. Messmer?” He had a bad feeling about the direction things were taking.
“Call me Gilbert, please, Ryan. No need to be formal when your best friend is marrying my daughter, and you and I are business associates. As for what you’ll be doing with Emmaline, that’s easy. She’s going to assist you at the hotel.”
“Assist him doing what?”
Ryan really wished she hadn’t asked that. Immediately his eyes were drawn to the way her shoulder length dark hair lay against the scooped neck of her black dress. He could easily imagine himself easing the dress down off her shoulders, assisting her out of every stitch she was wearing until…
Damn, don’t think that, he ordered himself and tried to pay attention to what Gilbert was saying to his niece who was looking as tense as if she had just been told she would be spending all her time with a man-eating predator.
“I know I usually handle the behind the scenes stuff regarding the hotel chain and you handle the day to day operations of Texas Lights, but this is a special situation. Let me explain a bit,” Gilbert told Emmaline. “C&R Technology is a two-man operation, as you know. They energize old businesses by instituting new technology. Hotels are their specialty, which is why we’ve linked up with them. Chris is the idea man, the dreamer, and Ryan is the man who makes everything work, the technician. He’s the one who has to go in, feel around and get his hands dirty, to thoroughly examine the place and figure out how to make Chris’s dreams work with our situation.
“And,” Gilbert said, turning to Ryan, “since Emma manages the Texas Lights Hotel, the first one we’re renovating, she’s the one who knows all the intimate nuts and bolts of the place. She’ll assist you in whatever way you need. Won’t you, Emma?”
Ryan almost felt sorry for her. If Gilbert hadn’t been such an old-fashioned guy who meant that comment in the most innocent of ways, his words might have made the lady blush. But Gilbert was an old-fashioned gentleman, and Ryan had a feeling that Emmaline wasn’t a blushing kind of woman. She was the kind who kept her heat hidden inside.
A challenge, his subconscious said.
Stop thinking of her that way, he told himself.
He turned to her, hoping his voice wouldn’t reveal his thoughts. “I’ll definitely need your help. The Texas Lights is a historic hotel. We’ll be introducing the most current technology. I’m afraid this is going to be a challenge, Emmaline,” he managed to say, not sure if he was really discussing the hotel or the fact that they would be thrown together day in and day out.
And then, seeing that she was genuinely distressed, he took pity on her. “Somehow we’ll make it work.”
She stared up at him with those intense gray eyes that only made the copper highlights in her dark-brown hair shine more brightly. He was pretty darn certain that she didn’t want to hear that the two of them would make anything work. Instead she wanted to make a quick exit.
Interesting.
“I’ve seen the timeline. This will take a few weeks, won’t it?” she asked.
“Three or four. How long have you been involved with The Texas Lights?” Ryan asked. Perhaps a change of subject would get her to stop looking at him as if he were the spawn of the devil.
Emma blinked as if she was surprised that he had asked her such a mundane question. He wondered what she’d been told about him. He did have a reputation, and a lot of it wasn’t good.
“I…around twenty-five years,” she ventured.
Now it was his turn to blink. She couldn’t be as old as she was indicating.
Holly chuckled, a move that prompted Chris to pull her back against him, his arm encircling her waist. She turned slightly and gave him a loving look before turning back to Ryan.
“Emmaline isn’t lying, Ryan. Her mother died not long before I was born. Daddy had a baby, a four-year-old girl and a hotel to run. He’d put me in a crib at the hotel and let Emma tag along after him at work. We both grew up there, but she was the one who loved it. She started polishing the newel posts and running errands just as soon as Daddy would let her.”
“I see,” Ryan said, and he believed he
