to kiss those smooth, full lips of his, to touch that hair…
No, no. I’ve got to get a hold of myself and focus on my job. Skylar bit down on her bottom lip, in an attempt to crush the anxiety building inside her. “I need a shower, a good night’s sleep…I…have to go,” she told him, quickly swinging her feet to the floor. Before standing, she cautiously looked over at Mark, unable to say another word.
“Yeah. You’d better go and get out of those wet clothes,” he commented, sounding a bit distracted. “After a good night’s sleep you’ll feel better. So, did you bring the full case of schnapps with you or just the one bottle?”
“Oh! The case. Yes. From Lainpour.”
“Good. Please thank Kathy for going to get it this afternoon, and thank you for bringing it over.”
Skylar stiffened. His offhand comment hit her like an icicle stabbed into her heart. Thank Kathy? I don’t think so! she thought, recalling her frightening trip back from Crested Village. “For your information, Kathy didn’t pick it up,” she started. “She was too busy and couldn’t get away, so you can thank me. In spite of a bad case of altitude sickness, I got out of bed and drove all the way over to Crested Village, then to Lainpour’s warehouse in some backwoods part of the town. On the way back, I got caught in a blinding snowstorm, but I gladly put myself through all of that in order to deliver your precious liquor…which remains in the back of my Jeep,” Skylar finished in a huff, not feeling particularly charitable.
“That took some doing,” Mark commented, a slight smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Damn straight it did! But I managed just fine.”
“Good for you. So, why all the fuss? After all, you are the concierge,” he stated, his too-smug smile growing wider. “Aren’t you just doing your job?”
Skylar’s jaw dropped. What a jerk, she thought, realizing she had pegged him right the first time. He was a know-it-all snob, just as she’d thought he was when they met in Gorsuch earlier. Before she could form an appropriate comeback, Mark reached over and opened a carved wooden box that was sitting on the coffee table and pulled out a twenty dollar bill.
“Here. For all your trouble,” he said, extending a fold of cash.
A tip? He’s actually offering me a tip! Her temper flared to the point of screaming. Feeling totally offended, she was tempted to decline the money. However, a good concierge deserved generous tips, and refusing to take his cash might seem out of character.
I want this self-centered jackass to believe, as the staff does, that I am simply the underemployed sister of the owner, who desperately needs this job. “Thank you very much,” she told him, palming the bills with a flick of her wrist before stuffing them into the pocket of her wet jeans. Rising, she went outside and opened the hatch of her car.
Mark came up behind her and reached into the back of her vehicle to remove the heavy box of bottles.
Glad to be finished with this crazy assignment, Skylar walked to the driver’s side of the Jeep and was about to step in when Mark leaned around the side of the car and said, “You call this a blinding snowstorm?” Chuckling, he shook his head. “This isn’t even a flurry, Miss Webster. You’ve got a lot to learn about life in the mountains.”
“And you’ve got a lot to learn about me,” she fumed under her breath, climbing inside. She glanced into the rearview mirror and saw him standing in the middle of the road, holding the box, a huge grin on his face. Furious, Skylar started the engine, jammed her foot down hard on the accelerator and sped off down the service road.
“Wow!” was all Mark could say as he watched Skylar’s red Jeep disappear around a curve. Hefting the heavy box, he went back inside and set the liquor on the black granite bar in his small, but well-appointed kitchen. Still rattled from the unexpected encounter, he pulled a glass from the cabinet and a bottle of schnapps from the box.
“May as well sample this,” he murmured, adding ice to the crystal tumbler. After opening the liquor, he poured himself a generous amount, added a thin slice of lemon and then wandered back into the great room to sit down.
The first thing he noticed was the blanket that he had used to cover Skylar. It was still on the floor where she had tossed it. He bent over and picked it up, then sank back against the pillows on the sofa, inhaling her scent.
“Too gorgeous to be a concierge,” he mused, staring into the fire. “And what a woman.” He could still see her warm, tea-colored skin, silky, black twists that bounced against her cheeks, intriguing, black eyes that had clearly assessed him in a gently provocative manner. She was petite, but well-toned. And she had great legs, he had felt every curve himself. She was small, but definitely not fragile. This was a woman with grit and guts, no trace of a diva attitude. He had to get closer to her!
Concentrating on this brief, but stimulating encounter, Mark tried to analyze his reaction to Skylar, certain he had never felt this way before. His body hummed with a kind of anticipation that made his palms wet, his throat tight and brought a strange sensation to the pit of his stomach. What was going on?
Mark let his head fall back against the sofa as he savored the Linie Aquavit, his thoughts riveted on Skylar. At one time in his life, a working woman like Skylar Webster would never have turned his head. With one foot planted in the African-American world of his father and the other in the Euro-rich world of his mother, Mark had always felt uncertain about where he belonged.
When Mark was eleven, his parents divorced, and his mother took him to Norway to live. His mother’s motivation, other than to remain far away from his father, had been to push her son into a career as a professional skier. She became his agent, his trainer and manager and his best friend, setting the direction for the rest of his life. Mark had always regretted that she had deliberately kept him isolated from links to his paternal heritage, but there had been little he could do about it, and his mother always got what she wanted.
For years, Mark’s world had revolved around a stream of globe-trotting, glitzy, super-rich people—and women who had begged to occupy his time and his bed. He’d never loved any of them, but they had been fun to party with. He had had his choice of gorgeous women around the world, and he had wasted a great deal of money and time on them.
However, now that his fast-paced professional career was over and he had severed professional ties with his mother, things were different. He was back in the United States, where he planned to live permanently, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to settle down with a grounded African-American woman who was not afraid to work hard and whose world did not revolve around money, society events and outrageous status symbols. He wanted to start a family with an intelligent, beautiful woman who would appreciate him for who he was now, not for who he used to be. He wondered if Skylar Webster might be the woman he was looking for. There was only one way to find out—put her to the test.
Chapter 8
The best features of Skylar’s new office, a cozy space only a few steps from the registration desk, were the two tall windows that faced an inner courtyard where a huge fire pit, a hot tub with an outdoor movie projector and a deck provided the guests an unparalleled view of Aspen Mountain.
Cupping her mug of hot chocolate with both hands, Skylar leaned over her desk and rounded her shoulders, stretching out her back. She had made it through her first full day of work without any major incidents, mishaps or encounters with dissatisfied guests, and her mountain sickness had eased. Between fielding calls for
