Tycoon's Tryst (Culpepper Cowboys Book 10) (5 page)

Hand still resting on her smudged cheek, he leaned in for a kiss. It was impulsive, but he absolutely, positively could not help himself. The moment his mouth met Rachel’s, it was like fireworks on the Fourth of July. She hummed in her throat and kissed him back. Their tongues danced, and his heart raced. He could get used to kissing her like this—like theirs was the first and last great kiss—every day for the rest of his life. Mud or no mud.

All of a sudden, Rachel gasped and struggled back.

“No!”

Sly gulped. “No what?” he asked, out of breath but ready for more.

“I can’t go kissing you like that when you’re determined to ruin me.” Her words were harsh, but her expression was more confused than anything.

“Sweetheart, I am determined to do everything but ruin you right now.”

She glared at him. “Don’t call me sweetheart. It’s not fair.” She wrenched herself up through the mud to stand.

Sly scrambled to his feet as well. He held up his arms as mud dripped off of him. The pulsing knot in the pit of his stomach wanted to argue with her that it was entirely fair to call her sweetheart and more. Instead, he said, “Sorry about the mud.”

She gaped at him, then closed her mouth and blinked a few times, then looked confused. “I don’t mind getting dirty. Bev is the one who cries when she drips ketchup on her boobs.”

“Does she do that a lot?”

“All the time.”

A ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of Rachel’s lips, but only for a moment. She was back to looking like she might strangle him a moment later.

“I’m not going to let you snowball me, Sly O’Donnell. No one is nice to me unless they want something. You want me to sacrifice myself to make you look good. Well, I’m not going to do it. I’m going to fight for my company, even if that means kissing you.” She blinked. “I mean, fighting you.”

A thousand different comebacks to that slip jumped to Sly’s mind, but he was in far too deep to let any of them pop out and potentially ruin what he was certain had just started. Instead, he held his arms out to the side.

“Then tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.” It was a huge risk, but it was one he was willing to take if it meant winning Rachel.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, a dozen or more emotions flickering across her gorgeous, mud-smeared face. Even dirty, she was the most divine thing he’d ever laid eyes on. Sly hoped she would ask him to give up his company for her. He hoped she’d ask him to be her servant, popping bonbons in her mouth while fanning her with a giant feather fan. He hoped more than anything she’d ask him to strip down and clean her pool for him while wearing nothing but a pair of her panties, two sizes too small, while she ogled him.

But no, she drew herself up to her full height and said, “Take me home and leave me alone.”

T
wo days later
, and Sly had achieved approximately nothing in his quest to win Rachel over.

“I need something that will really impress her,” he told Grace, Felicity, and Patience as he leaned against the counter in the bakery. Business was booming for the new brides and had been since they expanded the bakery’s space. The tail end of the breakfast crowd was just finishing up some of the most delicious-looking meals Sly had ever seen. He’d come to the right place to pick up something that would sweeten Rachel, in more ways than one. “Something like a really pretty cupcake or a mini pie.”

“What’s all this about?”

Sly twisted and straightened as his brother, Doc, strode up behind him and slapped him on the shoulder. “Morning, ladies.” Doc nodded to Grace, Felicity, and Patience.

“Your brother here has a girlfriend,” Grace blurted, grinning from ear to ear.

“Not a girlfriend.” Sly held up a hand to correct them.

Doc snorted. “What then, a sweetheart?”

Sly’s smile faltered just a little. “She’s not all that sweet on me at the moment. She thinks I’m trying to ruin her life.”

“What, did you ask her to marry you or something?” Doc teased. “That would ruin her life.”

It was like a lightbulb went off in Sly’s head. “I’m going to marry her.”

Doc blinked. The ladies grinned and giggled.

Sly glanced out into the morning sunshine as a thousand ideas zipped through his mind. “I’m going to marry her,” he repeated. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. Rachel is perfect. She’s beautiful and strong and smart. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman. She can take care of herself, but she needs someone to embrace her and support her at the same time.”

His dreamy gaze focused, and he focused on Doc with a smile. “Get your best suit ready, bro, because I’m getting married soon.”

“Um, didn’t you just tell us that the object of your desire can’t stand the sight of you right now?” Felicity asked.

Sly pivoted to lean on the counter once more. “A minor detail. And Rachel doesn’t hate me, she’s just been beaten down by a few things and isn’t ready to admit how head-over-heels in love with me she is yet.”

The women laughed and shook their heads, and gave him looks like he was out of his mind.

“Who’s Rachel?” Doc asked. A couple steps behind in the whole thing.

Sly rapped on the counter, then turned back to his brother. “Rachel Korpanty. The most perfect woman in the world. Majority owner of Korpanty Enterprises. My future wife, your future sister-in-law.”

Doc stared at him like he’d lost it. “The woman you’re suing?”

Sly shook his head. “I’m trying to come up with a way not to sue her.”

“Okay, how about just not suing her?” A sarcastic glint filled Doc’s eyes.

“It’s not that simple.” Sly switched into business mode. “I still need to figure out a way to bring publicity to Culpepper. The town is my first priority, although to be honest, Culpepper now has a serious competitor for my affections.”

Doc huffed a laugh and shook his head. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Mom dropped you on your head when you were a baby. I’m sure of it.”

“Is it wrong to care about my hometown?” Sly challenged him.

“No,” Doc admitted slowly.

“There you go. I’m still looking for a way to boost the town’s visibility, draw in businesses and people, and win the hand of fair Rachel at the same time.”

“And you’re going to do it with cake?” Doc glanced past him to where the three former Quinlan ladies were still watching the scene like it was a TV show.

“Not cake,” Felicity interrupted. “Cookies.”

The other two nodded and hummed in approval.

“Cookies?” Sly turned back to them, ready to accept whatever pearls of wooing wisdom they wanted to share.

“I won Allen with cookies,” Felicity explained. “My Box of Heaven. So I’m pretty confident in the power of a baker’s dozen mixed variety of cookies to pierce straight to the heart of anyone like Cupid’s arrow.”

Sly lit up with excitement. “That’s it! You’ll have to start providing a special Cupid’s arrow cookie box for wooing. We could market and sell them online. You’d find yourself shipping hundreds of units a day.”

“Whoa there.” Felicity stopped him with a raised hand. “I just got married. I love my cookies, but let me be a wife before I turn into a business mogul.”

“We’ll get the cookies for you,” Patience added, stepping away to find a box.

Sly turned back to Doc with a huge grin of victory, but Doc was shaking his head and laughing ironically.

“You need to stop trying to push your visions for everything on people,” he said.

“What?” Sly straightened offended. “I’m just trying to make Culpepper great.”

Doc rested his weight on one leg, staring Sly down. “Not everyone shares your vision of what great is. I’m beginning to think that your sweetie, Rachel, might have a point if she thinks you’re trying to ruin her life.”

“No she doesn’t,” Sly argued. “I’m not. I want to help her—help her wrestle her company back from her sister.”

“What?”

Sly shook his head. “It would take too long to explain. All you need to know is that I genuinely have Rachel’s best interest at heart.”

“Here you go.” The three women returned with a crisp white box tied with pink ribbons. “One Cupid Special, just for you,” Felicity finished.

Sly took the box with a wide grin and paid for it. Doc walked with him as he headed out of the bakery.

“The thing about saying you have someone’s best interest at heart,” Doc went on as if the conversation had never paused, “is that it sounds a little too close to ‘I’m doing this for your own good.’ And nothing positive ever came out of those words.”

“They will this time.”

Doc sighed and stopped in the space between his truck and Sly’s convertible. “If there’s one thing that being married for these past several weeks has taught me, it’s that if you try to do something for a woman’s own good that she doesn’t agree with, she will resent you faster than greased lightning.”

“But I’m only looking out for Rachel’s interests.”

“Nope.” Doc put a stop to the argument then and there. “If you really like this woman the way you say you do, and if you really think you’re going to marry her, then you need to shut up and let her tell you what she wants from you. Do
not
railroad that poor woman.” He turned to climb into his truck, but stopped with one foot in the door and pivoted back to add, “And drop that lawsuit right now. It was a stupid idea anyhow.”

Sly wanted to debate the point. Of course he wanted to debate. His plan was a good one…wasn’t it? He always came up with good plans…didn’t he?

He carried his box of cookies around to the driver’s side of his convertible and hopped in, mulling over the point in his mind. It wasn’t until he was halfway into Culpepper proper that he let himself consider that maybe Doc had a point. The lawsuit really was a wild idea, and at this point it would damage Rachel’s company. Dropping it meant finding another way to boost Culpepper’s profile, but he was smart, he could do it. Maybe he could figure out something connected to the rodeo that the town was hosting in a few days. Yeah, that would work.

By the time he pulled into the hotel’s parking lot, he was back to being in a good mood, filled with confidence. He grabbed the box of cookies and sauntered up the walk and into the hotel, certain he could conquer the world and win Rachel’s heart too.

He was still convinced of that when he spotted Rachel sitting in the hotel’s lobby, a mountain of paperwork spread out over a coffee table in front of her. She wore a pair of reading glasses as she studied one paper. Those glasses combined with the way she bit her lip as she read rocketed Sly’s blood pressure through the roof. Yep, he was definitely going to marry this woman. He’d win her, starting now.

Rachel glanced up just as he sidled forward, box of cookies in his outstretched hands.

“I brought you a present.” He slid into the chair next to her, wiggling one eyebrow as he handed her the box.

Rachel blinked at him, her expression vacillating between a dark frown and something more teasing and amused. “There better be a note in this box saying you’re dropping your lawsuit.” The expression she settled on was powerful and undaunted.

Sly loved it. He still couldn’t bring himself to admit outright he was chucking his first plan and dropping the suit. “Take it and you’ll see.”

She hesitated, meeting and holding his eyes as if trying to read him. Let her read away. She could read all about how she’d made his head spin and his heart leap. She could see that the two of them were meant to be, if only he could figure out how to orchestrate everything so that he could win, she could win, and Culpepper could win too.

* * *

R
achel knew
male desperation when she saw it. She’d dealt with enough executives steeped in male privilege in her day to know when a guy was having a hard time accepting that she wasn’t going to let him run her over. But there was something else about Sly O’Donnell. After the day they’d spent together at his family home, in spite of the fact that she’d ruined a pair of shoes—her second one this trip—she had to admit that his motives were pure. Well, okay, not exactly pure, but he wasn’t out for himself. He was genuinely out for the good of Culpepper.

“What’s in the box?” she asked, eying the pink ribbon suspiciously.

Sly’s smile grew. “You won’t know until you open it.”

She could already smell something sweet. The box was stamped with an emblem bearing the name Culpepper Culinary Creations. She sighed and took the box, tugging the ribbon to open it.

The most beautiful and mouthwatering selection of cookies peeked out at her from the box. It was impossible not to feel flattered. Or maybe that was just hungry. But no, once again, Sly had done something super nice for her, and as much as she wanted to see it as a bribe, she couldn’t tell what he wanted from her.

“These look delicious,” she told him, trying to smile.

His victorious grin slipped. “But?”

She sighed, making a space on the table for the box. “I don’t know.”

“You’re not allergic to cookies, are you?”

That won a smile from her. “No. They look amazing.”

She reached into the box, taking out something that looked like chocolate chip with both milk and white chocolate pieces. She broke it in half, then offered Sly part of it.

Sly rushed to take it. “I shouldn’t be eating your cookies. These are for you.” He finished with a gigantic bite in his mouth.

Gorgeous, sexy as the day was long, and yeah, a little bit funny too. Sly was kind of the complete package of everything she’d wanted in a man. And kind of completely not.

“Take a look at the results of your handiwork.” She slumped back in her chair and bit sullenly into her half of the cookie.

“What do you mean?” He leaned forward to look at the papers.

“Right there. It’s all in print. With your lawsuit, Korpanty Enterprises drops below the profitable level for the second quarter. That puts me a measly hundred thousand dollars below the level of profit when my dad died.” Sly would know that a hundred thou in business was like a dime to average spenders. She was so close to making the profit she needed that it stung. “Without your lawsuit, I’ll be skating right along the line.”

“Will you break even?” His playful expression had been replaced by a serious, business face.

Rachel shrugged, not sure she had the will to fight anymore. “Breaking even isn’t making a profit. Bev would still get my shares.”

“But there’s still a way we can turn things around, right?”

Rachel’s brow flew up. “We?”

Sly smiled. “I’m here to help, at your disposal.”

Rachel gaped at him. Was he being audacious and condescending or was it possible that he really wanted to help her?

That wasn’t the only thing she gaped at. The hotel had been moderately busy all morning, the doors opening and closing. This time, they opened to reveal the figure of a petite, over-tanned, bleached-blonde with boobs that preceded her by a mile. Striding in behind her was a six-foot-five, muscle-bound, Nordic god of a man with long, blond hair. Rachel’s stomach knotted painfully around the part of the cookie she’d eaten.

“What?” Sly asked, then turned to see what she was staring at.

As he did, the petite blond glanced around, then spotted Rachel and zeroed in on her. Her collagen-injected lips pursed.

“Can I help you?” the guy at reception asked her, but the woman ignored him. She stomped straight across the lobby in her four-inch René Caovilla wedge sandals, coming to a stop on the other side of the coffee table, one fist resting on a cocked hip. Her other arm held a Gucci bag in the crook of her elbow.

“I got the latest reports,” she said without any introduction. “Might as well throw in the towel, Rachel. Your stupid company will be mine by the end of the year anyhow.”

Rachel swallowed the desire to either punch Bev so hard she flew across the room or to break down into a puddle of misery right then and there. “I still have three months to turn a profit,” she answered, also without preamble or introductions.