And yet…He draped one arm over the back of his chair and studied her.
Warm night, cold wine and a beautiful woman sitting across the table from him. In Sean’s world, that sounded just about perfect. His gaze swept up and down Melinda Stanford, from the thick black waves of her hair to the blue-green stones glittering at her ears to the dip in the neckline of her dress, to the shine of her manicured nails. She was gorgeous. No doubt. But she was also complicated. And maybe crazy.
Still. Didn’t mean he couldn’t consider her proposal. In fact, he’d spent the last few hours doing just that.
Her grandfather, Walter Stanford, had shut down every deal the Kings had proposed over the last few months. Walter hadn’t been interested, no matter how high their offers had gone. Either the old man seriously didn’t need the money or he was as crazy as his granddaughter. But as soon as that thought entered his head, Sean discounted it. The old man wasn’t a loon.
He was crafty.
Walter knew what he wanted and wasn’t willing to settle for less. How the hell could a King of all people resent that? The King family did the same thing. They never took no for an answer and never gave up on something they wanted.
Sean smiled to realize that he and ol’ Walter would probably get along great.
“What’s so funny?”
“What?”
“You’re smiling,” she pointed out, managing to look both gorgeous and offended. “I asked what was so funny?”
She was insulted, Sean realized and he couldn’t really blame her. No doubt she thought he was laughing silently at her well-presented offer. And as he considered the fact that it was so well-presented, he had to wonder if he was the first man to receive this weird proposal.
“How many times have you tried this?” he asked, leaning toward her so he could keep his voice down. Tables on the patio were few and the other diners sparse, but it paid to be careful.
She frowned slightly. “You’re the first.”
“Why? Why pick me?”
“I told you. I checked you out.”
“Yes,” he said, “but you’d already decided that I would be the lucky winner or you wouldn’t have bothered doing your research.”
She chewed at her bottom lip, and he wondered if it was nerves or just a habit. Then she reached for her wineglass and took a long sip. She set the glass down again before saying, “I knew my grandfather was talking to you. He kept me posted on the negotiations between him and your family. He told me that you had taken over from Lucas and not long after that I saw a picture of you, okay? And you looked…nice.”
“Nice?” he repeated, appalled at the idea. “Old maid schoolteachers are ‘nice.’ Puppies are ‘nice.’ Ice cream on a hot day is ‘nice.’ Men, especially Kings, are not nice.”
“Yeah,” she muttered, “I’m getting that.”
He’d never been called nice in his life. Funny. Handsome. Smart. And by some, he admitted, cold. Closed off. But never “nice.” What picture of him could have possibly given her that impression?
“Where’d you see this photo?”
“It was in one of those celebrity magazines they sell at the grocery store.” She flushed when she said it, almost as if embarrassed to admit she read the damn things. But millions did, Sean knew.
“You were at a football game with one of your brothers—”
Sean nodded. “Lucas,” he provided, remembering that shot of him and his brother at a pre-season game. If his secretary hadn’t shown it to him, he would have been unaware of it. He never paid attention to the photographers who were always ready to take pictures of the King family. It was just part of being who he was. Nodding, he said, “We hit the first pre-season game together every year.”
“Well, in the picture, you were laughing and you looked friendly.”
“Better than nice, but just barely,” he admitted. He had an easygoing attitude to most of life, he supposed, which worked well in business, since his opponents were never ready for him to turn on them. But as far as women were concerned, most of those he knew would never think of describing him as nice, for God’s sake. Nice was…nice. He wasn’t. Not at the heart of him. And usually it didn’t take long for people to pick up on that.
She shrugged a little. “The point is, you looked like a man I could talk to about all of this. When I found out you were coming to Tesoro personally, I decided to take a stand.”
“By lying to your grandfather.”
“Not a lie,” she argued quickly. “We actually will be married. So it’s more of a colorful representation of the truth.”
He fought back a smile. Seems Melinda Stanford had her own rules to play by. Well, Sean could admire anyone who set out to do something and didn’t let anything get in the way. He could even take a step back and see that from her point of view, he actually was the perfect temporary husband. The question was, could he see it from his point of view?
Their dinner arrived before he could say anything else and, for a few minutes, they each focused on their meals. The food was excellent, the atmosphere even better and the beautiful woman across from him was just the capper.
He’d rarely met a woman who didn’t find it necessary to fill every silence with some kind of inane chatter. He found himself relaxing. The silence stretching out between them was companionable somehow, as if they were already a team.
He frowned to himself at that thought, since he hadn’t decided a damn thing yet.
“You’ve lived here your whole life,” he said into the quiet.
“Since I was five, yes.” She turned her head to look out over the water. The tide was out, and a handful of couples strolled the beach in the moonlight. “It’s a lovely island. The town is small, but the hotel is a big draw. Most people prefer coming here because Grandfather’s never allowed the cruise ships to stop. So, our guests tend to be very wealthy and very into their privacy. But they spend plenty of money in the village and the shops usually make enough money to last them through the off-season.”
“I know.” He gave her a quick grin. “The Kings do research, too.”
“Then you already know that Tesoro is the perfect spot for the resort you want to build,” she said, setting her fork and knife down.
“Agreed.” It was more than perfect. Like it had been designed specifically for the plans Rico had in mind. Rico’s hotel in Mexico was top-of-the-line, modern, beautiful and plush. But for the resort on Tesoro, things would be different. Rico wanted to go with island elegance. To make this the most talked-about destination spot in the world.