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He had to hide a smile himself. She thought he was talking about women, he knew it. “Well, I haven’t told you to this point, but we have someone in common.”
“Oh!” Her face relaxed. “You mean Antonio?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“Last weekend... Oh.”
“What the matter?”
“We’re not supposed to talk about last weekend. Last weekend shouldn’t have happened.”
“But it did.” He’d love to convince her that it could happen again, but the look on her face told him that wouldn’t be possible. Not tonight, anyway.
She shook her head and backed away from him. “Are you going out with Antonio? I don’t mind him knowing that you’re working here, but I’d rather he didn’t know about … oh! He doesn’t know already does he?”
“No. He doesn’t. I couldn’t tell him who I was here to work with, and on Sunday, I couldn’t tell him about, well, you know, because I didn’t know who you were.”
To his relief, she chuckled. “Yeah, maybe in the future, we should make sure we get a last name before we do that kind of thing.”
Grant frowned. “Do you do that kind of thing a lot?”
“No! I just meant… Oh, never mind.” She shook her head and started toward her car. “Have a good weekend. I’ll see you on Monday.” She got in her car but didn’t drive away, waiting instead, until he got in his and left first.
He didn’t even know if he was going to see Antonio this weekend. They hadn’t made any plans. He’d simply wanted to talk to her a little while longer, and he’d wanted to be sure that he wasn’t going to put his foot in it if he talked about working at Zosca.
While he drove back to the hotel, he ran through the weeks’ events in his mind. The one event he kept having to push aside was the almost kiss he’d had with Chelsea on Monday morning. He kept seeing her, eyes closed, leaning toward him as he bent his head. He blew out a sigh. He should be grateful to Gene for showing up when he did. Despite the fact that, under any other circumstances, he’d like to get to know Chelsea better—in every sense, and despite the fact that he couldn’t get her out of his head, kissing her would not be a good idea. Kissing led to more. He wanted more, but it was not a good idea. Not while he was working with her. Maybe, if he stayed on afterward to work with Cameron, they’d be able to see each other then. The most he could hope for now was a good working relationship, and he didn’t want to screw that up.
~ ~ ~
Chelsea woke early on Saturday morning and rolled over in bed to stare at the ceiling. Her first thought was to wonder what Grant might be doing today. Her second was to scold herself. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about him at all. She dealt with him at work as much as she had to—and no more. Monday morning had proved to her that she couldn’t be trusted around the guy and that she needed to stay away from him. Now she was safely away from him for the weekend, she couldn’t allow her mind to stray back to him.
She got up and went to make coffee. What she should be wondering about was what she was going to do with the day. She didn’t have any plans, and she didn’t really want to make any. She might ignore the fact that it was Saturday and go to work. She often did, and it’d be nice to be there and not be on her guard the whole time in case Grant walked in. To be fair, she was only on guard against him personally. He hadn’t been a problem at all professionally. He worked quietly and efficiently. He went about the place unobtrusively, and whenever she saw him talking with any of the staff, they were smiling and chatting openly with him. He won people over, despite their initial suspicions about him and his purpose in being there.
She took her coffee outside to sit on the little deck behind the cottage. Maybe she would go in. She’d read somewhere that, in workplace studies, just the fact of being observed made productivity go up. She knew she’d been getting more done—and the whole team had been working more efficiently—while Grant had been around. She’d even talked to a new distributor and was hoping that she might be able to make a deal with them that would really help.
She should check in with her parents at some point over the weekend, too. She hadn’t talked to her dad all week. He’d kept his word and backed out to leave her to it. She had a few months before Grant’s work would be done, and she’d have to face the music. She took a sip of coffee. What she should really do today was get serious about figuring out how she could buy Zosca. The more she thought about it, the more she knew that was the way to go. Even if she and her dad could agree on how to run the place, she’d rather go out on her own. It was time for her to be her own person—her own boss in every sense. Maybe she’d call Smoke and talk to him about selling her shares in Hamilton-Groves. She didn’t want to raise the subject with her dad or Cameron until she was sure that was what she wanted to do.
Her phone rang, and she hurried inside to get it. “Hey, Cam. What’s up?”
“Hey, little sis. I Just wanted to check in with you. I haven’t managed to catch up with you this week; it’s been a crazy one for me. I was worried about you. How are things going? Is Grant giving you any trouble?”
“No. It’s fine thanks. I’m avoiding him as much as possible. And besides, since Dad and I reached our agreement that this is more of an assessment period, Grant’s not making any changes. He’s just documenting what changes could be made.”
“Good. I knew Dad had changed his remit, but I didn’t know how you’d feel about him being there at all.”
“I’m not thrilled, but it’s better than it could be.”
“I guess.”
“How about you? How come you’re calling me on a Saturday morning? I thought you and Piper would be busy with wedding planning stuff.”
He chuckled. “Nope, not this weekend. She’s wriggled her way out of it. They had some panic of not enough pilots at Summer Lake, so she’s gone back there to help out.”
“Oh, so you’re all on your lonesome?”
“Yep. Do you want to go for breakfast at Molly’s?”
She smiled. “I’d love to. It’s been too long since we did that.”
