AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Four
There she was. Dale relaxed for the first time in nearly three months. He was looking down from the top story of their offices in their Cape Town hotel and had a clear view of Zoe getting out of her car.
And even from this distance, desire kicked him in the gut and instantly heated his blood. He turned back to his brothers quickly.
This was one of the rare occasions when they were all in the big communal office they preferred. And although that normally meant they could settle urgent matters for a change, he wished none of them were here today. His brothers tended to stick their noses where they didn’t belong.
“Zoe has arrived. I’m meeting her in the conference room,” he muttered, hoping no one would notice that he was leaving. He grabbed a file and his cell phone from his desk on his way to the door.
Don got up from his desk and walked around it. “About?” he asked, and Darryn and David also looked up.
Dale sighed. Damn it, now he’d have to try and explain something he didn’t understand himself. “The hotel near the Kruger. The contract to do the interior has been signed by the woman Zoe left in charge while she was in London. This morning she phoned me, apparently wanting to back out.”
David frowned. “Back up a little bit. I thought Zoe declined to work for us at the end of last year already? When did you sign this contract and how come she didn’t know about it?”
“If I remember correctly, I was the one who suggested we use her and you weren’t all that keen for her to do the work in the first place,” Don said. “So why—”
“I’m still not keen. But I’m not going to be the bad guy here. Anyway, I’ve seen her firm’s work in the meantime. Peter Walsh, for one, is very taken with what they’ve done in the London hotel. According to him, she’s the best, and I thought we always use only the best.”
“I still find that interesting, you know. That you got her another job when she declined the one we offered her, one far away from South Africa.” Don smiled. “Any particular reason?”
“You were the one who thought we should help her,” Dale said.
David cocked an eyebrow. “The fact that she is a long-legged, blue-eyed, gorgeous brunette you couldn’t take your eyes off at Don’s wedding has nothing to do with it?”
Dale glared at his brother. “This is business, nothing else.”
“Yeah, right. I saw how you danced with her at the wedding. The two of you were practically welded together, if memory serves me right.” David smiled.
Darryn grimaced. “Please, just don’t tell me another one of my brothers is falling for a Sutherland. I told you to stay away from them.”
With a grin, Don slapped Darryn on the back. “The way you’ve stayed away from Hannah? I’ve seen you kissing her twice now—you have a thing for a Sutherland as well?”
Darryn swore and jerked up from his chair. Dale had to end this conversation before Darryn got riled up again. It was obvious something had happened between Darryn and Hannah at some point, but it wasn’t a topic his brother ever talked about.
“I don’t have a thing for anyone,” Dale snarled. “Zoe does interior decorating, you suggested Zoe, we need a good one, she has a pristine reputation, and her firm is well-known for delivering good work. That’s it,” he said, fed up at this point with his brothers. He left the room and walked towards the conference room.
*
There was nological reason why he’d contacted her firm and why he’d signed the contract without speaking to her again. There were many other reasons why he’d make sure he had a signed contract, none of them made any sense, though.
After the wedding, after the kiss, he had to stay away from her. But as soon as he heard from Don that she’d left someone else in charge of her firm in South Africa while she was in London, he’d known what he was going to do.
Getting Susan to sign the contract was easy. It wasn’t as if he’d done anything illegal. He’d simply let Susan assume Zoe had changed her mind. He never actually said that in so many words though, so she couldn’t accuse him of lying. Now he had a contract. One that would ensure Zoe wouldn’t be able to back out, like she’d tried to do this morning.
Irrational. But then, there was nothing rational about the way she made him feel, period. For the past three months he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head or his dreams, he’d missed her at the family functions and he’d realized no matter where in the world she found herself, she’d be constantly on his mind.
So his illogical solution was to get close to her, and the only way he was to do that was to get her to do work for them.
If they were to work together, if he saw her regularly, he might find all he’d been feeling was lust for a pretty face. This unrest inside of him was nothing more than having the hots for someone for a short period of time.
Any other possibility was too frightening to contemplate.
*
Zoe squared hershoulders and walked through the doors of the beautiful boutique hotel in Bantry Bay, one of a dozen in and around Cape Town that belonged to the Cavallos.
Like all their hotels, this one had also been designed by Dale and his signature glass exterior for most of their hotels worked particularly well here in the centre of Cape Town.
