Billionaire Boss (9 page)

W
hen Kirsten saw the New York tabloid the following week, her world stopped. After her announcement that she was quitting, Seth had taken off on his plane to New York. She hadn't heard from him in a week.

Devastated, she told herself over and over again that the parting was for the best. After all, he surely hadn't mourned it. Instead, he'd taken off for greener pastures, if the headlines didn't lie: Fab Financier Seth Morgan to Wed Supermodel Nikki Butler. Wedding Plans Secret, Strictly On The Q.T.

Heartsick, she shoved the paper aside and sank into her misery.

As if she could read Kirsten's mind, Hazel was on the phone a minute later.

“What's all this nonsense in the paper about your boss?” the cattle baroness demanded without even a greeting.

“I guess he's getting married,” Kirsten answered dully.

“You mean you're his personal assistant and you don't even know the story?” Hazel snorted.

“He left for New York a week ago, Hazel. He doesn't report to me. He's my boss, remember? I report to him.”

“And you haven't reported to him in a week? Darlin', you're to report to him this instant. This instant!”

Kirsten wanted to laugh, but the unshed tears choked her.

“He's my boss, Hazel, but he's not going to be that for long. I'm sorry to tell you this after all the effort you went through to get me the job, but I've handed in my notice. I've only got one more week to go.”

Hazel was silent, as if absorbing the information. The sympathy in her next words shocked Kirsten.

“You mean you've only got one more week to endure. Isn't that right, my dear?”

Despite her self-control, Kirsten burst into tears. “Is it that obvious?” she cried.

“I'm an old polecat, dear. You can't fool me when I've spotted someone in love.”

Kirsten wiped the tears running from her eyes. “I don't know how it happened. It just did. Maybe deep down I wanted it to happen, but I thought I took every precaution…every precaution….”

“You're pregnant, too?” Hazel gasped. “I'll kill him.”

“No, no, no.” Kirsten sniffed. “Well…at least I don't think so. But that's not really the point. I'm a big girl, Hazel. I knew what to do, and somehow I did everything wrong. I knew he was all wrong to get involved with, and now I'm going to have to live with the consequences of my foolishness.
All
of the consequences, if need be.”

“You want to come live with me at the ranch while we sort this all out, cowgirl?” Hazel offered.

“I told him I'd give him two weeks' notice, and I'm going to do that one thing right if it kills me.” She sniffed again.

“He doesn't deserve that,” the cattle baroness said in condemning tones.

“Maybe.” Kirsten brushed at her wet cheeks. “But it takes two to tango, and I jumped, Hazel. With my eyes wide-open I made the stupid decision to jump.”

Hazel McCallum met this news with a far-from-defeated sigh. “Don't you worry, dear. Things have a way of working out. There's still time.”

Kirsten laughed darkly. “Yes. There's one more week. And if I'm lucky he won't invite me to the wedding.”

 

Another day passed before Kirsten saw Seth.

He arrived like any other time, quietly, in his Jeep. She was sitting before the great-room fire on the couch where they'd made love. Before she could rise from her seat, the door opened and he was there, looking as handsome and devilish as he had ever looked.

“Ah, Miss Meadows. Fine. I'll need you to alert Viola that we're to prepare for fifty visitors for next Saturday.” It seemed to be work as usual for him as he shrugged out of his suit jacket and went to his desk to survey the faxes for the day.

Kirsten couldn't believe the stab she felt in
her heart at seeing him. The very idea of him marrying Nikki left her ill. As Hazel had foretold, she would have to endure the last moments with him, but seeing him now, knowing he was lost to her, suddenly seemed more than she might be able to take.

“How was your flight?” she inquired, her cool facade coming to her rescue.

He looked up from his desk.

Warily he replied, “The usual.”

“Congratulations.” She forced herself to meet his gaze. She would have her breakdown in private, but in front of him she would never reveal her devastation.

“You wish me well?” He seemed almost taken aback.

“If Nikki brings you every happiness, then I must.” She said nothing else. There was no more to say.

He studied her for a long time, his sea-ice eyes searching, probing. “Kirsten, I've decided to stay here in Mystery, to keep the ranch. Come hell or high water, I want to stay in Mystery.”

“If you're hell-bent on staying in Mystery, then do what you must,” was all she offered.

She herself would not be staying in Mystery. Not with him around. She had roamed the world before when her father had been with the dip
lomatic corps. If she had to do it again to find her place, then she would drag her mother and Carrie along for the ride. Anything to get away from Seth and the pain in her heart.

She gathered up the book she'd been reading in front of the fire. Departing, she said, “I'm sure we'll be busy the next few days, so if there's nothing more, I'll see you in the morning.” Numbly she made for the huge staircase to the side of the great room.

He stared after her, not speaking, his expression full of unnamed emotion.

“Kirsten.” His jaw bunched. “I—” His mouth jammed shut.

“Yes?” she asked, her breath shallow and anticipatory.

“I—I hope you sleep well.”

He roughly dismissed her with his cool glance.

Wounded anew, she simply nodded and went to her bedroom.

Only when she was alone did she release her despair, rubbed raw by the renewed hope of seeing him again. She wept silently, her only succor the fact that the clock was ticking, and soon she would see him no more.

 

“This is the strangest thing,” Mary said to Kirsten discreetly into the phone from New
York. “Nikki Butler is burning up his lines of credit all over this town to get ready for this wedding, but it makes no sense why he wants to transport all that to that ranch to get married. Especially when she hated that place. Positively hated it. It's all over town how she loathed that visit,” the executive secretary confessed.

Kirsten closed her eyes, not wanting to hear any more details.

Finally she offered, “Perhaps he's the one who likes it here.”

“Precisely my point,” Mary said into the speaker. “If he's so in love with her that he wants to marry her, why do it at a place she can't stand? I'd have thought he'd sell the place, she hated it so much. At least, that's what all the gossips have to say about it.”

“Men. Don't try to understand them, Mary. They'll drive you insane,” she attempted.

“But,” the secretary continued in her conspiratorial voice, “I have a theory. I think he's been involved with someone up there. I think he wants to get married there just to prove a point.”

Point taken,
Kirsten thought to herself bitterly.

Point so taken it had pierced her heart and ripped it out.

In a modulated voice Kirsten said, “Seth Morgan has the world at his fingertips. Why would a man like him bother to make a point to someone? Especially a point so extravagant?”
And futile,
she added silently.

“I don't know why. All I know,” Mary went on, “is that I've worked for the man for over fifteen years. I know him as well as my son and husband. I was with him through the loss of his parents and through the building of his empire…and something's gotten to him, I tell you. I wish I could say it was Nikki, but I just don't see it. I don't see it at all….”

“What do you need me to do?” Kirsten asked, desperate to change a subject that was getting all too close to her.

“Well,” Mary mused, “Nikki called, and she said the wedding gown designer will have to do the final fitting in Mystery….”

Kirsten didn't hear a word Mary was telling her.

Like an automaton, she took notes and offered appropriate uh-huhs when necessary. Her mind, however, was miles away, kissing her lover midstream in the creek, seducing Seth on the couch, licking her heart wounds as she forced herself to emotionally prepare to leave him.

“I'll get it prepared,” she said to Mary when they were finished.

“Hey, are you all right?” Mary asked, innocently inquisitive. “Your mom's still doing okay? I've been dying to come up there. I can't wait to meet all of you at the wedding.”

Kirsten gave a choked little laugh. As if she would put herself through that ceremony.

“Mom is doing spectacularly.”

“Good.” Mary sighed. “You know, I've gotten quite fond of you, Kirsten. Seth has told me how much you've done for your mom. You deserve the best.”

“Thank you.”

Kirsten didn't think now was the time to spring it on Mary that she would be leaving in less than a week. Besides, the wedding would speak for itself. Her absence would be noticed by some, certainly Hazel. If Mary put two and two together, she would realize why Kirsten didn't attend the wedding, and there would be no need to explain further.

“Oh, and by the way, Nikki will be calling you,” Mary advised. “And she's been Catherine the Great ever since that diamond went on her hand, so beware.”

Mary said goodbye.

Kirsten hung up.

Suddenly in her heart of hearts she realized the whole charade was a losing game. There was no way she was going to advise Nikki on her wedding gown. Enough pain was enough, and she was no masochist. Her promise to stay the extra week was null and void, given the latest maelstrom being thrust upon her.

She went to find Seth and tell him the truth—that she would be leaving right then.

But the damnedest thing was, she couldn't find Seth anywhere.

He wasn't out riding Noir, and he hadn't summoned the plane. Without friends in town, he never took the Jeep, but the vehicle was missing just the same, and even Viola said he'd made no mention of needing anything in town.

Frustrated, despairing and trapped, Kirsten did something she never did. She went to the wine cellar, retrieved the most celebrated bottle of champagne there and popped it open in the great room on their couch.

 

“Do you love her?” Hazel's question shot out as if she was a detective grilling a suspect.

Seth sat in the McCallum parlor, upright on the century-old mail-order settee, looking more uncomfortable and belligerent in Hazel's presence than he'd ever been.

“You said I needed to settle down. I'm doing that. Is love in your sales contract, too?” he parried.

“I'm looking out for your best interests here, cowboy, so don't cross me. You can't marry this twit Nikki Butler. She's all wrong for you. You'll be miserable.”

“The tabloids say it's the match of New York.”

“Well, here in Mystery we have a different standard of matchmaking, and you and Nikki Butler won't make the grade—let me inform you of that right now,” Hazel retorted.

“Why not?” he taunted, his jaw set, his long muscular form dwarfing the settee.

“Because you love Kirsten, and dadgummit, I've never been wrong about these things.” Hazel stared at him like an angry badger. “She's your match, son, and if you don't mind my words, you'll pay by losing her forever.”

His eyes went subzero. “I am not about to admit an indiscretion with an employee, Hazel.”

Hazel snorted. “All this employee-boss political correctness is nothing but cow pie in this case. I don't believe it, and the sooner you admit to loving her, the sooner you can grab happiness with both hands.”

Seth seemed to ponder her words long and hard.

Finally he said, “I'll admit Kirsten is unlike any woman I've ever known.”

Hazel seemed to sense the chink in his armor.

Craftily she said, “I'll make you a deal, son. Look me in the eye like an honorable Montanan, and tell me you don't love Kirsten Meadows. If you can do that, the ranch is yours, and your marriage is yours to do with what you want.”

She studied him with her notorious stare. “But if you can't do that right now, I give you only this advice, son—grab her. Grab her so tight, you'll never let her go.”

He lowered his head to his hands. “Hazel, you're killing me, you know that.”

“Just a few words and you're free, Seth. Free to do whatever you want. Free to ruin your life if you so desire. So what is it?”

He groaned. “Kirsten is like no other.” His head snapped up. His expression hardened with hidden frustration. “But because of that, I don't understand her. And so I've never been sure how to go about…well, I've never figured out how to approach—” He snuffed his last words, clearly censoring any confession.

A soft, slow, knowing smile lit on Hazel's mouth. With her gaze probing, she said, “Some
times you just gotta wrangle 'em. You get me, son?”

He met the cattle baroness's eyes. By his expression, it seemed that want fought with logic.

At last he confessed, “What if I wrangle her, and she just says no? Then what?”

Solemnly Hazel nodded her encouragement along with her no-nonsense advice. “If you love her, son, and she won't have you, then you take it like a McCallum. You leave her be, but don't go running in the opposite direction. That model isn't for you, Seth. Don't fool yourself.”

Seth rubbed his eyes, his only concession to Hazel's words.

“I'm used to getting what I want, Hazel,” he finally stated.

“Take it like a McCallum, son. State your case, bide your time and you just might be lucky enough to get what you want.”

He leaned his head back against the overly carved laminated rosewood. Several minutes ticked by as he ruminated over his choices, so many of which were beyond his control. Finally, in a fit of pique, he said, “You know what, Hazel. I think I can handle Wall Street over Mystery.”