One eyebrow rose and he took another sip of his brandy, welcoming the steady fire. “Hotel guy? Yeah. I suppose I am. How’d you know?”
She smiled. “Just a guess. Hunter’s Landing isn’t exactly on the moon. We get newspapers and magazines here, too. Which one of your hotels is your favorite?”
He shrugged carelessly. “I don’t really have a favorite, they’re all top-of-the-line establishments, each of them with their own unique pluses and minuses.”
“Boy, feel the enthusiasm.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Well, come on, Nathan, you own four-star hotels—”
“Five-star,” he amended automatically.
“Right. In beautiful, exotic places all over the world. You talk about them as if they’re nothing special. As if they’re no different from any other exclusive hotels. Is that really what you think?”
Nathan frowned, sat down beside her and instantly appreciated the heat of the fire warming his back. “It’s the family business, Keira. They’re valuable properties with impeccable reputations that I work hard to maintain.”
“Uh-huh,” she said and nudged his upper arm with her shoulder. “And do you ever drop in on one in say…Paris, or Dublin…just for fun?”
“No,” he said and wondered why he cared that she looked disappointed at his statement. “I have a rigorous schedule I adhere to. The managers of the hotels know when I’m coming, know to have everything ready for my inspection and—”
She sighed.
“What?”
“Do they salute? Click their heels together when you walk into a room?”
He scowled at her. “I’m not a general or something.”
“Could have fooled me,” she muttered, and took another sip of brandy. “Seriously, do you scare all the people who work for you? I bet you do.”
“Certainly not,” Nathan said and wondered why he suddenly sounded so damn pompous, even to himself.
“You know,” she said, lifting her brandy glass to peer at the room through the amber liquid, “if you changed up your schedule once in a while, you might actually catch people unaware. Find out what life in your hotels is really like.”
He stared at her, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her words, though, were running through his brain as if they’d been etched in neon. Funny, but he’d never thought to do something like that. He was a man who lived his life as efficiently as possible. And to do that, he required a schedule. But…
“You mean, I should show up when they’re not expecting me?”
“Why not?” she mused. “They’re your hotels, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but a schedule is necessary to maintain some kind of order.”
“And if the kids know that daddy’s coming home, they’re on their best behavior.”
Frowning, Nathan kept staring at her until she finally turned and looked at him, her eyes wide.
“What?” she asked.
“I can’t believe I never thought of that.”
“Me, neither,” she said, smiling. “For heaven’s sake, Nathan, do you ever do something that you don’t have scheduled? Do you ever take a little time out for yourself? You’re wound so tight, it gives me a headache.”
He sighed and shrugged. “In my world, there’s no time for relaxing.”
“You should make time.” She turned on the hearth, laid one hand on his forearm and asked, “For instance, when you’re at one of your fabulous, oh-so-exclusive hotels, do you ever take a swim? Get a massage? Sightsee?”
“No. I’m not there for pleasure—”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
“People all over the world want to go to your hotels to experience something amazing. I’ve seen some of them on TV. And in magazines. God, the one in London, I would actually kill to stay in.”
He smiled, picturing the stately stone entrance of the London Barrister with its sweeping marble floors and Old World chandeliers in the lobby.
“It is beautiful,” he mused, surprised that he hadn’t really appreciated the place until seeing it through Keira’s enthusiasm.
“It’s amazing,” she said with a sigh. “Some rock star held an interview in the penthouse suite and the news covered it—there was an incredible view of London.”
“The view from the owner’s suite is even more impressive,” he told her, picturing it vividly now in his mind. “You can see Big Ben in the distance and the Millennium Wheel.”
“The huge Ferris wheel!” she cried and grabbed his arm hard. “Have you ridden it?” She paused, and said, “Of course you haven’t. Honestly, Nathan, don’t you ever have any fun?”
A little insulted, he said, “Sure I do.”
“Prove it. Name one thing you’ve done just for fun in the last month,” she challenged.
“I sat on a stone hearth letting a beautiful woman insult me.”
She tipped her head to one side, gave him a smile that made his heart jitter in his chest and repeated, “Beautiful?”
“Figures that’s the part you heard.”
Her smile brightened into a grin. “Well, duh.”
He really enjoyed the flash of humor in her eyes. And for the first time in way too long, he realized there wasn’t a steel band wrapped around his middle. There was no pressure pounding through him. No hurry to get work done. To check his e-mail. To leave the lodge.
Because suddenly and completely, there was simply nowhere else on earth he’d rather be.
The quiet between them stretched on for another minute or two, the only sound in the room, the snap and hiss of the fire behind them. Shadows stretched across the room and, outside, dots of white swirled in ever changing patterns driven by the wind.
“I envy you,” she said quietly. “All the places you’ve seen.”
“You like traveling?”
“Never really traveled much, but yeah, I think I would.” She folded her legs up beneath her on the stone, her white socks standing out brilliantly against her dark denim jeans. “I had big plans,” she admitted. “When I was a teenager, I went to bookstores and bought street maps of foreign cities. If you had dropped me into the middle of Paris, I could have found my way around blindfolded, I studied those maps so often. London, Dublin, Barcelona, Rome, oh…Venice.” Her voice took on a dreamy quality that tugged at something deep inside him. “I wanted to drink wine while riding in a gondola. And see the windmills in Holland, and the Swiss Alps…”