CHAPTER ONE

"Holy crap!" Ivy Kendall stared at the innocent looking pink memo slip and crossed herself. Not being Catholic, she wasn’t sure what good it would do. Did God have issues with that kind of thing?

Oh, man, she didn’t have time for a one-sided theological discussion with herself. Not when she needed to book tickets to Alaska, or maybe Zimbabwe, or how about the North Pole? Did they have computers in the North Pole? Sure as certain they didn’t have Blake Hawthorne - gorgeous, sexy, business mogul who just happened to run the hotel conglomerate she worked for.

A man who wasn’t content to use a mere Palm Pilot, his Rolex watch had been custom made with alarm and messaging functions. His cell phone had a built-in GPS device as well as Internet capability. She’d seen him use it, but one minute in Ivy’s company would have every last personal technology device malfunctioning.

"Poop sticks."

She frowned. Her twelve-year-old niece uttered the phrase with a lot more relish, knowing her mom couldn’t get her for swearing, but it didn’t satisfy Ivy’s sense of the moment at all.

Besides, her mother was in Florida living it up with Dad. She didn’t have to worry about this time of month anymore. She could walk into a computer lab and not worry about erasing a single hard drive. Ivy wasn’t so lucky and Blake Hawthorne, king of techno-toys was on his way this very minute.

It was a darn good thing Mom was far enough away not to hear the words bubbling up inside, ready to spew forth any second.

"Shit. Damn. Umm...never mind the f-word... Hell. Mary, Mother of Joseph..." Was that even a curse if you weren’t Catholic? "Crap," she said again for good measure, but none of her admittedly limited vocabulary of swear words did the least bit to relieve her panic.

Pretty soon, she was going to break out in hives and wouldn’t that be just what she needed? 

Her boss was coming. Today. In less than an hour if the memo had gotten the time correct.

She banged her head against her desk and groaned. How could she have missed the memo?

It had been sitting in her in-box under a message to call Ed, that’s how she could miss it. She’d rather have her teeth cleaned than go on another date with the man, but she was lousy at saying no to fragile people. Ed was more boring than a re-run of the Bob Hope Chrysler Golf Tournament, but he was also sensitive.

She’d convinced herself that if she didn’t actually pick up the message, she hadn’t really gotten it and she didn’t have to call him back. She’d been very careful not to read it once she got past the from line.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought to check if there was anything under it...until five minutes ago. Way too late to get on the next outbound flight for a remote village in Botswana. Even if she could get the flight, she couldn’t take it. She’d never be able to complete the drive between Delicious and Cleveland, the closest city with a major airport.

She’d stopped driving during this time of month after her last fender-bender. Admittedly they didn’t happen every full moon, but she wasn’t taking any more chances. After all, the last one had been how she’d met Ed.

"Is that a new pose for meditation?"

Her heart stopped beating. She was sure of it.

The message had been wrong, or he was early, either way, she was screwed.

Desperately sucking air in an attempt not to hyperventilate, she lifted her head. After a moment of shoring up her mental fortitude, she opened her eyes too. One look had her mentally cursing her inability to have the hi-tech phone system her staff could have used to warn her of her boss’s arrival.

She didn’t get up. Her legs were shaky, her body reacting predictably to the sight of the gorgeous blonde man standing so relaxed in her doorway. And why shouldn’t he be? He had nothing to fear...or at least didn’t realize he did. If he came much closer, thousands of dollars worth of personal technical gadgets were going to stop working.

Heck, maybe they already had. It was a blue moon coming up after all.

Nevertheless, she had to try to stave off disaster. Didn’t she? "Stay back."

His brows rose in question and his blue eyes pierced her with curiosity. "Not finished meditating?" he asked sardonically.

"I don’t meditate."

"I didn’t really think you did."

Right. "Then why...never mind. Uh, I...um...I think I’ve got a bug and I’m pretty sure it’s contagious. You should leave. Now."

He smiled, even white teeth reminding her of a tiger drawing back its lips to reveal the deadly fangs of a hunter. "I never get sick." Then he stepped into the room.

"I guess germs are too intimidated by you to take up residence," she muttered, her self-preservation instincts buried under stress.
His mouth quirked, but he kept coming, across the room, around her desk and finally, she had to swivel in her old fashioned wooden office chair to face him.

He stood over her, his big body giving off messages she had to be misinterpreting. Sexy, sensual, in her face with his masculinity messages. "Do I intimidate you, Ivy? Is that why you do everything short of quit your job in order to avoid the management training seminars?"

She swallowed, trying to wet a suddenly dry throat. "I don’t avoid the seminars."

"You weren’t at the last one."

"Something unavoidable came up."

A full moon. No way was she going to New York City to stay in a hotel with thirty-eight floors of rooms (all of them with their own computer operated climate control systems) when that big white nemesis hung so brightly in the sky.

"Something unavoidable has come up every seminar except two in the last three years."

What could she say? The coordinator’s timing stank worse than a skunk’s after-trail. But maybe her boss had gotten tired of her excuses.

"I only missed two seminars."

"Which means you’re at 50%; that’s a failing grade in anyone’s books." Why did he have to look so incredibly yummy while telling her off?

And he smelled nice too.

"I’m sorry."

His blue gaze pierced her. "I was too. I couldn’t help wondering if I had something to do with you avoiding the management training."

"You?" she squeaked and cleared her throat, trying for a look of insouciance she didn’t feel.

He leaned against her desk and crossed his arms. "You said I intimidate you."

Standing this close he did a lot more than intimidate her. He turned her on. Big time. Why couldn’t Ed have this affect on her? He wanted to marry her. Heck, he probably even wanted her to have his babies and then the whole women in her family’s curse-slash-gift-it-depends-on-how-you-look-at-it thing would be solved. Did it matter that she would probably die of terminal boredom in the first year of her marriage?

Yeah it probably did. She’d rather deal with a full moon and all its consequences.

"Ivy?"

"Huh?" Great. Now, she sounded like an idiot times six, or something.

This man was her boss. He ran a huge conglomerate of hotels and resorts. He was used to intelligent conversation from his employees, probably even expected it considering the type of testing you had to go through to get a job with HGA, Inc.

He sure wasn’t getting intelligent coherence right now. She tried really hard to remember what he’d said. Oh, yeah. "Not attending the management seminars had nothing to do with you. It was entirely personal."

"Hmmm..." He rubbed his chin with fingers she’d really rather have on her. "I suppose I have to believe you. After all, if I really did intimidate you, you would hardly turn down every request I’ve made for you to modernize the inn."

"Not every request. I was thrilled about the new carpeting and you must have noticed that we’re redoing the woodwork as well."

"Re-decorating is not modernization." His eyes flicked to the open ledger on her neatly ordered desk. "Most recently, you’ve resisted implementing a computer reservation and guest check-in system."

She scooted her chair back, unable to deal with his intense presence so close to her for one more second. "Old Orchard Inn is quaint People who come to stay here like the old fashioned atmosphere, including signing into a guestbook. It’s not one of HGA, Inc.’s big properties. We don’t need a fancy computer to keep track of eight guest rooms."

Blake had to agree. They didn’t need it, but why the hell was she so against having one?

Was she a technophobe? She was smart, and quick to pick up new things, he had a hard time believing she was intimidated by technology. But what other explanation was there?

Blake bit back a sigh and an impatient retort in the same moment of frustration. He’d bought the property three years ago with the intention of building the business and selling. It was too small for a company like HGA, Inc. to take seriously and he’d known that going in. He’d seen The Old Orchard Inn strictly in terms of short range ROI.

Then he’d met the inn’s manager. Ivy had passed the corporate employment tests and been offered a job with HGA, Inc. continuing in her current position before he’d met her face to face. He’d regretted that sequence of events many times over the last three years.

Ivy Kendall made his dick hard and his head feel like exploding within sixty seconds of coming into a room. Her slight body and heart shaped face weren’t exactly centerfold material, but she’d starred in more than one dream that left him hard and aching when he woke up.

He wanted her and he could not have her.

He never dated HGA, Inc. employees. It was too damn messy. Not only was there the whole potential sexual harassment issues, but there were a host of other complications that could arise as well. None of which he’d ever been willing to risk, but his rock solid commitment to that stance was wearing away as his need for the tiny technophobe grew.

That need was driving him crazier than her unwillingness to upgrade even to the minimum of putting in computer controlled central air and heating. He hadn’t pushed too hard, knowing that once the inn was upgraded, it would have to be sold. He got the impression Ivy had no interest working for HGA, Inc. at another property. If the inn was sold, he would probably never see her again. The thought bothered him more than it should. It had certainly made him more accommodating with her than he was with any of his other property managers.

That accommodation was coming to an end. "The inn has the lowest percentage of customer complaints of any of our properties."
She smiled tentatively, her brown eyes wary. "That’s good, right?"

"Yes, except every single complaint says the same thing."

She chewed on her bottom lip, an expression of resigned understanding stealing over her sweet features. "The guests want central air conditioning."

"Yes."

"We can give them that without giving up the old world ambiance of the inn and getting rid of the radiator heaters."

"What would be the point? If we have to run duct work, it might as well be for the whole shebang." There was such a thing as taking the whole ambiance thing too far.

"But do eight rooms really need separate, computer controlled climate controls?"

"Yes and if you had attended the last management seminar, you’d know why."

"Seventy percent of our business is repeat customers." She sounded almost desperate.

"Who are also paying only about seventy percent of the room rates they would be paying in a more modernized facility."

"I don’t like the idea of modernizing just so we can gouge our customers."

"Your resume says you have a degree in business." It was only a two-year degree from a correspondence school, but even so, she should have gotten some idea of normal business practices.

Her brow pleated in a way he found too cute to be even remotely professional. "Yes."

"Raising rates to accepted industry levels is not gouging your customers."

She winced. "I guess not."

"So, are we agreed that the inn will have to be upgraded?"

Her eyes filled with a sadness he did not understand. "Even if I don’t agree, you’re going to go ahead with it anyway, aren’t you?"

Right in that moment, he wished he could say no. She looked so damn forlorn. "Corporate’s made the decision."

"I thought you were corporate."

"I am responsible to a board of directors." Which he could have bucked, but what would have been the point? He agreed with the consensus.

The inn needed to be upgraded and then sold.

"Ivy, Ed’s at the front desk. He asked if you were in?" The desk clerk made what should have been a sentence sound like a question.

Younger than Ivy, her eyes were alight with both interest and some sort of female telepathic understanding.

Ivy groaned and stood up. "That’s all this day needs. Um...Trudy, I don’t suppose you could tell him I’m busy with my boss?" She turned to Blake. "I am busy, aren’t I?" she asked with a tone that implied his interruption into her otherwise neatly ordered existence should count for something.

"Yes, and you will be busy in consultations with me for the next several days." Where the possessiveness came from he didn’t know, or care to analyze, but he did not want Ivy going out with another man while he was in Delicious, Ohio.

Trudy’s eyes widened and then narrowed on Blake in obvious appraisal, but she only said, "I’ll tell him," and left.

Ivy stood up and pushed her chair into place at her desk with precise movements, then stepped back two paces and faced him. The smooth lines of her small face were tight with determination. "So, will two week’s notice be sufficient, or do you require a month?"