* * *
CHASE BRADLEY COULD only blame himself for the current situation. Not that he hadn’t always made his non-intentions very clear to Brianna, but he’d realized quite early in their short relationship that she suffered from selective listening. She simply didn’t hear anything that would counter her world view—the world that revolved around her.
He frowned. What did it say about him that he’d continued to see her for three months after coming to that conclusion?
It said he’d been too consumed with the changeover in the family business to take care of personal business. Hell, he should be smarter than that.
He tuned back into Brianna’s rant. She was stabbing her arm in the direction of the exploded suitcase. “Who?” she demanded. “Who is going to take care of this?”
Since he wasn’t the one who had kicked the piece of luggage down the stairs, it wasn’t going to be him. “Brianna, calm down,” he said mildly.
Her face turned a mottled shade of red. “You do realize I’m leaving?”
“It’s what you shouted right after I said I wasn’t planning on proposing.”
Brianna slammed her arms over her chest. “But I told you New Year’s Eve would be the perfect time for an announcement,” she fumed.
Chase shook his head. Where had she gotten the idea that they were marriage bound? That he hadn’t seen this coming only made him curse himself more. “Brianna, I’m sorry. Truly. I’m sorry if you had the impression we were aiming toward the altar. That’s not going to happen.”
“Then I’m really leaving you!”
To be fair to himself, until today, she’d been mostly undemanding and understanding. Self-centered, maybe, but he’d actually appreciated the email she’d sent with links to the Christmas presents she’d expected him to give her last week. Chase abhorred pretense, and he’d counted her honesty about that list as a feature, not a defect. “I’ll have Gregory bring the car around. He’ll be happy to take you back to LA.”
Though Chase usually avoided all the car-and-driver nonsense, this time he’d taken one of the company limos, thinking it might come in handy for his guests during the week at the lake house. Now it was coming in handy for him.
The expression on Brianna’s face indicated she wasn’t mollified by the offer. Chase watched her haul in a large breath and he braced for the next onslaught. “I’m not going without my clothes,” she declared in a strident voice.
“I wouldn’t dream of suggesting you should,” Chase replied, and he could see his reasonable tone was only further infuriating her. “I’ll let Gregory know to be ready if you’ll tell me how long it will take you to repack.”
“Me?”
Wow. Now she was acting as if she regularly had a handmaiden to attend her. Chase held on to his own kindling temper. “Brianna—”
“Mr. Bradley?”
He turned his head slightly in the direction of the hesitant voice. Peeking around a corner downstairs was the caterer. “Yes, Mrs. Erwin?”
“Is there something I could do to help?” There was a look of concern on her motherly face.
“Thank you, but no,” he said firmly. “I’m sure you’re quite busy as it is in the kitchen.”
A brief pause, and then she turned, presumably heading back to her domain. But another movement caught his attention, and he narrowed his eyes, tilting his head to get a better look. Someone was in Mrs. Erwin’s wake. She had a glossy head of espresso-dark hair and wore a sort of robe thing that didn’t detract from a pair of excellent legs dressed in decadent lace.
“Who was that?” Brianna asked, her voice suspicious. She craned her neck to see where he’d been looking.
Perhaps that niggle of interest he felt was showing on his face. He wiped it clean. “The caterer.” And someone else. An employee of Mrs. Erwin? No matter, he thought, dismissing the minor mystery. He was trying to smoothly detach from one woman, not get entangled with another.
It took several more minutes to usher Brianna from the house. She finally ended up throwing her clothes back in her suitcase with ill grace. Chase hunted up a couple of bungee cords to keep the thing together since the latches had broken on its tumble. As he carried the luggage out to the car, he endured her parting shots.
It wasn’t pleasant, but then it was over.
As the car disappeared down the drive, he tried to scare up a holiday mood. His guests would arrive soon and they’d expect him to be a genial and entertaining host. But the scene with Brianna lingered in his mind as he climbed the steps to the front door. His gut had let him down, he decided, and that wasn’t good. It should have been talking to him from the beginning with her, sending out warnings on a regular basis.
Stifling a sigh, he turned the knob and pushed on the paneled wood to let himself into the house. His gaze instantly caught on a pair of lace-wrapped legs climbing the staircase. Their owner’s thick, wavy hair bounced against her shoulder blades with each step. The clean, enticing scent of flowers lingered in the air.
His gut began clamoring. Follow that one. Find out who she is. See where she’s been all our life.
Oh, sure. Now it started talking. Which just went to prove the current out-of-whack state of his instincts. With a busy week ahead, this was not the time to be distracted by a pretty pair of legs. Even a stupendous pair of legs, which hers actually were.
Deliberately turning his mind from that fact, he wheeled left and headed toward the office on the first floor. It was time to go over the guest list and the plans his mother had laid out for the week. His phone vibrated and he pulled it free from his pocket, grinning when he saw the photo his brother-in-law had texted. His new niece, Larissa Larue. Leave it to his sister to come up with such a fanciful name—she took after their mother that way.
He texted back, A beauty! And she was, even with that scrunched little face and the pink stocking cap pulled down nearly to her nonexistent eyebrows.
Feeling more upbeat, he settled behind the big desk and pulled up the files he wanted on his laptop. The house party would total twenty-four—no, twenty-three now that Brianna had decamped. Eleven couples and himself. Mrs. Erwin would be in the kitchen every day, ensuring they all were well fed. A handful of servers in her employ would help at the meals. A local cleaning service would send a daily crew to take care of the housekeeping.
He wondered if Lacey Legs was attached to either the caterer or the cleaners. Would he have the opportunity to see her every day? Would her front be as attractive as her back?
On a silent groan at his own lack of control, he spun his chair to look out the mullioned windows at the view overlooking the lake. It was nearing dark, but he could still make out the winter blue of the water. At this time of day, it was almost slate-colored, with the fir trees a dark contrast against the white slopes of the surrounding mountains. It never ceased to amaze him that a couple of hours away were LA’s famous beaches and graceful palm trees, while here it was craggy peaks and towering conifers. His mind wandered again. Had Lacey Legs grown up in the mountains?
All right. Time for a better distraction. Good smells had made their way from the kitchen, and he decided he had very good reasons to check in with Mrs. Erwin. The bar should be set up in the great hall shortly and he could ask her about that, too, though a bartender would do all the heavy lifting once the guests arrived.
In the kitchen, he found the caterer bustling about, instructing servers in black pants and white shirts about where to find the serving trays. Two of them were young men. The young women had their hair in neat ponytails. None of them wore lace or had that shiny hair that he couldn’t free from his thoughts.
Mrs. Erwin turned to him. “Is there something you need?”
“The