Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
A knock sounded on Hunter’s door. He looked up to find his right-hand man and CFO standing in the doorway. “Katrina Holmes with Jameson and Holt declined. Do you want me to make the offer to Bayland Marketing?” he asked with little emotion.
The man’s lack of emotion didn’t surprise him.
Aaron was a no-nonsense guy, and any of the four marketing firms they interviewed could certainly do the job, but the executive team decided they liked Katrina’s presentation best and offered the account to her firm.
Bayland ranked second. He certainly supported his team’s ranking.
Especially since she came out on top, but he knew she’d decline the offer.
“Not yet. Give me her contact information.”
“I’ll email it.”
“Okay.”
“Did she give a reason?”
Aaron shrugged. “Something about not being a good fit, which makes no sense at all. It’s a marketing firm. They market all different types of products. But whatever.”
Aaron spun around and exited the room.
How in the hell was he going to leave her alone as she wished, and get her to accept the marketing contract offer at the same time?
He could reach out to the owners of Jameson and Holt and make sure they knew of the offer which could force her into accepting it, but that would probably make him look like a controlling ass and might get her into trouble if they found out she declined the offer. No, that idea wasn’t an option.
Dammit. He needed to accept that they would never be together, but he didn’t want to, especially since he’d laid eyes on her again. She was all he thought about over the past three days.
He couldn’t sleep. His stomach swirled with anxiety to the point he couldn’t eat.
He couldn’t even think straight. As for his chest, for chrissake, he thought he was having a heart attack.
These feelings hadn’t been this strong since the initial weeks following her cutting him loose almost ten years ago.
Why did she have to pop up in his life after all this time?
Now that she had, he didn’t know if he had the strength to walk away from her again.
Screw it. He opened his email to find one from Aaron with Katrina’s contact info, then he yanked the handset off the phone and dialed her number. On the third ring, Hunter assumed she would avoid the call altogether since Stars Sporting Goods likely popped up on her phone display.
“Katrina Holmes, how may I help you?”
His heart instantly fluttered at the sound of her sweet voice.
“Hi. It’s Hunter. My CEO just informed me you declined our offer.”
After a couple of beats of silence, she replied, “That’s true.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Your credentials and pitch were the best of all the competing firms, and we’d love to have you handle this account.”
It was difficult to speak professionally and not beg her to take the job on a personal level. He hoped this approach would have her reconsider taking the job.
“It’s very kind of you to call, but I just don’t think it is a good idea.”
The crack of her voice at the end of her sentence let him know that this happenstance meeting of theirs had put her in a tailspin of emotions as well.
“Will you at least think about it for a few days?”
“I can’t.” But there was enough hesitation before she answered that he knew she wanted to.
“Katrina...” he said and paused. It didn’t sound right to call her Katrina rather than Hannah, but he’d do it to prove he could keep her secret. Maybe that way she’d reconsider taking the job and seeing him.
He cleared his throat. “Katrina Holmes, I’d like to take you to dinner tonight. How does six o’clock at Malone’s Steak House sound? I can pick you up at five-thirty, or we could meet there if you’d prefer.”
The silence was excruciating. He’d never felt so vulnerable. He wanted to see her so badly.
“I don’t like to be seen in public much.”
He blew out a relieved breath. It wasn’t a hard no.
“I’m a master at grilling steaks. I can cook for you at my place, or bring takeout to yours.”
Like a teenager, he crossed his fingers, waiting for her response.
“It’s probably best and more discreet for me to come to your place. Text me your address. What can I bring?”
Adrenaline rushed through him so hard, his extremities shook.
He drew in a breath to calm himself.
“Just yourself. I’ll text my address. See you at five-thirty.”
“Okay. Bye.”
Hunter hung up the phone receiver and leaped out of his chair.
After pacing his large office a couple of times, he sat back down and mentally prepared his menu.
He’d grill some ribeyes, potatoes, and asparagus.
For dessert, some Dutch apple pie with ice cream.
The steaks he’d pick up from Downtown Market.
They had the best steaks and nothing but the best for Hannah.
Katrina, he reminded himself. That part was going to be difficult.
The rest of the items he’d get at the supermarket.
This meal had to be perfect. This night had to be perfect.
Though the office closed at five o’clock, he left at four.
He liked to lead by example, so he rarely left early, but today he practically ran out of the building an hour early.
At Downtown Market, he picked out the two biggest ribeyes they had.
At the supermarket, he grabbed the vegetables, pie, ice cream, and two bottles of red wine.
He had beer at the house, but maybe she liked wine.
He didn’t know, and he wanted to be prepared.
Once home, he seasoned the steaks and busied himself with cleaning up his large house.
It wasn’t like it was a mess or anything; he lived alone, but he tidied up the papers on his desk in his home office.
Then, he organized the sporting goods samples wholesalers had sent to him for review, hoping he’d stock them in his stores. He loved trying out new products.
He returned to the kitchen, grabbed the potatoes, and put them on the grill just outside the sliding patio doors.
Back inside, he dusted off the dining room table that he never used, but planned to use tonight. Then, he snagged the table settings from the cupboards.
Why was he so nervous? Why, because the stakes were high and he had everything to lose all over again.
Katrina wrapped her nervous fingers around her steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Relax.
She shouldn’t have agreed to this dinner, but couldn’t help herself. She wanted to be with Hunter. Her desire for this man had always been strong, but until she saw him again three days ago, she’d done a good job of ignoring her desire to see him.
Seeing him in person, hearing his deep voice, staring into those warm chestnut eyes had her arguing with herself to let him back into her life. Still, the danger was real, and if the Garcias connected her to Hunter, it could mean trouble for both of them.
A lump rose in her throat. She’d put Hunter, her family, and friends in danger before, and it didn’t end well for most of them.
After she and her brothers changed their names and went into their own form of hiding, the fear of threats to their lives lessened.
Her brother’s fear as well, she assumed, because as far as she knew, her brothers had never actually been threatened.
She wondered if their hiding stopped threats, or were there never any to begin with?
Since Sebastián was in prison, that probably had something to do with it as well.
Yet his family was still on the loose. Maybe the Garcias thought better of more deaths in her family and the negative attention it would bring them.
How was it that nobody other than her and her brothers could see that the Garcias were behind the murders of Alyssa and her parents?
Would things change when Sebastián got out of prison? Would he come after her?
Katrina spun her car around and headed back to her apartment. Being with Hunter was too risky, and she needed to cut him off now, before she got in so deep that she couldn’t.
Tears of anger burned her eyes. Dammit. She had a life to live and wanted so badly to live it.
She pulled a U-turn at the next intersection and drove toward Hunter’s home located on Eagle Lake. Eagle Lake was in Door County, south of Sturgeon Bay. She’d seen the sign for it plenty of times when she frequented the state parks in Door County, but she’d never actually viewed the lake.
Once on the highway, it only took a few minutes to see the sign.
She turned right onto the county road lined with woods.
About a mile or so down the road, the woods cleared, and the large homes that lined the lake came into view.
To live in this neighborhood was another sign that Hunter had done well for himself.
According to the GPS, she could see that Hunter’s home was on the north side of the lake, settled on a point. Most of the homes looked new, and the newer ones were much larger than the few older ones, which seemed little more than cottages. The earlier settlers on the lake, she presumed.
A large, two-story log home came into view, and before verifying the house number on the mailbox, she knew that it was Hunter’s. That style of home suited him. It looked lovely.
She pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. Before she even opened the door, Hunter stood next to her vehicle.
“I’m so glad you came,” he said.
The well remembered amber hues of his eyes comforted her, wiping away some of the anxiety swirling in her brain.
“Me, too,” she replied.
His smile widened.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said as he gestured toward his home, which certainly did not qualify as humble.
“Thank you. It looks lovely.”
“Let me give you the outside tour, then we’ll go in.”
She nodded as she flung her handbag over her shoulder and shut the SUV door.
“Well, here’s the front,” he said with a nervous chuckle that showed he was as nervous as she was.