Romantic Acquisition (14 page)

“If you don’t know the answers, isn’t it your job as the appointed
liaison
to find them for me?  Or is your mind too focused on getting back to Ed that you can’t focus on the current task.”

Kate’s eyes widened
and she gasped in shock
.  “You think I’m thinking of Ed?  Are you nuts?  With you around
,
” she poked him in the middle of his muscular chest, “
how in the world can anyone think of anything else?” she snapped back, then turned on her heel and walked away.  She went out into the mall a
nd found a small sandwich shop, fuming over his tirade and unjustified anger towards her lack of security knowledge. 

She ordered a sandwich and
grumbled
about the highha
ndedness of a particular male.  “Who does he think he is?” she asked the empty chair across from her.  “Ed indeed!” she mumbled. 

Unfortunately, the object of her fury sat down across from her.  He smiled to the waitress who instantly came running to him.  That just irritated Kate further since it had taken the waitress several minutes to acknowledge her when she’d sat down.  The waitress gushed over Carlo, offering suggestions for lunch, flirting outrageously at him.

Once he’d finished ordering, he sat back in his seat and smiled. 

“What’s so funny?” she snapped, her arms crossed over her chest
as she glared at the object of her frustration
. 

“
Y
ou have a temper.” He said, laughing out loud as her eyes
narrowed. 

“So do you, apparently,” she replie
d, throwing it back at him
.

He raised his hands in the air and nodded. 
“I admit it.  I was jealous.”

Kate rolled her eyes at his admission. 
“Why on earth were you jealous?”

He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table and stared right into her eyes.  “Because the idea of some other man doing the things to you and with you that I want to do drives me nuts,” he said intensely.

Kate’s mouth fell open. 

His head tilted slightly as he looked at her shocked expression. 
“This can’t be a shock to you.  I’ve been trying to get you to go to bed with me for weeks.  Hearing that there might be a reason why you won’t, or more to the point, someone who is keeping you
from doing so, possibly doing it himself…
well, that was a whole different issue.”

“But I haven’t seen Ed for a long time.  And we weren’t dating for a long time before that,” she explained. 

“Good to hear,” he replied and leaned back as the waitress brought their lunch.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to fall into bed with you,” she
grumbled and took a bite of her sandwich
.

He shrugged his shoulders. 
“You will, eventually.  I’m a patient man.  And very persuasive.”  He winked at her before he bit into his sandwich.  After that, he was all business, discussing some of his observations from the morning with her and asking her opinion about some other issues. 

Kate fell into the business discussion easily.  It was the personal ones she was wary of.  The day progressed easily after that.  They spent the rest of the afternoon in
Nancy
’s office going through receipts and accounting reports, asking questions and reviewing sales records. 
Nancy
was very thorough and knew all the answers to Carlo’s questions. 

The evening was wonderful as well. 
Nancy
’s two teenage daughters were out for the evening so it was just
Nancy
and her husband entertaining Kate and Carlo.  They ate out on their patio, the men standing over the grill with a beer in their hands while discussing football and grilling methods.  Kate and Nancy sat down on patio chairs and talked about the fashions coming out for the spring, the ones that had already been ordered for the store and the ones that they didn’t dare buy for their customers
because of their outrageous designs
. 

Kate and Carlo got back to the hotel late, almost
midnight
.  He didn’t make any moves, understanding that she was exhausted.  He simply took her key and unlocked her door for her, then turned and entered his own, right next door.

Kate didn’t have the energy to stay up worrying about the fact that he was only a wall away.  She fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. 

Carlo woke her at
six
o’clock the next morning.  He was already downstairs having coffee
as he called her on the hotel phone
. 

Kate muttered about slave drivers and cruelty towards inferiors as she hung up the phone.  The shower woke her up slightly and she dressed quickly, pulling on a pair of simple black slacks and a purple, fuzzy sweater that hugged her figure.  She didn’t have the energy to do anything fancy with her hair so she left it hanging down her back in waves. 

Entering the dining room, Kate instantly saw Carlo.  Again, he was being waited on by a very attentive and very buxom blond woman.  Kate slid into the chair on the opposite side of the table, ignoring the glare from the waitress. 

Carlo thanked
the waitress
and
she left but not before another jealous glare towards Kate.  “So why so early again this morning?  A
r
en’t we doing the
Dallas
store today?”

“Yep, but we need
to head out early since we can’t
fly there.”

Kate was extremely grateful to him.  She knew that it would only take a short flight to get to the Dallas store but he was willing to drive the
four
hour
s
to get there because of her concerns with the small plane. 

They drove out to the store after a large breakfast.  On the drive, Kate talked about the differences between the two stores, or at least the ones she knew about.  She traveled to all the stores each year but maintained sales figures and fashion trends from the headquarters in
Washington
,
D.C.
  She knew more about the
Houston
store because of her friendship with
Nancy
.  The two of them e-mailed back and forth with
Nancy
talking about the problems she was having as the manager.  Kate also was more in touch with the
Houston
shoppers because of
Nancy
’s input into the purchasing. 

The
Dallas
store was more modern than the
Houston
one but the same size in relative square footage.  The trends weren’t dramatically different though but there were some variations. 
Houston
was slightly more laid back than the
Dallas
shoppers who demanded more business suits whereas the
Houston
store stocked more casual clothes and less business attire. 

Kate and Carlo went through the store and Kate started to understand the pattern Carlo implemented as he toured.  It wasn’t exactly the same since they arrived after the store opened so he had to work around the shoppers, but he needed to know basically the same information.  This time, Kate worked with the department managers to get the data she suspected he’d need while he took an initial walk through the store.  They met back up with each other and Carlo asked her questions.  If she didn’t know the answer, she’d confer with the manager and they would both find the answers for him.  The
Dallas
manager, Brian
Armstrong
, was a very competent manager with a strong southern accent and a friendly manner.  The employees were relatively happy but still wanted the benefits back that they’d lost. 

They stayed the night in
Dallas
and Kate found out over dinner that night that they would be going to all the stores Jamison controlled.  “You’re kidding!” she said, dropping her fork onto her plate.  “But I only brought one change of clothes.”  She bit her lower lip.  “You didn’t mention that we’d be gone for a long period of time.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be a huge issue,” he laughed.  “We’re going to be in stores.  Why don’t you just pick up what you need each day and charge it to
ATI
?”

Kate liked the sound of that.  “Hmm…free clothes, anything I want?  What more could a woman ask for?” she said, her eyes alight with anticipation.

Carlo chuckled at her expression.  “Perhaps a man in your bed at night to warm you up?” he suggested.

“No, too complicated,” she said but her hand shook as she brought another bite of chicken to her mouth.  She had trouble swallowing, her mind too focused on the heat his suggestion generated inside her. 

The next nine days were the most
grueling
she’d ever endured.  By the following Saturday afternoon, she had figured out in her mind that Carlo wasn’t
a statue, wasn’t
really human.  He was simply a machine.  He could go without meals and sleep and seemed to thrive on work.  The more pressure and the more meetings, the better he looked and the more he seemed to accomplish.  Kate was astonished at his ability to absorb all the information people discussed with him without taking any notes. 

They went through the
San Antonio
store
then flew off to
Denver
,
Las Vegas
,
Los Angeles
and
San Francisco
then flew back across the country to the
New York City
,
Hartford
,
Connecticut
and finally the
Miami
,
Florida
store. 

Initially, she would just grab a simple outfit from each of the stores, complete with underwear and accessories and shoes.  But it wasn’t as fun as she’d initially thought it would be.  She didn’t have time to find something that was fun and interesting.  So she settled for professional and left it at that. 

The days followed the same pattern.  Carlo started working around
six o’clock
in the morning and didn’t stop until approximately seven or eight that night, sometimes later if there were things that needed to be resolved, or questions that hadn’t been answered and needed more research.  Some nights, they were working until
midnight
. 

The twelve to eighteen hour days were brutal for Kate.  On the third day, when she was told by Carlo that they would be moving across the country to the other stores, Kate took several hours to shop for more clothes, but that was her only time off and, unfortunately for her peace of mind, her only time away from Carlo. 

They ate all their meals together, talked about the various stores and their individual problems and how they could be fixed or improved.  Sometimes they argued, but most of the time, Carlo listened carefully to Kate’s opinion, adding his own thoughts to her ideas. 

By the end of the tenth day, t
he private plane dropped them off at the airport in
Washington
,
D.C.
in the early evening.  Kate pulled her new luggage out of the plane, not bothering to wait for someone to load it into her car.  She was feeling extremely depressed but couldn’t figure out why.  She was exhausted, hungry and wanted nothing more than to curl up into her own bed for the night. 

Why did she feel like crying then? 

She looked back at the airplane and saw Carlo talking with the pilot and she knew her answer.

She wouldn’t be with Carlo tonight or tomorrow
since it was Saturday
.  She was addicted to him, she realized.  She had been with him for so long she was now used to his hell for nothing work pace and
complete concentration on whatever task he was working through in his mind
.  She felt more alive with him than she ever had in her life
, more challenged professionally and even personally since they argued about politics and personal issues during some of the meals.  He made her laugh at the drop of a hat with his quick wit and dry humor.  He could also drive her to anger or frustration faster than any man she’d ever known.  She hadn’t know
n
she was so opinionated until she’d spent time talking through issues with him for the past week and a half
.