The Bachelor Boss. Julianna Morris

realizing he’d worked through lunch again. He had to admit the bed-and-breakfast project had some interesting aspects, but what still boggled his mind was that Kane had promoted Libby Dumont. Vice president? She might be all right in a division that handled corporate giving, but new developments?

      His brother was going soft in the head. Beth was a great wife and sister-in-law, but if that’s what falling in love did to you, the rest of the world could keep it.

      Love did strange things to people.

      Restless all at once, Neil paced around the room, then stood at the window and looked out at the Puget Sound. It was a rare, cloudless day in Seattle, the sun shining brightly on the water. A ferry chugged away from the shore, with seagulls soaring and swooping in the air above.

      He usually tried not to think about how his father had given up the work he cherished—handcrafting fine wood furniture—to take a higher paying job in the forest industry. A job that eventually killed him, just to support a growing family.

      There were too many tradeoffs to love and marriage, and Neil knew he was too selfish to make them. It was better to be honest with himself, than to get married and end up in a bitter divorce, making everyone miserable.

      The phone on the desk rang. It was Margie, telling him that Libby was waiting for their appointment.

      “Tell her to come in.”

      Libby walked inside with an I’m-going-to-be-nice-to-the-jackass-if-it-kills-me expression on her face.

      “Good afternoon, Mr. O’Rourke.”

      He looked at her narrowly. That “Mr. O’Rourke” nonsense would have to end. Sooner or later he’d get her to call him Neil. It was a challenge, and he loved challenges.

      “Good afternoon, Miss Dumont,” he mimicked back. “You do know my first name, don’t you?”

      “Of course,” she said evenly.

      “Then use it.”

      “I’m not the only employee who calls you Mr. O’Rourke,” Libby murmured.

      Neil frowned. Come to think of it, she was right.

      “But just your subordinates,” she added. “So you have nothing to worry about. I mean, it’s a little stuffy, but who cares when you’re in charge, right?”

      “I’m not a snob, Libby. I’ve never insisted on that kind of formality,” he said, stung.

      “But you’ve never invited us peons to call you Neil, either.”

      “I did this morning and it didn’t do any good. You still insist on using Mr. O’Rourke,” Neil snapped. “And nobody’s a peon at O’Rourke Enterprises. You damn well know that.”

      Libby took a breath. She couldn’t believe she’d let her tongue run away with her that morning, and now she was doing it again. After a lifetime of being a well-behaved preacher’s daughter, watching what she said and trying to be tactful no matter what the situation, she’d totally lost it.

      Of course, by all accounts, tact wasn’t high on Neil O’Rourke’s list of priorities.

      “Maybe we should just talk about the B and B proposal,” she said quickly.

      “Suits me. Where do you think we should start looking for properties? I’ve made some notes, but I should hear your ideas about it before we go ahead.”

      Libby wanted to say Endicott, her hometown. If a community ever needed development, it was Endicott. But that would convince him more than ever that she was too sentimental to be “executive” material.

      “We could write various historical societies and ask if they know of any likely houses that would meet our purpose,” she suggested instead.

      Neil shook his head. “It’s bad enough we have to talk to them at all, but you’ll get them up in arms before we even start,” he declared.

      “They might decide to work with us, you know. For the chance of saving a piece of history.”

      “Sure, and I believe in leprechauns.”

      Libby doubted Neil had ever believed in something so whimsical, even as a boy.

      “Do you have a better suggestion?” she asked.

      “Yes. We could assign a team to scout locations. Other teams can work on acquisitions and restoration.”

      Her chin lifted. “Well, that certainly has the personal touch Kane and Beth have in mind for the project.”

      Neil glared. “Fine, then we’ll do it together. All of it. The two of us, every step of the way. That should have a personal enough touch to suit you.”

      Swell.

      She really wanted to spend more time with him—about as much as she wanted to slam her hand in a car door. It was more opportunity to say something foolish, something he’d laugh about. She was still squirming over the things she’d said earlier, making it sound as if just thinking about sex was a terrible sin.

      Libby thought about sex.

      She thought about it a lot.

      Actually, sometimes sex was all she could think of, though she usually tried to blame it on hormones and being that time of the month. But she wanted to be with someone she loved, who loved her, someone who wanted to hold her during the night instead of calculating the fastest way out the door the minute his breathing slowed.

      That someone wasn’t Neil O’Rourke.

      He wanted success, power, and a life of travel and accomplishment, equating marriage to sacrifice. Sacrifice. No woman in her right mind wanted a man who considered her a sacrifice, no matter how good-looking he might be. It wasn’t worth the heartache.

      And she didn’t even know why she was thinking about it except she’d never reacted to any man more strongly than Neil.

      Blast.

      It wasn’t fair that he could turn her inside out with-out even knowing he’d done it. She’d gone for months at a time without thinking about the man, and then only in passing, but now her head was filled with wayward thoughts.

      Maybe it was knowing he wasn’t going anywhere. This time she was stuck with him.

      “A historical bed-and-breakfast line wasn’t my idea,” she said, trying to sound calm. “You don’t have to be annoyed with me for wanting to do things the way Kane asked.”

      “Whatever. Just stay here,” Neil ordered, getting up and stomping out.

      “Stay?” Libby scowled at his empty chair.

      She wasn’t a golden retriever he could order to stay put. Then she shrugged, deciding she’d have to pick her battles carefully when it came to Neil. Otherwise she’d never stop arguing with the man, being as he was the most annoying person on the planet.

      After a few minutes he returned with a load of phone books in his arms.

      “I got these from the secretarial pool,” he said, dropping them in a heap on the couch. “We’ll go through them and start making calls to real estate agents about likely properties.

      Libby lifted one of the dog-eared phone books in disbelief. The thing was eight years old. Hadn’t Neil ever heard of the Internet? The information highway loaded with helpful items like up-to-date phone numbers? He must have dug these out of a back cabinet somebody had forgotten.

      A bubble of laughter struggled for release in her throat.

      He had to be totally rattled, beyond thinking clearly. They hadn’t even talked about what towns to start in, but his first course of action was to bring in some ancient phone books and randomly start contacting real estate agents?

      “Start calling,” Neil said. “That’s a separate phone line over by the couch.”

      Within