“Do you really even care what I say about Rathskeller? You hardly seem invested in the place—beyond financially, I mean.”
“I don’t give a shit what you think about Rathskeller,” Landon corrected, looking through her peeling, yellowing cabinets for another wine glass. “But when you put it in print, share it with the town, and my business drops 5%, I start to get a little bothered.” Finding one, he gave himself a generous pour.
“Did I invite you to stay?” Kaitlyn asked, eyeballing the thirty dollars of wine to which he was helping himself. Why hadn’t she opened a cheaper vintage? Oh right, because she hadn’t expected to be sharing. Then she made the mistake of looking into his face and saw the smirk quirking up his hard mouth. She frowned, what had she—oh. “I mean,” she corrected herself quickly, “you aren’t staying. So you hardly need half a bottle of wine.”
“I think we have a few things to work out before I pack my overnight bag,” Landon said silkily. “For one thing, this place needs to be fumigated first. But I’m not saying no to a quick roll on the linoleum.”
Kaitlyn bit off a sharp laugh. “You don’t have to, I’m not offering.”
He drank deeply, his eyes locked on hers.
He was too close, Kaitlyn thought breathlessly. The fucking apartment wasn’t big enough to get away from him. Maybe in the glorious, open-concept condo she could have gotten enough space between them without looking like she was retreating, but here, she was going to have to stand her ground.
It’s a kitchen, Kaitlyn, she told herself fiercely. You have been in the kitchen with men who stood too close before. You know what to do. Granted, they hadn’t been men who looked like Landon James. And she didn’t have that embarrassing, irritating memory of having been half in love with him when she was a gangly thirteen-year-old. Fifteen years ago, he was already well on his way to being devastatingly handsome. High school girls had flocked to the restaurant to see him. “Can we have a view of the kitchen?” they’d ask Gilles hopefully, who would always find a place where they could catch glimpses of Landon without having a direct line of sight into the kitchen. Girls had come for Grayson, too, of course, but Kaitlyn hadn’t hated those girls and so they didn’t stand out in her memory.
“Stalkers at table 9,” she’d say spitefully, and he’d get that smirk, the same one he was giving her now. The one that had always been arrogant, but now seemed predatory. Kaitlyn set her wine on the counter to keep from gulping it down. She had to keep a clear head because he wasn’t the boy he’d been fifteen years ago. He had grown up every bit as good-looking as his genetics had promised, and he’d inherited the aura of power that had clung to Randolph James. He wasn’t Grayson’s best friend anymore, he was his father’s son. And that made him as dangerous as any snake.
A snake who was speaking, she realized.
“Take down the review, Kait,” he was saying quietly. “I don’t want to make this ugly for you, but I will.”
“Ugly how?” she asked with a laugh she hoped sounded contemptuous rather than choked.
“I could pull my investment out of LeClarks.” Moving so quickly she didn’t even have time to consider retreating, he caught her hand and held it up. Under the fluorescent lights, every broken nail looked especially jagged, and her skinned knuckles looked raw and red. Kait studied her hand with interest. It had been a long time since she’d worked so hard they looked like this. It didn’t embarrass her, not even in front of Landon. It felt good to be in her own kitchen again, even if she was just cleaning it so far.
Then what he’d said sank in, and her gaze raised to his.
He nodded. “Think about it. It’ll take you another two weeks to get that place into shape without the extra help Gray’s hiring.”
Furious, Kaitlyn tried to yank her hand free, but his long fingers tightened around her wrist.
“Pull it then,” she snapped. “I’d rather clean the whole thing with my toothbrush than take your money.”
Landon studied her and saw the truth behind her hot words. She didn’t have Gray’s cool logic that was constantly calculating how every month of rent without income pushed them further into the red. His money wouldn’t move her an inch. It was a rare woman who wasn’t moved by his money, and it only intensified his interest in her.
Ignoring her efforts to free herself, he sipped his wine and considered. If not money, what would sway Kaitlyn LeClark? He didn’t know her well enough to target what she loved, besides LeClarks. But he knew well enough to know what she hated. And Landon excelled in negative reinforcement.
“Okay,” he said slowly, relishing the beauty of the idea that had come to him. “Here’s the deal. Take down your review and issue a retraction, or I will be at LeClarks every single day looking after my investment.”
Kaitlyn froze. “You wouldn’t.”
Landon shrugged, “You’re costing me money with Rathskeller, Kait. I’ve got to make sure the new LeClarks makes up for that, don’t I?”
Kaitlyn’s voice sounded desperate even to her own ears. “My review is costing you pennies. You probably spent 5% of Rathskeller’s weekly net income on your tie.”
That was true, in fact, but that wasn’t the point. “Are you going to take it down?” Landon asked, knowing the answer even before she spat it out.
“No way in hell.”
His lips curled, and Kaitlyn got the feeling that was exactly what he wanted to hear. She lost her breath. Damn him. He wanted something from her, she knew that look, but she couldn’t figure out why. He was Landon James. He could have anyone and
