A Moment of Bliss Read Online Free PDF Page A

politeness from earlier, not a sly business smirk, but a full-on, light-in-her-eyes smile. Roark had finally managed to say something funny.
    He wore a dopey grin right now, he just knew it. The pull in his face, the warm hum along his cheeks. Dammit, he probably looked ridiculous, but he couldn’t help it. He’d gotten her to laugh.
    Madison grabbed up her portfolio and straightened. “Um. I should probably . . . talk to your hospitality manager? And see more of the restaurant before the dinner crowd arrives?”
    Roark dropped his smile. “Yeah? I mean, yes. He is in charge of hospitality, after all. Wright might be free as well. I need to finish up some things in the office.”
    A moment for Roark to refocus on business and not on whatever the hell he was doing might be a good idea, but he wasn’t ready for Dev to take over the tour completely.
    In fact, he downright didn’t want to give her up. “How about, when you’re done in the restaurant, you can stop by the office and we’ll see the rest of the inn?”
    Madison nodded, and her feet click-clacked, rapid fire, against the veranda’s stone floor as she hurried back inside.
    Roark followed, made the polite introductions, and got the hell out of the restaurant. He made it to his office, closed the door, and slumped in his too big, too old desk chair.
    What in blazes was he doing?
    He wouldn’t deny he found Madison attractive. Insisting otherwise was pointless, and he didn’t do things that were pointless—but damn. He needed to get himself together.
    Madison was gorgeous, smart, and he was about two seconds from asking her out for drinks. The problem was, she wasn’t some woman he’d met in town. She was a potentially huge client for Honeywilde, and clients and guests were off limits.
    Not only that, but he knew better than to flirt with her. It was unprofessional. Madison probably got hit on by businessmen all the time, and he bet she loathed it. Roark wasn’t going to be that guy. He wasn’t that guy. That guy was an ass.
    Now . . . if he’d met Madison at a pub or been introduced by friends, that’d be a different story. He’d ask her out for coffee or lunch, then a dinner date. But that wasn’t the case here. She might be booking an event here, and that mattered above all else.
    No. She would book an event here; he’d see to it. Honeywilde had to have this. Madison had done enough research to know the inn’s business had been off the last decade or so, and they’d done enough research on her to know she coordinated the kind of events that could help the inn out of its financial hole.
    His grandfather’s pride and joy, the Bradley legacy, had gotten so close to foreclosure it still gave Roark heartburn, but his parents broke up the shares of Honeywilde and entrusted it to their children before they retired.
    Roark inherited the majority, took out the loans to fix the place up, and he and his siblings would be the ones to turn it around.
    They had to survive this winter first though, the dead time for mountain hospitality, and the preceding fall season was looking pretty bleak.
    â€œWhere have you been?” Roark’s sister burst into his office and circled his desk in a tornado of Post-it notes and riotous red hair. A huge mop of chocolate hair and four legs followed, tongue out like this was the best game ever.
    â€œThat apple vendor is trying to rob us blind,” she complained, the dog, Beau, barking in agreement. “He’s priced those apples like they don’t grow everywhere up here. I told him no thanks, buddy.”
    She bumped around behind his chair, shuffling through the folders on the credenza until one fell off.
    â€œMay I help you find something?”
    â€œI need the number for that produce guy. The one right outside of town, family farm. I bet he’d hook us up with some apples, and in the spring he sells strawberries.