Page 11 of Some Like It Hott

“So, you know how I was starting to tell you about the will?” Hanna asks Natalie, who nods. “Well, the will says?—”

I break in because if I wait for Hanna to get there, we’ll be here all day. “It says I have till the end of summer to create an activities program for Hott Springs Eternal, that I have to test the program offerings at the summer festival and receive at least a four-point-five rating on all of them, or?—”

“Shut up and let me talk, Preston!” Hanna says. “This is my business, and the consequences aremineif you fuck it up, so let me talk!”

Natalie makes a sound that might be a choked laugh, and I turn my glare on her. Surprisingly, she doesn’t wither under it. She raises her eyebrows at me instead—a challenge.

And God help me, I’veneverbeen able to resist a challenge.

She has a pretty, round face and full, pink lips. My brain serves up an uninvited image of my thumb pressed against them to part them, and something in my groin tightens in a way that’s completely inappropriate and absolutely distracting.

Fuck that.

I need to be totally focused here.

Hanna has been talking while my mind went on that rampage.

“—or we lose the family land and my business to a mining company. He has to produce the program, but the will absolutely doesn’t say he has to do it without help or guidance, and you’re the one who knows how to do this. So not only are you not let go, but you’re going to help him?—”

I cut my sister off. “No.”

Natalie’s eyes pop back to mine—wide, surprised, and definitely pissed.

I cross my arms. “I don’t actually have till the end of summer. I have a month. And then I have to be back in New York. The program has to be done and tested by then. And in order to do that, I need this to be easy. Uncomplicated. The last thing I need is design by committee. Nothing personal,” I tell Natalie. “You might be brilliant at your job. But I prefer to work alone.”

It’snotpersonal. She’s just an obstacle to be removed from my path.

A very sexy obstacle,my brain says.

“No,” Hanna says. Unfortunately, stubbornness is genetic, which means that all of us—every last Hott—inherited our grandfather’s immovable-object personalityandhis irresistible force methods.

Hanna and I glare at each other. Hard.

“No,” she says again. “Ineed this to be easy. Uncomplicated. And you are complicating it. Natalie knows what she’s doing. You don’t. And we need those four-point-fives.”

“So I’m not fired?” Natalie asks.

There’s a tease in her voice. Like she thinks this isfunny. I turn and glare at her.

“No.” Hanna sounds tired. “You’re not fired. Now, let’s talk about what’s going to happen here. The two of you are going to work together and come up with an absolutely killer program, you’re going to test it at the Rush Creek Summer Festival a month from now”—she looks at me as she says this—“becausesomeonehas to be back in New York, and we wouldn’t want to stand in the way of”—she pulls finger quotes—“‘one of the rising young titans of finance.’ And we’re going to start right now by brainstorming a list of ideas.”

To her credit, Natalie takes this all in, nods, and pulls her phone out of a pocket in her tunic. Even though I want her out of here, I have to admire her spine. She’s not backing down.

She swipes something open on her phone. “Okay, so my thought is we play up both the dude-ranch angle and the spa angle. Horseback rides. A mini rodeo on the weekends. Horseshoes, darts, skeet shooting, archery, lasso lessons?—”

I put a hand up. “Do you have any idea of the liability issues surrounding that stuff?”

The corner of her mouth twitches. For the first time, she addresses me directly, her cinnamon eyes brimming with amusement. “That’s what you got out of that? Liability issues?”

“I won’t put my sister’s business at risk.”

Hanna makes a sound. Pretty sure it’s a growl. “Let me be the judge of that,” she commands. “Keep talking,” she tells Natalie.

“Obviously we’ll deal with the liability issues,” Natalie says, addressing this to Hanna. “We could partner with some vendors, and then the legal issues would belong to them. Like pairing up with a riding school to make horseback rides available. Or the Wilder Adventures outfit could bring their rafting and paddleboarding options here. If an outside vendor offers the activity, the liability is theirs.”

Hanna looks interested but not sold.

I shake my head. “We need to scale expectations way back for this one-month rollout. What you’re talking about could work over months or a year, but it’s not realistic for the short term.”

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