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Jesus.”
    “Don’t swear in the office,” she said primly.
    “Sorry. It just didn’t connect. Congratulations,” he added. “She was the only one with guts or brains enough to say anything worthwhile.”
    “I raised her to stand up for herself. They’re scared of you,” she told him. Boss or not, she decided, she’d known him since he was a baby. If her daughter could speak her mind, so could she.
    “Most of the people who were in this room haven’t ever so much as seen a Logan. For better or worse, this hotel’s been run by proxy for a decade.” There was just enough acid in her voice to let him know her opinion was worse. “Now, you drop in out of nowhere and stir things up. You always were one for stirring things up.”
    “It’s my hotel, and it needs stirring up.”
    “I won’t disagree. The Logans haven’t taken enough interest in this place.”
    “My father—”
    “You’re not your father,” she reminded him. “No point in using him as an excuse when you just finished making sure to get that point across yourself.”
    That rap on the knuckles made him nod. “All right. Then we’ll say I’m here now, I intend to take plenty of interest—and make no excuses.”
    “Good.” She opened her steno pad again. “Welcome back.”
    “Thank you. So”—he got to his feet, wandered to the window—“let’s get started. The flower arrangements,” he began.

    He put in a fourteen-hour day, eating what passed for lunch at his desk. Because he wanted to keep his business local, he met with an island contractor personally and went over his renovation requirements. He instructed his assistant to order updated equipment for his office, then set up a meeting with the head of Island Tours.
    He re-ran figures, reviewed proposals, refined and solidified random ideas. He knew just how much it would cost, in hard capital and in man-hours, to implement his plans. But he was in for the long haul.
    Not everyone would think so, he admitted when he came to the surface and rubbed the stiffness out of the back of his neck. Mia wouldn’t.
    He was grateful he’d had so much on his plate through the day: It had helped keep thoughts of her at bay.
    But he thought of her now, and remembered how he had felt the shimmer of her power flutter around the edges of his mind the day before. He’d pressed back at it, poked through it momentarily. And had seen her, clearly, kneeling in her tower room, her body washed by pale gold light, her hair a fiery fall to her shoulders.
    Her birthmark, the tiny pentagram high on her thigh, had shimmered.
    He had no doubt it had been that momentary jolt of desire that had allowed her to snap the link between them so quickly, so easily.
    No matter. It had been wrong of him to intrude on her the way he had. Rude and wrong, and he’d been sorry for it almost as soon as he’d done it.
    He would have to apologize for it, of course. There were rules of conduct that neither intimacy nor animosity could excuse breaking.
    No time like the present, he decided. He culled the most pressing paperwork and tucked it in his briefcase. He’d speak to Mia, then grab some takeout and finish his work at home over a meal.
    Unless he could convince her to have dinner with him, as a peace offering. Then work could wait.
    He walked out of the hotel just as Mia stepped out of the bookstore across the street. They stood where they were a moment, each obviously caught off guard. Then she swiveled on her heel and walked toward a spiffy little convertible.
    He had to dash across the street to catch her before she slipped into it.
    “Mia. A minute.”
    “Go to hell.”
    “You can send me there after I apologize.” He snagged the car door she’d swung open and closed it again. “I was completely in the wrong. I have no excuse for that kind of discourtesy.”
    Being surprised didn’t mean being mollified. “I don’t recall you ever being so quick with an apology before.” She gave a little shrug. “Fine.