Page 15 of Love in the Details

“Perfect. Okay, here are the terms. Your employment for the Wakefield Family begins once you sign those papers and will end when the gala is over, or whenever the Wakefield family no longer needs your services.”

A shadow crossed her expression, but it was gone before he could say anything, making him wonder if he’d just made it up in the first place. This was business, something his grandmother should have been here to handle. He couldn’t worry about her emotions, even though he wanted to.

He forged on, trying to regain his usual CEO composure as he spoke to her. “We will give you a notice if anything isn’t up to what we usually prefer standard-wise, but I wouldn’t have hired you for this if I didn’t think you could follow through and succeed.”

“No pressure, right?” Kassidy said, appearing more overwhelmed than she had before.

She flipped through the pages, scanning several sections before signing on the three pages near the end. Dustin tried not to smile as he saw the hearts drawn above the i’s in her name.

“I’ll scan it and email you a copy for your records.” He looked down at the list of things he’d wanted to talk to her about, but as he stared at the words written, he realized that would be micromanaging a little more than he wanted to be.

He set the paper on the other side of his laptop and glanced back at her, staring into the milk-chocolate eyes that were pulling him in, threatening to unsettle the wall he’d built around his heart. “Any questions from you?”

“What is the budget for the project? It looks like some things need freshened up, and if I need to work with any contractors to fix anything, will I need to work that into the budget? Or will you take that from a different account?”

“Good question,” he said, wagging his pointer finger in her direction. “Let’s just make the budget you’re working with for decorations, food, and entertainment. If you find things that need to be fixed throughout the house, let me know and we’ll find someone to take care of it.”

Kassidy nodded, checking off a few things in the notebook she was holding. “Okay, is there anything that should not be in the final display? Anything you and your grandmother don’t like?”

“We’re pretty flexible when it comes to celebrations, but I’ll think about that and get back to you with anything I come up with. My grandmother will have a list of the attendees, usually people we work with or have contracts with, so if you need to nail down numbers, you’ll have to ask her.” He tapped his pointer finger against his lips, trying to remember anything he’d missed. “Oh, and just make sure to get a half-gallon of the whole chocolate milk for Santa to drink.”

He winked at her, and she frowned.

“Sorry, I should have known you haven’t…” He trailed off, feeling the awkwardness of the situation. Only a few of the families from the valley had ever come to the gala, usually the ones related to the high-up managers. “Well, it’s kind of a tradition that the Santa Claus who comes to visit at the Wakefield Gala gets whole chocolate milk because of the number of dairy farms in the valley.” He tried to read her expression.

“I’d never heard that before,” she said, leaning over to write milk in her notebook. The swoop of her hand as she made the letters and the neatness of them caused Dustin to smile. He’d always had the worst handwriting, probably because he was in a hurry to get it all written down before he forgot.

She glanced back up at him. “Okay, I’ll ask you if I have any other questions.”

Dustin nodded, staring longer than he should have. His gaze flicked between her eyes and lips. The moment his mind started to wonder what kissing her would be like, he broke his gaze away and stood, needing to busy himself with anything at the moment—anything but the girl who was slowly breaking down the walls he’d erected for himself.

“Don’t you have a conference call right now?” she asked, pointing to the computer in front of him.

He startled out of his trance and looked at the grandfather clock he’d wound up a few days ago. Two minutes until he was supposed to be set up.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks for the reminder.” He stepped over to the seat in front of the computer and powered it on, watching as Kassidy pulled out a measuring tape and started taking measurements of the room.

There was one thing he liked, and that was someone who was thorough. She might not have had a ton of experience, but something about her told him she would get the job done.

Something had changed between them. He just hoped it wasn’t because she felt she needed to get on his good side since he’d given her the job.

Chapter 9

Kassidy spent more than two hours taking measurements of the rooms just on the first floor. Her notebook filled up quickly with general notes of how she wanted to decorate each room, and the number of new pictures on her camera roll reached over two hundred. She hoped her old computer had enough space to upload them.

Sure, it took a lot of time to get the boards on her Clipboard app all set up with the pictures and information on the room, but she hoped it would help her keep things organized and know exactly how much of each material she needed to buy. Three weeks wasn’t much when it came to planning an event like this, but she couldn’t start doubting now.

She ran her finger across an end table near the entry of one of the rooms, the shine not quite to the level she wanted. Adding polish to her list, she started measuring the room next to the dining room, where every cell in her body was fully aware that Dustin was on the other side of the wall. She couldn’t like him, couldn’t even begin to understand what his life was like: losing his parents so young, being raised by his grandparents, and now taking over a very lucrative business. And yet, when she’d brushed his finger and he’d locked eyes with her, she’d had to hold back a shiver.

The man was attractive, dreamily so. But he was just a guy passing through, not set to stay in this small town for longer than the holiday.

It made her simple life here in Coldwater Creek seem small.

“I don’t want to go that route, Jeff, if we don’t have to. Show me the spreadsheet with all those numbers again.” Dustin’s voice betrayed irritation, and Kassidy could relate. If she had to deal with too many people too often, things wouldn’t go well for her or a business.

As she started thinking about the schedule she’d need to have for this project, she also needed to think of a few people she could call on for help, especially with the decorating part of it. It wouldn’t be easy to hang the heavy garlands all by herself once the time came.

Again, Dustin’s voice interrupted her mental schedule.

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