Claiming Her Billion-Dollar Birthright / Falling For His Proper Mistress. Maureen Child
about the reception she’d be receiving once she landed.
Friends? Or enemies? And how would she be able to tell?
The pilot’s voice crackled over the speaker, interrupting her thoughts. “Ms. Prentice, please make sure your seat belt is fastened. We’re beginning our initial descent and will be landing in Aspen in about twenty minutes.”
She nodded as if the man could see her, then smiled at herself.
Only twenty minutes until her new life started.
He was waiting on the tarmac.
Christian Hanford looked different than he had in San Francisco, Erica thought as her heartbeat sped into a gallop. For one thing, he wasn’t wearing a suit. And if she’d thought him gorgeous in that elegantly cut business suit, it was nothing to how she felt now.
He was wearing dark blue jeans, black boots and a red pullover collared shirt. His short dark hair ruffled in the wind and his lazy stance as he leaned against a black BMW only added to the “dangerous” air about him.
He walked to meet her as she came down the retractable stairway. A half smile on his face, he stopped at the bottom of the staircase and looked up at her. “How was your trip?”
“Fabulous,” she said quickly. “Thank you for sending the jet for me.”
“Least we could do,” he said and held out one hand to help her down the last few steps. His thumb traced lightly over the back of her hand and his touch felt like licks of flame. His dark eyes locked with hers and Erica felt a nearly magnetic pull toward the man. For one split second it was as if they were the only two people in the world. His square jaw was shadowed with a faint trace of whiskers and his mouth was still curved in that half smile as he added, “It’s the Jarrod family jet. You’re family.”
She laid her free hand against her abdomen in an attempt to still the butterflies that had suddenly decided to swarm inside her. It was a wasted effort. With excitement came nerves and she didn’t expect either to let up anytime soon.
“How about a quick tour of Aspen before we go to the resort?”
“I’d like that,” she said, tearing her gaze from his really gorgeous dark chocolate eyes long enough to look around her. Once she did, she gasped.
She glanced around the small—compared to San Francisco—airport and the mountains surrounding them. The sky was so blue it nearly hurt to look at it and the white clouds scudding across that sky could have been painted on, they were so perfect. The air was sharp and clean and the relative quiet was nearly deafening to a woman used to the sounds of a city.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, staring out at the mountains that towered over them like guardian angels.
“You know,” he said, and she turned to catch him looking at her, “it really is.” Then he shook off whatever he was thinking, and gave her hand a tug. “Come on, city girl. Let me show you around.”
She was too damn beautiful; that was the problem, Christian told himself. He’d hoped that his memory of her was exaggerated. That she hadn’t really had eyes the color of finely aged whiskey. That she didn’t smell like peaches. That her softly layered hair didn’t really lift in the wind until it looked like a halo around her head. He’d hoped that his desire for her would be something he could tuck away and ignore.
But just touching her hand had set off explosions of want inside him and now Christian knew exactly what he was up against.
Temptation.
He kept her hand tucked into his as he led her toward his car. The top was down and it was a perfect day for her to see her new home. When he opened the car door for her he took an extra second to enjoy the view. She wore white linen slacks, a dark blue shirt and black leather flats, and managed to look more beautiful than any woman had a right to. Oh, yeah. He was in deep trouble.
He closed the car door and said, “We’ll drive through town, let you get your bearings.” “What about my luggage?”
“They’ll deliver it to the resort.”
“Right.” She nodded. “Okay then.”
He hopped in on the driver’s side, fired the engine and drove out of the airport.
“I can’t believe the mountains are so close,” she said, pushing her windblown hair out of her face.
“I’ve lived here my whole life so I guess I don’t really take the time to look up at them much.”
“I don’t know how you could do anything else,” she admitted.
He followed her gaze briefly, allowing himself to admire the sweep of green that climbed up the mountains ringing Aspen. Like most citizens of Aspen, he more or less took the natural beauty of the place for granted. When you grew up in the middle of a painting, you tended to think everyone else lived with those kinds of views, too.
Christian gave her a quick grin. “I give you two weeks before you stop noticing them, just like the rest of us.”
She glanced at him and shook her head. “I’ll take that bet.”
As he drove into the city, he rattled off the names of the businesses crowded along the streets. On Galena he pointed out the old brick buildings, several of the shops and Erica noticed the flower boxes lining the walkways between stores. Down Main Street, he showed her the Aspen Times, one of the town newspapers, and she smiled at the small blue building adorned with old-fashioned gold lettering across the front.
He knew what she was seeing, but he had to admit that like the mountains, he tended to take for granted the charm of the city he’d grown up in.
It was modern of course, with plenty of high-end boutiques and shops for the megawealthy and celebrities who flocked here every year. But it was also an old mining town. Brick buildings, narrow streets, brightly colored flowers in boxes and old-fashioned light posts that were more atmospheric than useful. It was a mingling of three centuries, he supposed.
“In Aspen, we’ve sort of held on to the old while we welcomed the new.”
“I love it,” she said, her head whipping from side to side so she could take it all in.
He threw a quick look at her, saw pure pleasure dancing in her eyes and wondered how he was going to maintain a strictly business relationship with the youngest of Don’s daughters. As his mind wrestled with his body’s wants, he tried to focus on the road and not the way she lazily crossed her legs.
“It’s so big,” she said after another minute or two.
“Aspen?” He gave her another quick look. Coming from a city the size of San Francisco, he was surprised to hear she thought Aspen was big. “It’s not, really. Population’s around five thousand with a hell of a lot more than that every winter for the skiing and in the summer for the food and wine gala.”
“No, not Aspen itself,” she corrected. “Colorado. It’s all so … open. God, the sky just goes on forever.” She laughed a little and shrugged. “I’m more used to fragments of sky outlined by office buildings.”
“Which do you like better?”
“Well,” she said as he stopped at a red light, “that’s the question, isn’t it? San Francisco is beautiful, but in a completely different way. I feel so out of my element here.”
The light changed, he put the car in gear and stepped on the gas. Keeping his eyes on the road, he said, “You’re Don Jarrod’s daughter, so Colorado’s in your blood. Your family goes back a long way here.”
“Tell me,” she said, focusing on him now more than the city around them.
“I’ll do my best,” he said, thinking back to everything he’d heard Don talking about over the years. “Don’s great-great-grandfather started the resort. He was here for the silver mining boom that started the city back in 1879. Bought