Page 3 of Charm Me
Chapter 2
Wyatt
An unfamiliar bed combinedwith a bad night’s sleep made me a very grumpy man. My flight into the city had been delayed and rerouted twice for reasons I still didn’t understand. By the time my cab pulled up near my hotel, I was exhausted. I was well on my way to a solid night’s sleep when a beautiful little brunette fell into my lap. Women didn’t fall on me often—never actually—but when she landed on me, I’d been mesmerized by her sweet sugary scent and soft blue eyes.
Twelve hours later, and I still couldn’t get her out of my mind.
No woman had ever caught my attention. Growing up in a small mountain community in Montana made it hard to meet someone that wasn’t connected to my family. The constant familiarity with every woman back home took away the possibility of discovering the unknown. I didn’t want a woman who knew everything about me before we even went out on our first date. I wanted a woman who I could slowly unwrap, layer-by-layer, until every mystery, secret desire, and odd little quirk were as much a part of me as they were her. I always assumed I would know the moment I met the one I’d want to spend my life unwrapping, but after all these years, I was starting to think she wasn’t out there.
Then a sweet, little puits d’amour unexpectedly hit me in the gut, making all the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end like sun-starved blades of grass on a bright sunny day. My insides tingled and my hands itched to touch her in ways I hadn’t touched a woman in a very long time.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so powerfully drawn to a woman. But the beautiful little lady that crashed into my cab last night drew me in fast and hard. The way her short, silky brown hair curved around her chin had been irresistibly sexy. Her small frame conformed to my side like she was made to fit next to me—like a missing puzzle piece I didn’t know I’d lost. As soon as she tucked in next to me, I didn’t want to let her go.
Instead I wanted to pull her close, breathe in her sweet scent and kiss her. The second her eyes met mine I had to fight with every ounce of my strength not to taste her pink lips. My behavior had already been deplorable, kissing her would have been downright disrespectful.
If I found her again, I’d take my time unwrapping her layers to see what I discovered.
I sipped my coffee and sighed. I was in Manhattan for business and I didn’t have time to fantasize about a woman I’d never see again.
I gave myself one week to hire a new financial advisor, and I was a little more than untrusting of every firm we’d prescreened. Dad was set on hiring Glen Walters—my first appointment of the day. He was an old friend and Dad insisted Glen could be trusted. But our last financial advisor had also been a close family friend and he stole close to a million dollars from us over the span of nearly thirty years before I sniffed out his trail.
It’d taken me a year to uncover the depth of Jerry’s theft. He’d started out small, hiding his theft as reimbursements for falsified travel. It was always little things that Dad would never notice. As time went on, Jerry became a lot more brazen with his withdrawals. He just took the money, no justification provided.
But Jerry never planned for me. I’m not Dad, and I couldn’t turn a blind eye to a million dollars. I didn’t care if Jerry was a family friend.
Dad wasn’t happy with me when I called Jerry out for his wrong doings. If dad didn’t want the truth, then he shouldn’t have made me the CEO of the family business when he retired two years ago. It was my responsibility to protect the family and our legacy. So Jerry had to go.
And now I was in the middle of a crowded city, completely out of my comfort zone. I had one goal—hire a new financial advisor.
The timing of this couldn’t be worse. We were about to enter negotiations for ranch acquisitions in Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota. We’d already identified the ranches and had preliminary agreements in place when I’d discovered Jerry’s embezzlement. Having to put the acquisitions on hold was risky and I was dangerously close to losing the largest ranch we wanted.
The agenda for the week did not include fantasizing about a woman I’d engaged with in a five-minute conversation. I couldn’t even call it a conversation since so few words were exchanged between us. It was nothing more than a brief bump in the night.
I entered the front door to the office building where One Financial was located and froze.
“My puits d’amour.” I whispered.
The petite brunette that smelled so damn sweet from last night was waiting for the elevator. Same as last night, every hair on the back of my neck tingled and stood on end. She was reading something on her phone and tapping her toe. Was she impatient or nervous? The people standing around her towered over her, emphasizing her petite build. She wore a light blue sleeveless dress that perfectly matched the color of her eyes that stared at me in the back of the cab. Her short hair was tucked behind her ear and the curve of her neck was begging to be kissed—tasted.
The elevator door opened, and she stepped inside, and my sweet, scented woman was gone.
I dropped my head and grumbled. My focus was shot to hell.
***
“WYATT STRONG. IT’Sso good to see you.” Glen Walter’s met me at the doorway to his office and shook my hand. He was the same age as Dad but looked at least ten years younger. His body wasn’t nearly as frail as Dad’s. The difference between wearing fancy suits and working in an office versus wearing rugged jeans and boots and hard manual labor was stark. “I doubt you remember, but you were just a young lad the last time we met. A good thirty years ago at least, I’d say.”
“No sir, I don’t.” I glanced around the man’s office. The walls of the large space were covered with dark wood bookcases which shelved more pictures than books. On one end was his ornate executive desk and on the other was a seating area with a matching wood table and leather sofa and chairs. This was the office of a man who’d done well for himself. “Dad said you haven’t been back to Montana since that visit.”
“He’s correct. Never had a reason to go back, I guess.” Glen’s smile fell slightly. Dad said Glen’s last visit home was to bury his mother and sell the family property. All his other family lived elsewhere so there’d been nothing left for him but a few friends. “How is Clint? I talked to him last week and he sounds good.”
“Strugglin’ with retirement, but otherwise, he’s doin’ good.” Glen pointed to the sofa for me to sit. After I sat down, he sat in one of the chairs opposite me.
“Doesn’t want to give up the reins to the company?”
“No, it’s not that. He was happy to let me take over the business. He still wants to wrangle cattle and at sixty-eight I’m afraid he’s gonna hurt himself.”
“Clint never was the one to sit around.”