to keep her clothes on until he’d said his piece.
Then he’d proceeded to pull her down on the blanket and kiss her silly instead of talking.
“I could tell you were eyeing me like a punching bag,” he acknowledged against her hair. His chest shook as he laughed silently. “Don’t actually hit me when I tell you this, but it was a total turn-on seeing you that pissed. I wanted to strip you naked and do you on the registration desk.”
She pulled back to look at his face and laugh, then she shook her head. “Crazy. You’re absolutely crazy.”
“I can’t help it. It drives me nuts when you get all confrontational.”
Belle ducked her head back onto his chest to hide her tears. The one thing she’d always been so afraid of and Mitch loved it. A bubbling kind of joy burst inside her, sending sparks of happiness through her system. Belle wanted to laugh and cry and dance around wildly. She swallowed, not willing to cry all over him again. Apparently she was free to hit him, though.
A beautiful sense of peace washed over her. She had no idea where they were going from here, especially since her contract with the resort would be fulfilled by the end of the month. But she did know she was holding tight to Mitch, and hey, if she wanted to get in his face about any issues that came up, she’d just been green-lighted.
Still giggling at the idea of her aggression being a turn-on, she wondered if the registration area was ever completely private. Belle snuggled deeper into his arms and sighed as she watched the breeze dance through the canopy of leaves overhead.
After a few more idyllic minutes in his arms, though, Belle started squirming. All this cuddling stuff was sweet, but she wanted her picnic.
“I’m still waiting to hear your piece,” she finally reminded him. “If you’d get on with it, we could move on with this afternoon’s entertainment.”
Mitch laughed and hugged her even tighter.
“Why’d she do it?” she asked quietly, afraid to ruin the tranquility of the moment but needing to know.
“Money. Apparently she was livid that her father willed his company to me. He’d left her a small fortune, but she thought she should have gotten more. She saw his leaving me anything as a betrayal. She said that’s why she refused to sit on the board, to have anything to do with me. She’s partnered up with a rival developer and I guess she figured when I tanked here, she’d swoop in and buy the place cheap.”
“Crazy,” Belle breathed. “She really thought that would work?”
Mitch’s shirt rubbed softly against her cheek as he shrugged. “She had the financial backing. Real estate is plummeting and she’s got the inside track. Hell, if her plan had worked instead of us...you...catching her, I’d have probably thanked Lena for bailing me out.”
“That’s like saying if pigs could fly then Manolos would fall from the sky,” Belle scoffed. Mitch’s brows drew together as he tried to decipher that, but she kept going before he could ask. “Her plan couldn’t have worked. At best, it was an annoyance. A pain in your butt and a crash test in ‘what could go wrong’ for the resort.”
“Sure, now,” he agreed. “But you read the list. Hell, you found it. She was saving the big guns for after the resort was actually open to the public.”
“What’s going to happen to her?” Belle asked quietly.
“We’ll press charges. I don’t want her jailed or anything, but Reece pointed out that we need to take legal steps just in case she tries something in the future.”
She could tell he was beating himself up over it all. Determined not to let Lena leave a nasty aftertaste, Belle pushed the issue.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re a success for a good reason, Mitch. You bust your ass, you’re a brilliant strategist and, like my daddy always said, you have the touch. She couldn’t have hurt the resort. Not really.”
Belle bit her lip after saying that. While she thought of his hurt as having to do with business, maybe Mitch was suffering emotionally. After all, family was everything to him. “I’m sorry she hurt you, though,” Belle added softly.
Mitch’s eyes, so hard and irritated a second ago, melted to that soft, sexy cinnamon that she loved so much. He shook his head and grimaced. “She didn’t hurt me so much as she slapped at my pride.” He took a deep breath that made his