Сандра Хьятт – Affair with the Rebel Heiress / The Magnate's Pregnancy Proposal: Affair with the Rebel Heiress / The Magnate's Pregnancy Proposal (страница 8)

She yawned delicately, but with obvious boredom. Annoyed by her attitude, he nearly called her on it, but before he could, it hit him. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

She looked taken aback. “I … I don’t know what you mean. Doing what?”

“This.” He gestured toward her body-skimming dress. “The sexpot dress. The self-indulgent pout. The childish behavior. It’s all a way of keeping me off balance.”

She blinked, and he couldn’t tell if he’d insulted her or if she was merely surprised he’d seen through her. “You’re just trying to distract me. To avoid that conversation we need to have.”

“However did you get that idea?”

“Probably because you’ve been pushing me away ever since I walked into the conference room today. You’ve made it obvious that you don’t want to relinquish control of Biedermann’s. You may have fooled everyone else into thinking that’s the only thing going on. But I can see right through you. I know the truth.”

Oh, God. What did he mean? He knew the truth? What truth? That she was a total fraud? That she had no idea what she was doing?

He leaned closer, a seductive grin on his face. “I know what you’re really afraid of.”

“Afraid of?” she squeaked.

He brushed his thumb across her lower lip, once again sparking the desire that heated her blood every time he touched her.

She should not be attracted to him. He was so not what she needed right now. Or ever, for that matter. Geesh, he wasn’t even wearing a tux. Okay, so he looked fabulous in an Armani jacket thrown over a gray cashmere sweater and black pants. And, yes, the understated elegance of his outfit made him look outrageously masculine. Never mind that he carried it off. Never mind that the day’s worth of stubble on his jaw made her fingertips tingle with the urge to touch him. Never mind that she could tell already all the other men at the fundraiser would look overdressed and foppish by comparison. She couldn’t possibly be attracted to a man who didn’t even know when to wear a tie.

“Yes,” he continued. “You’re afraid of the attraction between us.”

As his words registered, she was flooded with an odd sense of relief. He was still talking about sex. About what had happened between them in Texas.

Maybe it shouldn’t have made her feel better, but somehow it did. Physical intimacy she could handle. Men had been pursuing her since she hit puberty. She knew how to handle that. She knew how to entice without promising anything. To lure and manipulate a man while staying just out of his reach.

What she didn’t know was how to handle a man who was interested in her. Not her body. Not her net worth, but her.

Thank God, Ford was proving no different than any other man she’d ever met. She’d learned long ago the secret to keeping men at arm’s length.

The mere suggestion of sex was enough to distract the average man. The possibility that you might one day have sex with him made most men so befuddled they never bothered to look beneath the surface.

To that end, she let herself sway toward him slightly, as if she couldn’t resist his draw. Then she ran her tongue over the spot on her lip that he’d touched. It was a gesture sure to entice him, but she found it disconcertingly intimate. She could almost taste him on her tongue.

Suddenly memories flooded her of their one night together. How could she have forgotten what it had been like to kiss him? To feel his hands on her body? To give herself over so completely to his touch?

She felt her breath catch in her chest, found herself leaning toward him, not in a calculated way, but as if he were a magnet and the heart pounding away in her chest were made of iron, pulling her inexorably toward him.

He cleared his throat, breaking the spell he seemed to have cast over her. Nodding toward the cab door on her side, he said, “We’re here.”

When had that happened? Damn him. She was supposed to be distracting him. Not the other way around.

Feeling befuddled, she looked from him to the crowded street outside her window, to the cab driver rattling off the fare. Her mind was embarrassingly sluggish, but finally she got moving.

Staying one step ahead of Ford was going to be harder than she’d thought. This was going to take some serious work.

Then just when it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse, a camera flashed a few feet away. Great. Just what she needed.

Paparazzi.

Four

Ford stood near the bar, nursing a tumbler of weak Scotch, wishing he could have ordered himself a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. He would have thought that at five hundred bucks a ticket, they could have stocked the bar with some decent beer. But of course, the best beer in the world wouldn’t have distracted him from what was really bothering him. His date.

From the moment the first camera had flashed outside the hotel and she’d practically leaped from his side, she’d been avoiding him. At first, he’d assumed she just didn’t want their picture taken together. That she was averting the potential scandal. But things hadn’t improved since they’d made it into the event. She’d immediately sent him off to get her a glass of white wine and she’d been dodging him ever since. Not that he wasn’t having a grand ol’ time, between the event organizer who’d hit him up for a ten-thousand-dollar donation and the drunk society maven twice his age who’d been hitting on him. He hadn’t had this much fun since his root canal.

Then he spotted Kitty across the room. On the dance floor. With another man. A guy who couldn’t have been more than five-six and had very clingy hands.

Ford wasn’t used to women blowing him off. After all, he’d only come out tonight because he’d wanted to make sure she was okay. After the near waterworks in the elevator, he’d been worried about her emotional state. Judging from the way she was laughing at Mr. Grabby’s joke, she was doing just fine. But enough was enough.

He handed his drink to a passing waiter and wove his way through the crowd to the dance floor. He cut in, sweeping Kitty into his arms before she could protest. But he could tell she wanted to. As her hand settled into his, a scowl twisted her perfect features.

“I’m starting to think you’re avoiding me.”

“Whatever gave you that impression? After all, it’s not like you wheedled your way into coming with me uninvited or anything.”

He grinned at her, some of his annoyance fading at the bite of her sharp tongue. In Texas she’d been relaxed and open. Who would have guessed he’d find her bristly defenses just as appealing. “I’m a grown man. I don’t wheedle.”

“Hmm …” She paused as if considering her words. No doubt searching for the best way to skewer him. “How about coerce? Or maybe bully? Are those descriptions more to your liking? Are those masculine enough for you?”

He stared down at her, studying her expression. As they danced, his body brushed hers. He couldn’t help remembering what it had felt like to dance with her in that bar in Texas. There, her body had melted into his; here, she held herself more stiffly. This was less a dance, more a battlefield.

“I don’t like to think,” he said seriously, “that I’ve bullied you into anything.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to buy my company out from under me.”

“That’s business.”

“I thought you said it was all business?” she countered smoothly.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” She felt good in his arms again. Solid, yet soft. Curved in all the right places. Tempting and a little bit dangerous.

Suddenly he couldn’t remember why he was supposed to leave her alone. Something about the business deal, right? It was a bad idea to mix business with pleasure. He knew that.

But Biedermann’s was in serious trouble and FMJ looked like the only people stepping forward to help out. Besides, if everything went as planned, this would leave her even richer than she was now. Kitty was a businesswoman first and foremost.

But she was also a woman. A very desirable, powerful woman. He’d be an idiot to ignore the tension simmering between them. Not just because the sex would be fantastic, but because the more they tried to ignore it, the more likely it was to get in the way of business. He couldn’t let his former relationship with Kitty muck up this business deal. He wouldn’t let his buddies down like that.

Ford smiled. “What’s going on with Biedermann’s is all business. This thing between us isn’t business at all.”

“There is no thing between us.”

Her voice was so emotionless, he almost believed she meant it. But his body had been inside hers. He’d watched her face as she climaxed. Women didn’t forget that kind of thing. Sure, he could let her go on pretending they had no past, but that would just make things worse down the road if this blew up in both their faces.

“There was something between us back in Texas. I’m betting there still is.”

She hesitated, her feet missing the rhythm for a moment. But then she picked up the beat again and fell into step. “You’re wrong.”

“And you’re avoiding the obvious,” he said. “You’re acting like we didn’t have hot, steamy sex in the back of my truck.”