UP the phone in total unabashed triumph. He was the salesman of all salesmen. The über-salesman. He’d just taken a call from a guy named Bob, who was trying to sell him some sales-training course. In the space of a half hour, Grayson had carefully and skillfully turned the conversation around, found out Bob’s company needed a new Web site, and secured a sales appointment for Jameson Productions, his own damn company.
He chuckled, reveling in that moment of rare beauty when Bob the Salesman Trainer had realized what was happening to his high-pressure call.
Hey, you’re selling me.
Grayson stretched one side of his body, then the other and leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head.
Listen. That was all you had to do. Listen and ask questions. People would always tell you what you needed to know to get in. Too many salesmen did the professional equivalent of trying to carve a delicate wooden figurine with an ax. The good citizens of this country were axed every day with information, requests, advertisements, news, bothered at home by telemarketers, overwhelmed with options. To make a difference, all you had to do was shut up and listen. Use your tiniest chisel and, bit by bit, make that figurine emerge.
In six months Grayson had grown his and Chuck’s company to where they were on target for a half-million in annual business. And he was only just starting. What he needed now was one plum, one ripe, gorgeous, enormous company with ongoing needs for Jameson’s Web design and interactive media offerings.
It was out there. He just needed to find it. Having Laine’s place to stay in would give him more time in the city, more time for appointments, more time to see Chuck and the programmers for face-to-face consulting on projects, and less time commuting.
He pushed back against the chair, making its upholstered metallic innards creak. Not that less time sitting on trains was the only reason he’d jumped at the idea. He called Judy because he was being ridiculous, acting as if sitting home avoiding Laine was some show of strength. He wanted to see her again. Wanted to find out why she still invaded his dreams. And yeah, he wanted to do some other things that he better not admit, because it wasn’t very gentlemanly of him to be thinking of her that way after five years, before he’d even been able to talk to her again.
Grayson picked up the phone and dialed her number, his heart still racing from his morning run, coffee and the thrill of success securing another appointment. He’d been about to call Laine when this bozo Bob had called him. Now he couldn’t wait to hear her voice.
“Hello?”
She was out of breath. A grin spread over his face. Hot damn. He couldn’t help it. She sounded so good.
“You working out or something more fun?”
“Grayson?”
The sound of his name from her mouth made him smile harder. “How are you, Laine?”
“Grayson! I’m fine, how the hell are you? Judy said you’d call. God, it’s been five years.”
“I know. But I thought of you every one of them.”
She gave a familiar snort of laughter. “How sweet.”
“Yeah, well…” He put his feet up on his desk. “That’s me.”
“Though I noticed when you picked up the phone, you always called Judy.”
He went to cross his ankles and both feet slipped off the desk, nearly toppling him out of his chair. “Hmm…yeah, well…Judy is…she’s…Judy is Judy.”
“And Laine is Laine?”
“And never the twain, yeah.”
He grinned, picturing her talking to him on the phone—tall, slender, dark hair, blue eyes, flushed from working out. The kind of woman who drew men’s stares everywhere she went, all the more because she was so unconscious of how stunning she was.
“So now after five years, five thoughts of me and phone calls to Judy-who-is-Judy instead of Laine-who-is-Laine, you suddenly want to move in with me?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, there’s a switch.”
He left the barb alone. “Work with me here, Laine.”
“I don’t know…” She responded to his tease with mock hesitancy. “I’m not much of a worker these days.”
“Then play with me?”
“Play with yourself.”
He burst out laughing. Bam! Walked right into that one. You couldn’t get much past Laine Blackwell. “Okay, okay. Yes, I want to move in with you. A few nights a week when I have appointments in the city.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t Judy tell you?”
“Forget Judy. Tell Laine-who-is-Laine.”
“Okay, Laine-who-is-Laine. Having an apartment in the city will help me professionally.”
“Ah.” She blew out a sigh. “So you finally admit you need professional help.”
He couldn’t stop grinning. He suddenly missed her fiercely, as if all the years they’d been apart had hit him retroactively. “That’s right.”
“This is good. You must have come a long way.”
“You know I can come a long way.”
Her turn to laugh, that big, loud, honest belly laugh she released when something really struck her. He was pumped by the sound, even higher than he’d been. And turned on, totally jazzed by their sparring. He couldn’t wait to see her. And yeah, there were still one or two of those ungentlemanly thoughts on his mind. In fact there were lots of them. Who was he kidding? He was no gentleman when it came to Laine. Though only once had he stooped to being an outright jerk, an episode he still wished he could go back in time and erase.
“Are you going to let me in, Laine?”
“Into my apartment.”
“Of course? What else would I mean?” He grinned, waiting, rubbing his thumb along his chin.
“Nothing.” She took a deep breath and let it out.
His grin faded. “Is there a problem?”
“No. No. There’s not a problem.”
He cocked his head. There was a problem. He hoped to hell she was merely rediscovering her need to be naked under him. “Why the hesitation?”
“It’s fine. You can stay here when you need to. It will be fine.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I’m sure.”
She wasn’t sure. Maybe he’d gone too far. “You understand that I’m doing this because of my job.”
“Oh, of course. Of course. I understand that.”
Was she relieved? Sorry? Embarrassed? He couldn’t tell without seeing her face. “Because given our history, I didn’t want you to think I was only trying to get into your pants again.”
Which was true. He wasn’t only trying to get into her pants. He did need a base in Manhattan.
“Oh, no. I didn’t think that at all. Honest, Grayson.”
He frowned. Where was the zinging comeback? She sounded utterly sincere. It must have occurred to her they could get back together for some fun. Judy had said she wasn’t involved with anyone. Two consenting adults with a history of explosive chemistry. In the same apartment. All night long. Didn’t take much imagination to keep the scenario heating up.
But then she’d always been pretty naive about his basely motivated gender. For a second he nearly felt ashamed of himself, but then shame was a useless emotion and it wasn’t as if he was planning to force her. He knew