Slade Baron's Bride. Sandra Marton

she’d made a mistake. If this was a battlefield, he was prepared to fight.

      He waited patiently while she spoke, keeping his expression neutral, his hands in his pockets so nobody would see he’d knotted them into fists. Eventually she ran out of numbers, and she looked at Dobbs.

      “I’m sorry to have to make all these negative comments, sir,” she said, with what Slade knew the others would accept as genuine regret. “Mr. Baron’s design is excellent, I’m sure. I just don’t see that Beaufort can go ahead with this project within the defined budgetary constraints.” She looked at Slade. “Unless,” she said politely, “I’ve missed something…?”

      Her smile, her voice, made it clear such a thing was impossible.

      The room was silent. Dobbs and the other men looked from Lara to Slade.

      “Well, Mr. Baron,” the chairman said, after clearing his throat, “I’m sure you have some comment to offer.”

      Slade nodded. “Yes,” he said evenly, “I do.”

      He walked across the room, knowing every eye was on him, stalling a little to make sure he regained his composure. When he reached the windows, he took a deep breath and turned around. The men were watching him with interest but the look on Lara’s face had gone from smug anticipation to wary concern.

      “My compliments, Ms. Stevens. That was quite an interesting presentation.” He flashed a quick smile around the table, one that made it clear he’d have offered similar praise to a precocious three-year-old who’d managed to get all the way through her ABCs. Slade looked at Dobbs and his smile faded. “Interesting—but inaccurate. Ms. Stevens seems to be confused on several key points.”

      It took him less than five minutes to refute her arguments, actually, to reduce them to rubble. In Lara’s zeal to run him out of town—and Slade was sure that had been her intention—she’d made mistakes. She knew lots about numbers but nothing about architecture. And she sure as hell had underestimated him as an adversary.

      When he’d finished, the room was silent. After a moment, Dobbs looked around, engaged the others in some kind of unspoken communication, then put his hands, palms flattened, on the table.

      “Well, Mr. Baron, it’s obvious you’ve done your homework.”

      Slade smiled pleasantly. “I always do,” he said, and thought that this was probably the first time in his life he’d come up with anything positive he could attribute to his old man, who’d done what he could to beat that philosophy into the seat of his pants.

      “Wantin’ ain’t enough, boy,” Jonas would say. “You got to go in prepared to win.”

      Well, he’d wanted to win this commission. And he’d come prepared, not for a personal attack, which this damned well was, but for the usual nit-picking of bean counters. It was just that he’d never expected the bean-counter to be a blue-eyed, strawberry-blonde named Lara.

      It made the victory he knew was his all the sweeter. He’d have stood on his head, if that’s what it took, to teach her that she couldn’t make a fool of Slade Baron a second time. Because, dammit, she had made a fool of him, sneaking out of his bed that way, and it was time he admitted it.

      Dobbs pushed back his chair and stood, an obvious signal that the meeting was over. Everyone else rose, too, including Lara.

      “Thank you for your input, Ms. Stevens. You certainly raised some important issues and the board will take them under advisement.”

      Lara nodded stiffly. “You’re welcome, sir.”

      Dobbs came around the table and clapped Slade on the back. “I hope you don’t think our Ms. Stevens gave you too difficult a time.”

      “No, not at all.” He looked at Lara. Her face was expressionless as, he hoped, was his. He still couldn’t figure out why she’d tried to sabotage him. None of the reasons he’d come up with really made sense…unless she was involved with some other guy.

      Slade’s jaw tightened.

      Yeah, that would explain it. She was seeing somebody else and suddenly, here he was, walking, talking proof of the fact that she’d once spent a hot night with a strange man.

      He looked at her left hand, and saw a thin gold band on her ring finger.

      Years before, when he was a kid, a bronc had bucked him off. He’d hit his head, hard. All Slade could ever recall of the incident was going down into a spinning whirlpool of darkness. That was the way he felt now.

      Married. Lara was married.

      He tore his eyes from her hand, dragged air into his lungs. Okay, she was married. So what? It was nothing to him. What they’d shared had been sex, that was all, and it had happened a long time ago. She’d gone her way, he’d gone his, and now she had a husband.

      At least that explained things, though she flattered herself if she thought he’d want her again, want her badly enough to threaten to tell her husband about them. But there was no “them.” There never had been and besides, the day he had to coerce a woman into bed was the day he’d check himself into a retirement home.

      It just plain infuriated him that she’d thought she needed to protect herself by screwing him over. He wanted to tell her that—but she’d already packed up her things and left.

      Running out seemed to be Lara’s thing. Well, she wasn’t going to get away with it this time.

      Slade shook hands all around. Dobbs walked him to the door.

      “We’ll be in touch soon, Mr. Baron.”

      Slade nodded. “That’s fine. Oh, by the way…your Ms. Stevens made some references to purchasing procedures that were inaccurate.”