Tara was playing. She hadn’t asked for romance when she’d brokered this bargain, but apparently she required a measure of pandering before they hit the sheets.
Fine. If she wanted seduction she’d get it. But that was all she’d get. She wouldn’t get his heart this time.
Three
The hair on the back of Tara’s neck rose. She didn’t have to turn to know Rand stood behind her. Close behind her.
She’d been so engrossed in her reading she hadn’t heard him return from Tuesday morning’s round of interviews. He must have slipped in through the back door of his office.
He planted a big hand on either side of her blotter, trapping her against the desk between charcoal-colored suit-clad arms. Even with the back of her chair separating their bodies she could feel the heat radiating from him and smell his delicious scent.
She swallowed to ease the sudden dryness of her mouth. “Can I do something for you?”
“No.”
“Then why are you breathing down my neck?”
“I’m reading over your shoulder.” His breath stirred her hair and something inside her fluttered to life like a butterfly wiggling to get free of its cocoon.
“I’ll send you the link to the company newspaper archives, and then you can read at your computer between interviews. Better yet, you can wait for my notes—the ones you asked me to make.” She pushed her chair back, forcing him to move or have his wing-tipped toes run over.
“But reading over your shoulder is more fun.” Rand stepped aside, leaned against the corner of her U-shaped workstation and smiled.
That familiar slow, seductive smile made her stomach flip. She studied the fit form beneath his tailored suit, his crisp white shirt and his neatly knotted black-and-gray striped silk tie. There was a difference in his body language today, one she couldn’t decipher. It made her uneasy.
He was up to something. She could see the cool assessment in his eyes and behind that false smile. She’d sensed that same calculation in his kiss last night—a kiss that had been all technique and no emotion. If there had been even a trace of genuine passion in his embrace, she would have made love with him. She needed to be held that badly.
God, she was pitiful.
But the thought of having Rand “do her,” as he’d said, repulsed her. She wanted him to make love with her because he desired her. Not because he had to perform.
If it weren’t for the fire sometimes making the gold flecks glimmer among the green in his hazel eyes, she’d wonder if he found the prospect of making love with her as abhorrent as she had the idea of intimacy with his father.
If only she hadn’t…
Live your life without regrets, Tara. Promise me.
She stiffened her spine. “If you need something to do, Rand, then go write my recommendation letter.”
“It’s written.”
“I’d like a copy.”
He eased upright and leisurely strolled into his office as if they didn’t have a packed schedule for the day. She’d never known Rand to leisurely do anything…except explore her body. Heat prickled beneath her skin at the rush of memories and desire.
She narrowed her gaze on his broad shoulders and shifted in her chair to relieve the tension seeping through her.
Getting rid of him had been far too easy. His behavior confused her. Five years ago she’d loved Rand’s focus and intensity. When he’d been at work he’d been all business, but when they were together and away from the office he’d been equally single-minded in his attention to her and his dedication to having fun.
Today he was muddying the waters, and she didn’t know what to make of it.
She checked his appointment book. He had ten minutes before his next interview. With Nadia out of the office for twelve months fulfilling her part of Everett’s will, Rand and Mitch had to hire her replacement soon. None of the pre-screened candidates human resources had sent up yesterday had seemed a good fit.
Tara turned back to her monitor and tried to concentrate on the words without much luck. Rand had asked her to list any pertinent happenings at KCL during their absence. She’d thought the company newsletters would be a good place to start. Instead, what she’d found—or rather what she hadn’t found—disturbed her.
Rand returned, once more blocking her escape from her desk. “What’s the problem?”
“Our departures from KCL are never mentioned in the first year’s worth of company newsletters after we left. That’s unusual. When someone leaves there’s always a brief note stating years of service, company awards and such—unless the employee was fired. I don’t like the idea of my co-workers believing I was fired. You shouldn’t, either. It will make it difficult to gain their trust.”
“My father was never one to offer excuses, explanations or apologies.” Rand bent over her desk and scrawled his signature on a piece of KCL letterhead. He slid it across the glossy surface.
Tara took it, but didn’t read past the header. “This is postdated.”
“You think I’d hand you the ammunition to waltz out of here prematurely? If you quit early, we lose everything.”
Which went back to their main problem. He didn’t trust her. Had he ever? Tara sat back in her seat with a sigh. “I gave you my word I wouldn’t leave, and I signed an employment contract. Don’t you trust anyone, Rand? Anyone at all?”
“I know when to protect my own interests. Or in this case, Mitch’s and Nadia’s.” He hitched a hip on her desk, invading her space with a long, lean knife-creased trouser-encased thigh. “Arrange a cocktail party for the executives of each of the brands by the end of the week. Plan to attend as my date.”
“Is that wise? Us dating openly, I mean.”
“I need a hostess, and you’re the one who insisted on exclusivity.”
So she had. And she’d occasionally provided the same service for Everett. Was that why her former boss had believed she’d be open to a more intimate relationship? “At Kincaid Manor?”
“Anywhere but there.”
“Your father always—”
“I’m not my father. I don’t need to flaunt my wealth or have a woman half my age on my arm to make me feel like a man. And I won’t be taken in by a pretty face or a good lay. You’ll do well to remember that.”
She gasped at his rude comment. Was he trying to rattle her? If so, it was working. “Are you deliberately being obnoxious so I’ll release you from your part of our agreement?”
He reached out and traced her jaw. Her pulse stumbled erratically beneath the slow drag of his fingertip.
“Why would I do that, Tara, when as you said, the sex between us was always good?”
Her mouth dried and her palms moistened. Arousal streamed through her. But suspicion dammed her response. She scooted her chair out of his reach. What was he trying to pull? First he’d flat-out refused to be her lover and then he’d accepted reluctantly. And now he was trying to seduce her?
His about-face didn’t ring true, then she realized why. There wasn’t any passion in his eyes despite his comment on their sex life. Rand was cold and distant—the way he’d been the day he’d climbed from her bed and broken her heart, and the day he’d caught her leaving his father’s bedroom.
He wasn’t at all someone she wanted to be intimate with.
Not like this.
She didn’t doubt he could make her ache for him even with this emotionless seduction. He’d always been a skilled lover. But perfect technique