"When we spoke, you mentioned there’d be terms to discuss before you took
the job." Tess removed a pair of mugs from the cabinet. "What terms?"
"I see you’re a woman who prefers to get to the point." Shayde rubbed his
hands together. "Okay. Let’s get to it."
"Please, do," she encouraged dryly. Anything but stand around and allow
all that impressive masculinity to permeate her home. Bad enough that he’d
done it to her office.
"You want us to act the part of lovers, right? Here are my conditions."
He paused again and she had the unnerving impression that his comments were
off the cuff rather than planned in advance. "Number one. We spend time
together before our first public appearance so we can learn to play our
roles convincingly."
"Impossible. The benefit’s tomorrow night."
"Then we’d better get busy."
She dismissed his demand with a quick wave of her hand. "It’s totally
unnecessary, Shayde. If we tell people we’re a couple they’ll believe it
without our having to practice." She used the excuse of pouring coffee to
justify turning her back on him. "How do you take it?"
"Black and strong."
"Black I can do. I can’t make any promises about the other."
"I’ll take my chances. You don’t strike me as a weak tea coffee maker."
He waited for her to approach. The instant she set the mugs on the table, he
caught hold of her hand. Her reaction was as immediate as it was
instinctive. She jerked away from him, taking a hasty step backward. His
smile lacked any trace of humor. "Do I need to say, ‘I told you so’?"
Damn him. She hated that he was right as much as she hated what she’d
have to do to correct the situation. Perhaps his comments weren’t as off the
cuff as she’d thought. "Point taken. We need to become...comfortable with
one another."
To her relief he didn’t laugh at the understatement. "Second condition.
We handle our public performance my way."
She didn’t like the sound of that. "It’s my career that’s at stake," she
argued. "I won’t give up control of that to a temporary employee."
"You will if you want to work with me." His tone warned the matter wasn’t
open for negotiation. "Third condition."
"Tell me it’s also your last."
"It’s also my last condition."
"Not that I’m agreeing to your other ones, you understand," she hastened
to insert. She desperately needed to remain in control, though she suspected
it would prove no more than a comforting illusion. "I can only promise to
take your requests into consideration."
"Understood." His smile appeared more genuine this time. "My third
condition is that we move in together."
Shayde couldn’t believe he’d said that. But now that he had, he found the
idea all too appealing. What had happened to instigating a relationship with
the man the Committee had selected for Tess? Somehow it had become lost in a
more primitive, more urgent directive.
She took a swift step away from his chair, staring at him with an
appealing combination of bewilderment and disbelief. He’d shaken her,
finally managing to strip away the professional mask she used to hold people
at a safe distance. But he’d also uncovered a vulnerability that slipped
beneath his own guard, prompting an unexpected desire to protect her—even
from himself.
"Have you lost your mind?" she demanded.
"No."
"Then I must have lost mine thinking we could ever work together. Thank
you for coming this evening, Mr..." Irritation flickered in her expressive
blue eyes, not that it erased the vulnerability lingering there. "Shayde.
But I’ll contact Jeanne in the morning and set up an interview with the
other person she had in mind for the job."
He knew fear when he saw it. And this lady was definitely running scared.
Now why would one outrageous suggestion cause such panic? "Your benefit is
tomorrow night. Do you honestly think you’ll find someone who can do the job
by then?"
"You seem to think you can do it." She shrugged with an awkwardness he’d
have sworn she didn’t possess. It spoke of an uncomfortable awareness—of
him, of the solitude created by time and place, of the ramifications of his
request. But most of all it spoke of a need that simmered beneath the
surface. Perhaps another man wouldn’t have picked up on it. Too bad he
wasn’t just any man, at least not when it came to Tess. "If you can handle
the job, Shayde, why not someone else?"
"I’ll show you."
He ignored the voice inside his head, the one bellowing orders he had no
interest in acknowledging, let alone obeying. They were smart, common sense
orders, he had to admit. Orders like... Leave the house. Leave the room.
Leave Tess untouched. She’s not for you. Too bad common sense chose that
moment to desert him. Standing, he knocked his chair aside and allowed
sheer, raw instinct to take over.
Wrapping an arm around her waist, he hauled her close and took her mouth
with all the finesse of a lust-crazed caveman. Until that moment he’d have
sworn he didn’t possess any Neanderthal tactics. Wrong. It would seem he
possessed more than his fair share. Perhaps it was a genetic thing,
remaining dormant until the right time and right woman. Or perhaps he was
just an idiot. Yeah, that seemed more likely.
Especially considering the tactics didn’t work.
She didn’t melt into his embrace as he’d hoped, but slammed backward
against the counter. Her arms and legs pinwheeled until the two of them
became entangled in the most awkward position imaginable. Worse, she’d
tilted her head the wrong way and their noses squashed together while her
lips bunched up on one side of his mouth. He attempted to correct the
misalignment. Arms and legs retangled into a ridiculous series of kinks and
knots. And now her mouth threatened to slide off his chin while her nose got
lost somewhere in the vicinity of his cheek.
Hell. "Sixth grade," he muttered.
Her mouth twitched. "Mmfpht?"
He pulled away slightly and eyed her in half amusement, half resignation.
"Lisa Penn in the sixth grade. She was the first girl I ever kissed and it
was the worst experience of my life. Probably of hers, too."
Tess attempted to unravel some of their body parts without noticeable
success. Her elbow found his gut with unerring accuracy and he manfully
suppressed a groan. Served him right for grabbing her in the first place. "I
don’t know how to break this to you, but you haven’t improved much since
then," she complained.
He cautiously rearranged arms, legs, hands and feet until they could each
stand on their own and weren’t in imminent danger of injuring anything
irreplaceable. "I admit that first attempt didn’t go well. Next time—"
"There won’t be a next time," she interrupted. "All you’ve done with that
little stunt is convince me that we could never work together."
"What I’ve proven is that we’re going to have one hell of a time
convincing people we’re a couple—unless we find a way to coordinate our
angle of trajectory."
She released her breath in the sort of sigh women use when men act like
men. "An interesting way of phrasing it."
"Maybe it’s our rate of entry that’s screwed up. Or perhaps magnetic
interference has sent our gyroscopes into a tailspin." He rubbed a hand
across his jaw. "Whatever’s causing the problem, we’re definitely off on our
docking procedure."
"I am not some sort of space station and you’re not the astronaut
assigned to board her...it..." She glared in frustration. "Me!"
She was right, not that he’d admit such a thing. At some point his
primary job had fallen by the wayside. Logic, discretion, even basic
intellect had gotten lost beneath a far stronger imperative. "That’s where
you’re wrong. Perhaps I could have chosen a better analogy, but the bottom
line is you need someone you can respond to on a physical, as well as an
intellectual level. I’m that man."
