Tempting the Billionaire (Love in the Balance) Read online

  He shook his head. “No, thanks. I can handle it. Makeup or motor oil, business is business. But I will take your notes,” he said, standing.

  His cell phone rang and he extracted it from a pocket. After a clipped “August,” he eased into a smile. “We were just talking about you,” he said, charm bubbling over like a brimming glass of champagne.

  Crickitt twisted her lips. Lori LaRouche. Shane’s tone had changed from all business to cotton-candy sweet. He offered a warm laugh, one she’d prefer he didn’t share with clients, and explained he was running “a tad behind.”

  A tad. Really?

  Her reflection on the screen of her idle computer frowned back at her. She wiggled the mouse to wake it up. Anyone who didn’t know her might think she was jealous. And she was not the jealous type, especially over a man she wasn’t even seeing. Heat speared the center of her chest as she reconsidered. Maybe she didn’t used to be the territorial type, but something about Shane talking to another woman had definitely raised her hackles.

  What if he was flirting with Lori? It wasn’t any business of hers. They’d agreed on Friday they would be professional, despite a shared attraction. Scowling at the back of his head while he talked to another woman was definitely not professional.

  Crickitt tried to focus on something else, but honestly, wasn’t his voice “a tad” too sensual to be discussing directions?

  Giving up, she slouched in her chair in time to see Shane move his jacket aside to stuff a hand in his pant pocket, the movement revealing one well-formed butt cheek. Was admiring her boss’s derriere considered inappropriate if he didn’t know about it?

  She perused the intricate stitching of the material hugging his perfect butt, too wrapped up to notice he’d hung up the phone. He turned so suddenly she didn’t have a chance to avert her eyes. She was staring directly at the fly of his pants.

  She redirected her gaze to the design of his tie, staring at it for a good long while before daring to look up at his face.

  “I’m…going to go,” he said, capping his statement with a hoisted brow.

  She peeled her lips back into what she hoped resembled a smile and not a mortified grimace. “Okay, I’ll just”—stop ogling your crotch— “finish up…”—she gestured at the screen—“…here.” Fingers on the keyboard, she began pecking Lord-knew-what onto the screen while he made his way to the door.

  After he left, she buried her head in her forearms. Or she would have if the file Shane needed wasn’t right under her nose. “Crap.”

  Snatching the folder, she ran across the waiting room, catching up to him as he pressed the call button for the elevator.

  “Shane!” She held up the folder.

  “Ah,” he said, reaching for it. His fingers brushed hers and he held her gaze a second longer than necessary. Or maybe she was the one who couldn’t look away. She let go of the folder as the elevator dinged, its doors sliding open. “Thanks.”

  Crickitt waved a hand as he disappeared behind the door, then slapped it to her forehead.

  “Tempting, isn’t he?”

  She flicked a look over at Keena, who was grinning and waggling a pen between her manicured fingers.

  “Excuse me?” She’d forgotten she wasn’t in a bubble. And if Keena had noticed her eating Shane up with her eyes, he probably had as well.

  “Shane August,” Keena said in that mystery accent of hers. Czechoslovakian? Welsh? “He’s tempting.”

  Crickitt offered a tight nod. She really didn’t want to know if Keena spoke from personal experience.

  Back in her office, she returned to her e-mail. After ten minutes of channeled focus that could have caused a nosebleed, she leaned back in her chair. A single thought continued to gnaw at her.

  Did Shane make it a habit of romancing his co-workers?

  Had Keena once been the shy new girl? Had Shane urged her out of her shell and into his bedroom? According to Sadie, some men could plant ideas in a woman’s head without her knowing it. Like a kind of masculine superpower. Maybe kissing Shane wasn’t even her idea. How convenient that they’d ended up at his house on Friday. How did she know those files weren’t tucked in his briefcase the entire time?

  She shook off the budding conspiracy theory. If Shane wanted to seduce her, he wouldn’t have insisted Thomas take her home. He wouldn’t have suggested the no-kissing policy.

  Come to think of it, that last bit bothered her.

  Maybe he doesn’t want you to kiss him. Ever think of that?

  She had. As well as she remembered the feel of his lips, she couldn’t recall a second when he’d kissed her back. He just sat there while his personal assistant made out with him. Then he asked her to promise not to do it again, as if she were the loony new hire bent on seducing him.

  No, that wasn’t exactly true. He wasn’t appalled by her. He even admitted being attracted to her. She pulled her shoulders back. And why not? She was attractive. Maybe not va-va-voom-Sadie attractive, but she wasn’t exactly a can of Spam, either.

  So if she liked him, and he liked her, why the boundaries?

  The digital purr of her office phone answered her question. Because office romances rarely worked out. That was why companies had no-dating policies.

  And sexual harassment laws.

  “Crickitt Day,” she answered.

  “A few of us are going to Kung Chow’s. Would you like to go?” Keena asked.

  “Um, no, thanks, I brought my lunch today.” She didn’t need fried rice. What she needed was a slap upside the head, a reminder of what was important. She said good-bye to Keena but instead of returning the handset, she punched a button for an open line and dialed Sadie’s cell phone number.

  What she needed was her best friend to set her straight. If anyone knew how to not get distracted by a man, it was Sadie Howard.

  * * *

  Shane would choose a Novocain-free dental visit over Lori LaRouche’s nasal voice any day of the week. He managed to smile through their meeting; that is until she teased his lapel with one red talon and invited him back to her place. He begged off through gritted teeth, claiming he had another meeting.

  Lori was beautiful, he’d add “for an older woman,” but that wasn’t fair. Lori was beautiful, period. He’d had dealings with Lori in the past, and as much as he wished they were strictly business dealings, they weren’t. He had been twenty-one, with shaky confidence and a rocky bank account. Lori had been an in-her-prime thirty-five and had taken an interest in him. Thirty-five. That’s how old he was now. He couldn’t imagine having an interest in a twenty-one-year-old. Especially one as immature as he’d been.

  Back then, Shane hadn’t yet learned to control his impulses. Too flattered to say no, he’d seized Lori’s offer with both hands. The affair was short-lived, a handful of dates mostly at her place. Lori was the one who taught him sex was sex and love wasn’t worth considering. He’d been on his way to arriving at the conclusion anyway, but Lori cemented it.

  On the limo ride back to the office, Shane jotted down a note to talk to Crickitt about Lori’s account. Maybe he should have them sit down together. He twisted his lips. Maybe not.

  It was hard to conceive how he’d ever become intimately involved with a predatory woman like Lori. She’d dressed to kill today in a tight black dress, tall heels, and patterned stockings likely clipped to a pair of lacy garters. And yet, Shane found himself barely tolerating her attempt to get his attention, leaning away any time she moved to touch him. On the other hand, he hadn’t been able to get Crickitt out of his mind since the moment she’d inadvertently tugged her bottom lip with her teeth. He pictured her again, arms folded on top of her desk, curls tumbling around her face as she looked up at him. He shifted discretely, his pants suddenly tight. Geez. If the woman only knew how crazy she made him…

  Yeah? And what if she knew you’d slept with a client years ago?

  Bet she wouldn’t kiss him then, he thought with a derisive chuckle. If Crickitt was anything, it was genuin
e.

  He may not have known her for very long, but there was a blatant earnestness in Crickitt he couldn’t deny. If he wanted to prove she said just what was on her mind, he need look no further than Henry Townsend. And he knew from personal experience she did what was on her mind, too. She was the one who kissed him, wasn’t she?

  “Yes, she was,” he said aloud, waving off the glance Thomas threw at him from the rearview mirror.

  No, Crickitt may be smack in the middle of restarting her life, but he knew enough about her to know that “arm candy to a sugar daddy” wasn’t anywhere in her agenda.

  The limo came to a stop and Shane got out, waving good-bye to Thomas. As he walked into the building, his stomach clenched. On the elevator up, his heart rate increased with the floors, the handle on his briefcase slick with sweat. He felt almost…nervous. Which made no sense. How many times had he walked this same route to his office? Hundreds. Thousands.

  Stepping into the waiting area, he waved hello to Keena and crested the short staircase leading to his and Crickitt’s adjacent offices. The closer he drew to her door, the more edgy he felt. Perspiration beaded his lip and he wiped it away, bemused. The last time he had a case of nerves around a woman was junior prom.

  He’d tried to keep a professional distance, but trying not to notice Crickitt only made him notice her more. He’d enjoyed discovering her little tics when she didn’t know he was watching. Like whenever she moved from notebook to keyboard. She didn’t drop her pen, instead resting it between her plush lips while she typed. Or what about the way she wound the writing utensil through her curls when she talked on the phone? Last he checked ink pens weren’t erotic. But as with the clunky mailbag she carried or the square-heeled loafers she wore, Crickitt had a way of making bland look damn sexy.

  And he wasn’t the only one of them struggling with boundaries. This morning she’d been salivating over a part of his anatomy well outside the “friend zone.” Even now, the memory made parts of him stand taller. At her door, he raised a fist to announce his arrival, stopping just short of knocking. Her door was closed? Crickitt never shut her door.

  Since she’d started working for him, he found himself following her lead, propping his door open more often than not. When he asked her why the “open-door policy,” she claimed the barricade would only slow her down. To her point, she did run around this place like her hair was on fire. He blamed the complimentary coffee bar down the hall at first, but seeing how quickly she fled after kissing him, he’d concluded warp was her normal speed.

  He lifted his hand again, but this time, Crickitt’s raised voice stopped him cold.

  “How can you say that?” she spat in a tone accusatory and hurting at the same time. “I buried nine years of marriage because you wanted out. You stopped loving me first. Don’t forget that.”

  Whoa. Shane retreated from the door, even as he felt a surge of protectiveness for her well up within him. But he didn’t dare go in. It was a private conversation and none of his business. He backpedaled to his office, watching her closed door for two more seconds before pulling his door to as quietly as possible.

  Forget you heard any of it, some part of him silently warned.

  At his desk, Shane leafed through his mesh in-box and found a stack of phone calls to return. He reread the same one four times without comprehension before tossing it aside and slumping in his chair. He couldn’t forget her words or the painful undercurrent in her voice when she said them.

  You stopped loving me first.

  The words echoed in his head once, twice, and just for kicks, looped a third time and kneed him in the nuts. Something about the phrase sent a graveyard chill over his skin, made him want to ignore the emotions that came with it. Ugly, banished, and best left in the dark.

  You stopped loving me first.

  It wasn’t as if he’d been close enough to a woman to commit the same crime as Crickitt’s jerk of an ex-husband. Shane made sure not to get to the point where deep feelings came into play. And because he always set expectations, the women he’d been involved with in the past hadn’t left brokenhearted, just pissed off.

  So, why were her accusatory words eating at him?

  Then he thought of his dad, and a shiver of hair stood on the back of his neck.

  Bingo! I think we have a winner.

  Shane shrugged, tried to dismiss the thought. But he couldn’t. The truth was he’d felt exactly the kind of betrayal Crickitt was feeling right now. He knew too well the consequences of love unreciprocated. And if his father was here, and Shane blurted out those same words, they’d ring as true and hit as hard.

  The fact was his dad couldn’t handle losing his mom, and after had turned into one rough, mean sonofabitch. Since his father’s death, he’d struggled to reconcile his father’s accusations. Surely, the man had known what happened when Shane was a kid was an accident. All Shane wanted back then was to hang with his friends. How was he supposed to know that the one day he left his mother unattended she’d have a seizure?

  “Shane?”

  He jerked out of his thoughts and focused on Crickitt’s curly head peeking through his door.

  “Didn’t you hear me knock?” she asked.

  Shane busied his hands stacking the notes back into his wire in-basket. He muttered an apology and put on a fake smile. “Come in.”

  “Is something wrong?” She scanned his face, her brow furrowing.

  “Oh, uh…headache,” he lied. He never traipsed down briar-filled memory lane. Not at home, and certainly not at work. Thankfully, Crickitt interrupted his full-on nosedive. He could practically smell the ozone burning around him.

  “Lucky you.” Crickitt clapped her hands and rubbed them together Mr. Miyagi style. “I can help.”

  “With what?” he asked as she crested his desk.

  “Your headache, silly.”

  “Right.” His imaginary headache, which, ironically, was developing this very instant.

  Crickitt placed her hands on each of the arms of his chair and spun him to face her. As she hovered close, he couldn’t escape the sugary scent of her. His mouth watered. She didn’t look like a woman who’d minutes ago gone a few rounds with her scumbag ex. Her eyes were bright and clear, her face relaxed.

  She leaned in, feathering his hair away from his temples and placed the first two fingers of each hand on either side of his head. Her touch was expert, tantalizing. He felt her breath on his forehead as she muttered, “You are going to thank me so hard.” His gaze traveled to her lips, where she wore the most adorable cheeky grin. He forced his eyes away from her mouth before he hauled her into his lap and kissed her senseless.

  Then a strangled groan escaped his lips.

  Speaking of hard.

  “Told you,” she said.

  Her voice sounded a mile away. Probably because all he could hear was the thundering of his blood supply as it traveled from his brain to his lap. He should tell her, or at least avert his eyes. But no amount of self-talk enabled him to look away.

  Either she’d purposely undone it, or a button had wriggled free of its closure, because when she’d leaned over him, her shirt gapped open, giving him an eyeful. He clamped on to the armrests on his chair, eyes delving into all the smooth skin laid out before him like rolling fields and amber waves of grain. He had no idea of the bevy of femininity she’d been hiding beneath those poly-cotton shirts of hers. But now he had proof.

  Two handfuls of C-cup proof.

  Crickitt continued to caress his temples, completely unaware that with each stroke, she sent his blood pressure rising.

  Shutting his eyes, he took a deep breath and tried to think of something, anything, else, but the persistent image of her breasts encased in a—God help him—black lace bra had burned into his retinas and was currently playing on the screen of his eyelids.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Mm-hm,” he grunted, wondering if steam was billowing from his ears.

  “Give it five minutes.�
�� Her voice was low, husky, sexy. She slid her hands away to rearrange his hair, the innocuous touch sending a drove of blazing hormones straight to the Promised Land.

  He spun out of her touch and promptly pulled his chair to his desk to hide his now obvious reaction to her.

  “You look better already,” she said, propping her hands on her hips.

  The opening in her shirt was far less exaggerated but no less erotic.

  “Thank you,” he said, finally finding his voice. It took every ounce of willpower he owned to keep his eyes on her face. She’d gone beyond driving him crazy, he was there. Fit-me-with-a-straitjacket-and-call-me-Patsy mad about her. But what, exactly, could he do about it? She was standing in his office. He was in no position to act on any of his impulses.

  She turned to the guest chair and lifted a manila folder. “I didn’t come in here to massage your head, believe it or not.”

  Or sleep with me, he thought numbly. “Of course not,” he said, grateful he hadn’t blurted out the thought. “What do you have for me? I mean, to give me? I mean…to show me.” He pointed at the folder rather than attempt to rephrase.

  “MajicSweep notes from this afternoon,” Crickitt said, smiling, blessedly clueless to the lust-monster hiding beneath his desk.

  “Hey, okay. Great. Thank you,” he bumbled, his brain still off-line.

  “You’re welcome.”

  He sensed an ellipsis. He hoped she didn’t bring up her phone conversation. If she started sharing, some of his discombobulated thoughts might accidentally burble to the surface.

  “If you don’t mind,” he said, gesturing toward his office door. “I do have a few things to prepare before the meeting.”

  “Oh.” She glanced at the door, back at him. “Of course you do. Sorry to interrupt.” She waved her hands in a flustered manner as she walked away, making him feel like a complete jackass.