by Karen Booth
“Will you just tell me what’s going on?”
“What I don’t get is how you knew I’d be in the bar last night.” He pulled his long-sleeved white shirt on and buttoned it with an almost eerie calm that belied the fury in his voice and eyes.
“I didn’t know—heck, I didn’t even know I was going to be in the bar last night until just before I went in.”
“Sure. Your uncle,” Mike said, nodding. “He had to have planned all this for you anyway.”
“What does Uncle Hank have to do with us?”
He laughed but there was no charm or humor in it. “Everything, sweetheart, and we both know it. Snyder Arts has been trying to get us to incorporate their programs into our games for the past year and a half.” His gaze dropped to her chest, then lifted to her eyes again. “Looks like Ol’ Hank finally decided to pull out the big guns.”
Every word Mike said echoed weirdly in her mind until at last, Jenny understood what he meant. What he was accusing her of. Anger leaped into a full boil in the pit of her stomach. Her heart pounded crazily and she felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath. Her mind racing, Jenny practically leaped out of bed, preferring to meet her accuser on her feet. She held the blanket up in front of her like a shield that could somehow protect her from the ice in his eyes.
“You think my uncle sent me here to have sex with you?” God, she could barely force the words past her tight throat. “So I could convince you to use his arts program?”
“That about sums it up,” Mike said flatly.
Jenny’s brain burned. She was torn between insult, fury and complete humiliation. Instantly, images of the night before streamed through her mind like a movie on fast-forward. She saw him, over her, staring into her eyes as his body claimed hers. She saw herself, straddling him, taking him deep inside her. And she felt in that flash of heat the pleasure, the sense of completion his every touch caused. Then the mind movie ended abruptly, and she was here, in this sunlit room, staring at a stranger who now knew her body intimately, but her heart and soul not at all.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she asked, voice trembling.
“Mike Ryan.”
She staggered at the name. Mike Ryan. One of the owners of Celtic Knot. Jenny knew their work, knew the art and graphic design that went into every one of their games. She’d admired them for years, had hoped to one day work for them—which wouldn’t happen now. Not only did he clearly think she was a spy—and oh yes, a whore—but she couldn’t imagine herself working for a man who made snap decisions with zero thought behind them.
“Uh-huh,” he said, nodding as if he’d just had every one of his suspicions verified. “So you do know me.”
“Now,” she said. “I didn’t last night. Not when I met you. Not when we...” She pushed one hand through her hair and kept clutching the blanket with the other. Best not to think about everything they’d done because she’d do something completely stupid like blush, for heaven’s sake. With her fair skin, the moment she was embarrassed, her cheeks lit up like a red light at an intersection.
“And I’m supposed to take your word for that,” he said.
Her gaze sharpened and narrowed on him. “It seems you don’t need anything but your own suspicions to make up your mind. You’ve already decided who and what I am, why should I argue with you over it?”
“You know, playing the outraged innocent isn’t nearly as convincing as the seductress I met last night.”
She sucked in a gulp of air and fed the flames burning in her belly. “You arrogant, conceited, smug bastard.”
One dark eyebrow winged up and a look of pure male amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Doing better now. The outrage almost looks real.”
Her heart pounded so hard in her chest it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it. She half expected her heart to crash right through her rib cage. “This isn’t an act, you jackass. Think about it. I didn’t seduce you. You approached me in the bar. And nobody forced you into my bed. As I remember it you came willingly enough.”
“Several times,” he said, playing on her words just to irritate her further.
It worked.
“That’s it. I don’t have to listen to any more of your paranoid ramblings. Get out of my room.” She swung one hand toward the door and stabbed the air with her index finger.
He grabbed his black jacket off a nearby chair and shrugged it on. “Oh, I’m going. No worries there. I wouldn’t stay if you begged me to.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
He snorted again, a particularly annoying, insulting sound. Striding across the room to the door, he stopped before he opened it and looked back over his shoulder at her. “Tell your uncle I said nice try, but no cigar. Celtic Knot won’t be doing a deal with him no matter how many attractive nieces he tosses into my bed.”
Jenny picked up a wineglass from the room service tray they’d shared the night before and hurled it at him. He was through the door and out before the glass shattered against the wood to lie in splinters on the floor.
* * *
Jenny sighed and took another sip of her wine. She hadn’t thought to even see Mike Ryan again, but then six months later, his brother, Sean, had offered her a job that was simply too good to pass up. The chance to work on the kind of art she loved was worth the risk of being around Mike every day. And frankly, by being on-site every day, she was silently telling Mike Ryan that what he’d done hadn’t hurt her. Hadn’t crushed her. Of course that was a big, fat lie, but he didn’t have to know that. Working at Celtic Knot was a dream that only occasionally became a nightmare when she was forced to deal with Mike.
Of course now, the nightmare would be a 24/7 thing for the next few months. Yes, she was excited about being the artist to design the murals for the River Haunt hotel. But having to work one-on-one with Mike was going to make it all so much more grueling than it should have been. Still, she wouldn’t back off. Oh, Jenny knew that Mike wanted her off the project, but this was too big an opportunity for her to turn tail and run. Especially, she reminded herself, since she’d done nothing wrong.
He was the one who had plenty to apologize for. He was the one who’d insulted her, humiliated her and then stomped off without so much as listening to her side of the story.
So why should she be the one to pay a price?
The knock on her door interrupted her thoughts and she told herself, if it was a salesman, she’d buy whatever he was selling out of simple gratitude.
She opened the door and stared up into Mike Ryan’s blazing blue eyes. Without waiting to be invited in, he pushed his way past her and marched into her apartment with all the determination of Grant taking Richmond.
With little else to do but accept the inevitable, Jenny closed the door. “Well, do come in,” she said, every word dripping with sarcasm. “Make yourself at home.”
Features grim, eyes the color of a lake frozen over, he said, “We need to talk.”
Copyright © 2016 by Maureen Child
ISBN-13: 9781488001475
Pregnant by the Rival CEO
Copyright © 2016 by Karen Booth
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