Day Leclaire - The Provocative Proposal

by The Provocative Proposal (lit)

  At quarter of eight the doorbell rang and she opened it to find a huge behemoth of a man taking up the full height and width of her doorway. “Seth sent me,” he all but grunted.

  He clutched a square of pasteboard in his pawlike fist that turned out to be her brother’s business card. On the back, in Seth’s handwriting, was scrawled, “Meet Bull. Caution! Feed at your own risk. Keep fingers away from mouth. Operate with care using simple instructions.”

  Oh, dear. This wasn’t quite what she had in mind. She glanced uncertainly at her “protector” before retreating a pace with notable reluctance. “Come in...er...Bull. Can I get you something to drink?”

  He shook his head, his bald crown missing the hall­way light above him by a scant inch. “Can’t. Your brother said no alcohol.”

  “Oh. I...I meant a soft drink.”

  His mug crumpled into an expression she took for distaste. “Nah.” He folded his massive arms across his equally massive chest and the threads holding his T-shirt together groaned in protest. He regarded her with single­-minded intentness. “This guy I’m supposed to protect you from. He threatening you or something?”

  “No, no,” she hastened to reassure. “I don’t know him very well and preferred having someone here until I was sure it was safe.”

  “You want I should bust ‘em if he gives you any bullsh—”

  “No!” Where had her brother found this guy? She pitched her voice to a soothing level. Poor Shayde. If she didn’t do something to protect him, she’d lose both a potential employee, as well as any shot at the job pro­motion. Maybe a few ground rules were called for. “Just look intimidating, Bull. No hitting. No violence. No physical contact of any sort. Got it?”

  His face rumpled up again into what she was fast com­ing to realize was his unique way of indicating disap­proval. “Yeah, okay. Whatever.”

  “I don’t think this will take long. We only have a few matters to discuss. Once we’re through, you both can go.” Maybe subtlety wasn’t the best choice to use with Bull. Maybe big words and long sentences weren’t, ei­ther. “Stay here until he goes. I want you both to leave together. Got it?”

  His irritated shrug didn’t strike her as an agreement. But that might have something to do with the fact that she hadn’t fully learned Bull-speak, yet. For all she knew a shrug might mean, “Yes, ma’am, whatever you say, ma’am.” Then again, it could also mean, “I don’t take orders from anyone, I simply pound iron spikes into ce­ment with my bald little head and I do it whenever the spirit moves me.”

  If the doorbell hadn’t rung, she’d have gone over the instructions once more in single syllable words to make certain Bull understood them. That way she’d have done her best to convey her intent, even if he chose not to follow her directions. Instead, she shot him a warning look—like that would do any good—and hastened to the door.

  Shayde stood on her porch.

  “Please, come in,” she invited with a cool formality she was far from feeling. Standing to one side, she al­lowed him across the threshold.

  Bull lumbered into view and Shayde slowly closed the door. Glancing at Tess, he lifted an eyebrow. “A friend of yours?”

  “We just met.”

  Shayde inclined his head in her bodyguard’s direction. “Bull. How’s it going?”

  Bull’s face broke apart in a huge grin. “Heyya, Shayde. What the hell are you doin’ here?”

  “I have an appointment with Mrs. Lonigan.”

  “‘Pointment?” A deep frown furrowed his massive brow and his brain cells shifted into high gear. One cell after another ignited until a full half dozen erupted into a sputtering flame. Then he turned on Tess his face col­lapsing into an expression of deep affront. “This is the guy I’m supposed to bust up for you?”

  She started in alarm. “No! That’s not what I—”

  Shayde folded his arms across his chest and shook his head in mock reproof. “Not an auspicious start to our relationship, Mrs. Lonigan.”

  “I didn’t ask him to-” she attempted to protest.

  “Sorry, Miz Lonigan. But I can’t take on Shayde,” Bull interrupted. He ticked off on a beefy finger. “First, I’d get in trouble with everybody if I tried.”

  That caught her attention. “Everybody? Who’s every­body?”

  “Your brother, his brother, and—” He shot an ap­prehensive glance in Shayde’s direction. “I mean... I mean... You know. Everybody.”

  “Good save, Bull,” Shayde murmured in an encour­aging aside.

  The huge man plowed determinedly onward. “And second, I’d lose the fight.”

  He’d momentarily distracted Tess by counting so high. As a result, it took her an instant to assimilate what he’d said. “You’d lose?” She didn’t bother to conceal her astonishment. “You, Bull?”

  He couldn’t seem to decide whether to preen or take offense. “I’m the best,” he muttered, squirming like a schoolboy. “But Shayde’s better.”

  “I can take it from here, old friend,” Shayde inserted.

  Bull jerked to attention. “Right. No need for me to hang around. I’ll push off then.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tess objected. “You were sup­posed to stay until we were through.”

  “Oh, no, Miz Lonigan. You just wanted me to stay to make sure you was safe,” Bull explained earnestly. “I know you might find this hard to believe, but you’ll be safest with Shayde. Safer even than with me.”

  “An honest assessment of the situation,” Shayde ap­proved.

  Before she could voice a single word of protest, Bull opened the front door and maneuvered his bulk through it before slamming it shut behind him. The windows closest to the door rattled so hard it was a wonder they didn’t shatter. She stared after him in disgust. “This isn’t going at all the way I’d planned.”

  “Nervous about our meeting?”

  His voice sounded even more like ground glass than normal and abraded every bit as much. She spun away from the door to face him. “Since I don’t know you, I thought I’d play it smart.”

  “Do you invite Bull over for every first date?”

  “All of them,” she lied. “If they pass his inspection and don’t run screaming into the night, there’s a second date.”

  He didn’t bother to remind her that not two minutes ­ago she’d claimed she’d just met Bull. Instead, he smiled and she felt the warmth melt deep into her bones. “Since I haven’t run out on you, I guess there’s hope for us.”

  She’d been a fool to think Shayde could possibly be either a lunatic or a smooth-talking predator. This man didn’t use deceit to achieve his ends. He didn’t need to. All he had to do was flash that killer smile of his and he’d get his way every time. All in all, she found her new employee quite impressive. With a gorgeous set of shoulders, a lean muscular physique and eyes that burned with an intensity that threatened to steal her breath, she found it increasingly difficult to remember why he’d come.

  Her mouth firmed. Enough already. He’d invited him­self here for a reason and if she were smart, she wouldn’t waste any time finding out what he wanted before show­ing him the door. “How do you know Bull?” she asked, hoping the topic would help them regain a business foot­ing.

  “We go way back,” Shayde answered with irritating vagueness. He glanced around the hallway. “Where’s the inner sanctum?”

  So much for focusing on business. If he kept diffusing that focus, she’d have a rough time of it this evening. “You won’t be going there.”

  “Afraid it’ll confirm my guess?”

  She refused to be drawn. “I don’t know you well enough to show you my inner anything.”

  He lifted an eyebrow at her phrasing. “Do you know anyone that well?”

  She didn’t bother answering, but nodded toward a cor­ridor leading to the rear of the house. “Come on, Shayde. I’ll take you as far as the kitchen. We can talk over coffee.”

  “I’ll go as far as you’re willing to take me on a first date. Cof
fee sounds like an excellent start.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. “Fair warning, coffee is the start and finish. And the kitchen is as far as you’ll be invited.”

  He shook his head in pretend dismay. “You’re a tough first date.”

  With luck, she’d remain a tough first date, as well as a tougher second, third and fourth. “I gather your first dates tend to be more interesting?”

  “As a rule.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “We’ll see how disappointed I am when the evening’s over.”

  Enough small talk. Gesturing for him to follow, she led the way to the kitchen. It only took a moment to start the coffee perking. “When we spoke, you men­tioned there’d be terms to discuss before you took the job.” She removed a pair of mugs from the cabinet. “What terms?”

  “I see you’re a woman who prefers to get to the point.” He 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 coffeemaker.” 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.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  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 bellow­.-:z 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 defini
tely 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.”

  “No, you’re not. It only took one kiss to confirm that.”

  His jaw assumed a stubborn set. “That kiss didn’t prove anything other than I caught you by surprise and you weren’t willing to let down your guard long enough to follow your natural urges.”

  “There’s a reason for that.”

  “Fear?”

  “No! You’re my employee, not my lover.”

  “You hired me to be both,” he couldn’t resist point­ing out.

  She didn’t let him get away with it. “I hired you to be my employee and to play the part of my lover. That doesn’t mean you’re supposed to grab and kiss your boss. Or is that standard operating procedure with you?”

  “I believe you’re the first employer I’ve ever grabbed and kissed.” He eyed her with amused frankness. “To be honest, I’m giving that approach a serious rethink. I’m not convinced it’s a total success.”

  “It’s not even a little success. All it’s going to do is get you fired.”

  He lifted an eyebrow in question. “Are you firing me?”

  She wanted to, he could tell. At a guess the thought of suffering through another round of interviews saved him from complete disaster. “I’m willing to let it go this once.” A hint of steel threaded her voice. “But I won’t agree to your terms.”

  That’s what she thought. “You’re not willing to spend time with me before the benefit?” he asked mildly.