“He’s an out-of-towner. Is that okay?”
“If he’s the right one for the task, I’m fine with that. Where from?”
“Seattle.” Courtesans’ headquarters was located in San Francisco, but Isabel maintained satellite offices in most major U.S. cities and hubs abroad, such as London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt.
“The flight cost shouldn’t be too astronomical then.” As the client, it was Devon’s responsibility to pay for incidentals such as travel. To get what she wanted, the extra cost was worth it. “Book the best price possible, if you could.”
“I already have my T.A. working on it.” Isabel employed a full-time travel 95
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agent who got her clients the competitive fares and rates.
“He’ll need a car, too. I don’t want to pick him up. This needs to feel exactly as if—” She cut herself off, glancing past her door. No one paying attention. Though she should have closed it before she even answered. She’d almost said too much, catching her runaway mouth just in time.
“I’d thought of that. In order to have him pull off being your Hunter Nash, he’ll need access to the building.”
“I can’t give him . . .” She paused, weighing the best way to say it. “I’ll be at the entry. Once I return to the designated place, he can follow in five minutes.”
That didn’t sound untoward if anyone overheard.
“I’m going to need a write-up of all the details you want him to be aware of so he can fit them into his conversation.”
“I can do that. I’ll send you an e-mail tonight.” Devon didn’t intend to give away Hunter’s personal details, but she did want verisimilitude, enough to make the encounter seem real.
“What time do you want him to arrive on Saturday?”
“Nine p.m.” She crossed her legs, brushing off lint that had gathered on her skirt. “I’ll also send you details on how I want the scenario to play out.”
“I’ve never known a woman”—the smile in Isabel’s voice made it clearly across the airspace—“who plans out her fantasies to the nth degree the way you do.”
“It’s how I work and how I play,” Devon answered with a like smile. “But some improvisation from him is fine.”
“Your organization skills amaze me. I need to take lessons.”
“Hah,” Devon scoffed. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.” Isabel was just as exacting.
“If you come up with anything else you want, add it to the e-mail.”
“Will do. And thanks.” Seriousness invaded her voice. “I really need this.”
“Yeah, and you’re going to pay a pretty penny for it, so you should get everything your little heart desires.”
Devon wasn’t extravagant. She had a decent car, a decent home in a decent neighborhood, a decent wardrobe, and when she ate out, she patronized decent restaurants. Nothing over the top, and thus, she had a very decent investment portfolio that she’d managed to keep above water despite the erratic markets. Her one extravagance was her sexual playtime. She didn’t indulge often, but 96
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when she did, she was determined to get exactly what she wanted and was willing to pay for it. “Call me if anything gets in the way.”
“Will do,” Isabel echoed her.
Disconnecting, she snapped the phone closed, turned once again to her desk and the folder on—
She almost shrieked. Good Lord, Hunter stood in her doorway. 97
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3
“I-I DIDN’T HEAR YOU,” DEVON STAMMERED. HOW LONG HAD HUNTER
been there? What the hell had she said? Her heart raced like a stampede of stallions in her chest.
He looked at her, his head cocked slightly with animal-like concentration.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“D-Did you want something?” She shot the words off too quickly, close to rudely, and dammit, she even stuttered again. She needed to get control of herself here. “Duh. Of course you did or you wouldn’t be here. More bad news from the auditors?”
Her blood still thrummed with adrenaline. Looking at him, breathing him in as he sauntered farther into her office, was like mainlining an aphrodisiac. Her body pulsed with need.
“I wanted to let you know Larry has signed off on Jenna’s overhead spreadsheet.” He stopped in front of her desk, but didn’t sit. She tipped her head back to look up at him. “Great.”
“Your explanation did the trick.”
Larry was a bit of a dope, his questions first-year accounting, a class she’d had to take as part of her business degree oh so many moons ago. The kid thought a big mouth made up for a lack of IQ. She had the feeling Jenna’s overhead calculations were only the first of many problems he was going to harp on before this audit was over. “Glad to help.”
Hunter’s perusal unnerved her, his gaze falling to her personal cell, then rising to her face. Silence usually didn’t bother her. She was always the one who could wait it out. Not so this time. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. The investors’ conference next month in Sedona. Are you attending?”
“I haven’t made my decision yet.” She’d been too busy planning her obsessive fantasy. Bad, very bad. She’d never allowed the personal to interfere with work before, not even during her messy divorce. “What are your thoughts on it?” she asked, giving herself time to regain her wits. Last year, this particular conference had been in New York and the cost for two executives was prohibitive, so Hunter had represented the company. The Sedona resort chosen for this year was quite reasonable, comparatively 98
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speaking, and the airfare into Flagstaff much cheaper even with a rental car. A couple of weekends before Thanksgiving, it wouldn’t interfere with the holidays, either. She usually spent the day with her parents in Monterey, and Hunter wouldn’t want anything getting in the way of seeing his kids. Hunter crossed his arms. “If we’re really going to consider doing that public offering late next year to finance the new enterprise system and capital equipment upgrades that Manufacturing says are critical, then you should put in an appearance.”
Glad-handing prospective investors was part of her job. Market conditions hadn’t been favorable for the last few quarters, but the outlook for next year was picking up. “All right. I’ll have Robert make the arrangements.”
“Makes sense to have him make mine as well and take advantage of the fee discount for multiple registrations.”
Her teeth wanted to chatter. Hunter, business trip, Sedona, her. It didn’t mix well. Too much time in a confined space with him, but she couldn’t say they needed to take separate flights and rent two cars. Really, her obsession was getting in the way of the job. Thank God she was taking drastic measures this weekend. “Sounds great. Can you forward him the details?”
“Sure.” Hunter didn’t turn, still towering over her desk.
“Anything else?” She moved her phone, picked up a pen, set it down, then grabbed the folder she’d originally been searching for when he entered. He eyed her. “You okay?”
“Of course.” Not. She picked up her pen again, clicked it once, twice.
“You seem . . . fidgety. I’ve never seen you fidget.”
“Don’t be silly.” Je-sus. Would the man ever leave? She barely managed not to drum her fingers on the desk.
“It was all fine with Garrison?”
“Yes, fine. That was last week.” She made a face. Finally, he backed away, holding up his hands. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
He turned, said something to Robert on the way out, probably about the conference.
He’d picked up on her signals. She’d communicated completely nonverbally that something was off. It was the shock of seeing him there. She told herself he couldn’t have gotten anything out of what she said. She’d been careful. Saturday night couldn’t come fast enough. She was too jittery and jumpy with 99
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nerves. This cou
rtesan session would be therapy. It might take more than one appointment to achieve the cure.
SOMETHING WAS UP. HE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT.
It’s how I work and how I play.
Devon could have been talking about anything, any “scenario” that needed
“improvisation,” Hunter mused as he returned to his office down the hall. Something about Garrison? Maybe he was going to sue for wrongful termination—not that the idiot had a leg to stand on—and she was devising strategies with HR. Maybe she’d taken up acting classes as a hobby. He hadn’t intended to listen, but the way she smiled, the lilt of her voice, her unguarded expression in profile . . . Yeah, the moment stunned him. She seemed so damn .
. . new and different. And captivating.
Then her words caught him. She could have been referring to any number of things, work, personal, private.
Innocuous enough, yet his gut said it was sex. The color rising to her cheeks when she saw him, the soft flush of her skin, a quickened breath, and the nervous shift of her eyes, around the room, touching on him, bouncing off, dropping to his belt buckle, then past him to the door. God help him, he’d gotten hard looking at her. She’d stammered and fidgeted, acting so unlike the Devon Parker he had worked with for over ten years. She was usually in charge and comfortable in any situation. Forthright yet diplomatic. He’d never seen anything publicly ruffle her aplomb. Sure, Garrison threw her, and he’d witnessed other situations get under her skin. Hunter was one of the few who detected those subtle nuances. Their friendship was close enough for her to trust discussing those things with him. She’d never acted like that, the way she had in her office. She couldn’t wait to get rid of him.
It was sex. It had to be. She was talking dirty at her desk, and he’d caught her.
Hunter entered his office, closing the door, then rounding his desk to flop down in his chair. Elbows on the armrests, he laced his fingers. It was warm for the end of October, and the sun beat through his window, shining on his computer screen, not that he was looking at it anyway. His office didn’t have the feminine trappings of Devon’s, no prints on the walls or ornamentation, but it 100
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had plenty of room for a conference table where he held his strategy meetings, a large whiteboard that printed out whatever was written on it, and a couple of chairs in front of his desk for anyone wanting to park their butt and talk. Someone usually did, especially during audit. On the whole, he was an opendoor kind of executive, but right now, he didn’t want anyone interrupting his thoughts. About Devon.
Christ, she’d gotten him hot. And bothered. She was an intelligent woman and extremely pleasant to look at, but off limits. First, they were both married. When they came together again, she was his CEO. He didn’t do work relationships. Six months after the divorce, he’d dated a woman from the office. Dating was a whole new ball game versus flirting in the halls. It ended badly, and going to work every day became a nightmare, his personal business all over the break room. Devon was a different kind of woman. With her, nothing would make it to the water cooler. She was still off limits. They were friends. He’d never wanted to jeopardize that.
Until five minutes ago in her office, when he’d experienced a need-to-know that bordered on insanity. For a moment, he wanted to reach across her desk, pull her up by the lapels of her tailored suit jacket, his face right in hers, and force her to tell him how she played.
Because if she played anything like she worked, holy hell. Bringing that level of concentration, dedication, and focus to sex, with all the gusto she applied to the job, he could only imagine. For Devon, everything was about her career. He figured that was the reason for her divorce. After her job, she didn’t have anything left over to give a man. It was never something he held against her. He admired her for it. In a lot of ways, she thought like a man—unemotional in a work setting. He’d never fancied her a sexual creature. She was unattainable, controlled, look but don’t touch, a virtual ice queen. His eyes had been opened. He wasn’t going to be able to shut them again. He wouldn’t be able to stop seeing that sensual smile on her lips or hearing the sexy note in her voice.
Oh, man, was he ever in trouble now.
TWO DAYS LATER, HE HADN’T REVISED THAT OPINION. FRIDAY. IT had been a freaking long week with the auditors. And he’d noticed Devon in every meeting. Hunter had always paid attention to what she said, now he noticed her. 101
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Her scent, expensive, subtly sweet, and evocative. Her legs, long, toned calves with defined muscles. He was a leg man, and he found himself wishing her skirts were shorter, affording him a glimpse of thigh. He had eyes in his head and a nose with which to breathe, so he’d seen all these things before. Now he drank in the details like fine wine on his tongue.
Christ, he needed to get his head out of his shorts. Or out from underneath her skirt, metaphorically speaking.
Shoving a folder into his briefcase, he realized he’d have to come in for a couple of hours tomorrow morning. With the office relatively empty on a Saturday, he could get a lot of work done without interruption. His personal cell phone vibrated on the desk. He kept it with him for the kids to use in an emergency, though they usually didn’t bother him at work. His message icon blinked. Odd. He’d been in his office for the last fifteen minutes, and the phone hadn’t rung. Someone must have dialed directly through to his voice mail.
He punched in his password, and listened. She didn’t give her name, but he recognized the voice. She surprised him; he hadn’t had dealings with her in quite some time. The message? Holy Christ. He listened to it twice. It was an offer he didn’t intend to refuse.
THE ALARMS WERE SET AND THE LIGHTS OUT WHEN DEVON ARRIVED at the GDN corporate building. The company had two Bay Area campuses, corporate headquarters in Mountain View, with the executive staff, Accounting, IT, Human Resources, and Sales and Marketing, and their manufacturing facility in Milpitas, with Engineering, R&D, Production Control, Quality, Shipping and Receiving. Production worked three shifts, but Corporate was empty and dark at eight-forty-five on a Saturday night.
She breathed a sigh of relief. Her office lay off the reception lobby at the end of the main hallway. She would see him pull into the lot and had instructed that he park his car behind the building so it wasn’t visible from the street. Still, her heart pitter-pattered. She wasn’t used to hijinks, yet the element of risk added a thrill.
Her pumps were spiked, red suede, the heels sinking into the plush carpeting. She’d chosen a red power suit, one she usually reserved for board meetings. The fitted red jacket was molded to her breasts and waistline, then flared at the hips. Made of the same material, the skirt stretched tight over her rear end, falling 102
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below the knee, its forties-style pencil lines forcing a sway to her hips as she moved. She wore her hair up in her usual knot, her only outward concession to the naughty activities of the night being a few tendrils of blonde cascading to her shoulders.
Hunter had seen the suit before. Imagining the look in his eyes if he knew the lingerie that lay beneath made her feel sexy as hell, and she added a little wiggle to her walk.
Sauntering through the outer office, past Robert’s desk, she unlocked her door. A large corner office, an oak conference table and four seats lay to the right, a loveseat and two armchairs with a small coffee table took up residence to the left. Her polished desk and computer credenza fit right down the middle beneath the window. The office served as workspace yet was hospitable enough for entertaining customers. The prints on the wall were her personal possessions. She favored nature art, birds in flight, a woodsy path, a mountain lion’s eyes blinking in the underbrush. She spent more time here than she did at home, and the prints soothed her.
The antique carriage clock on her desk ticktocked closer to nine. She checked her lipstick in a compact mirror, then removed several condoms from her purse before laying the bag in her bottom desk drawer. The condoms she carried
to the side table by the sofa, setting them unobtrusively behind the lamp. Ticktock.
Back at her desk, she gazed out at the parking lot dotted with islands of hawthorn bushes no longer in bloom. She’d driven around the building to make sure the back was as empty as the front.
The beam of headlights flashed across the road as a car turned into the culde-sac. Her blood began to pulse wildly. There were four other businesses along the street, but the vehicle passed by those entrances, heading straight ahead to GDN’s lot.
She swallowed, her throat parched. A date with a courtesan had never affected her this way before.
The headlights flashed up, then down as the car bumped over the driveway. She held her breath, knowing she was silhouetted in the window, her office lights behind her.
Following the outside border of the parking lot, the vehicle disappeared from view around the building. Devon glanced at the carriage clock. Nine p.m. exactly. 103
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Leaning over the desk, she flipped on the reading lamp. Her stomach fluttered as she closed the blinds behind her credenza, shutting out the night. Retrieving two bottles of water from her mini-fridge, she left them on the coffee table, then closed the window blinds behind the sofa as well. At the door, she switched out the overhead lights, leaving the room aglow with only a soft illumination. The setting was as perfect as she could make it.
She backed out, turned, headed down the hall. Showtime.
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4
DEVON’S HEELS DETONATED LIKE SMALL EXPLOSIONS ON THE FAUX
marble tile of the lobby. She’d never realized how loud that was. With the reception lights on, her features in the window’s reflection were starkly superimposed over the form of a man waiting outside. Damn, she should have left the lights off.
At least he was tall like Hunter.
Reaching for the door’s metal handle, she realized her hands were shaking. Devon curled her fist, willing away the tremors. Nervousness was stupid. She shoved on the door.
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