Lord. What had she been thinking?
Ah, of course, she hadn’t been thinking at all. That’s how it was with Hunter. She straightened her hair, pushing back a tendril that had fallen loose. “I’m not usually a do-anything-anytime-anywhere kind of woman.”
“If you accept that this thing is unstoppable and simply go with it, you wouldn’t have these flare-ups.”
She laughed, not because he was funny, but more that he was completely correct. She was out of control because she wouldn’t give in. If she was discreet about it, then she wouldn’t spread her legs for him in the middle of a restaurant 157
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during the dinner hour. Even if it had been one of her hottest fantasies come to life. “I am not going to get caught with my pants down like Garrison did.”
“Totally different situation. He was cheating on his wife and stupid enough to let her figure it out. You and I are both single, consenting adults.” He picked up her hand.
She removed herself from his grasp and shifted away. “We don’t touch in public.”
“I agree.”
“No flirty sexual innuendos at work.”
He made a rude noise. “Spoilsport.”
“No more than once a week, no spending the whole night with each other, and we don’t tell anyone what we’re doing.”
His eyes flattened, and his shit-eating grin disappeared. “So we’re just fuck buddies.”
“I prefer friends with benefits.”
Jaw tensing, he stared at her. “I don’t.”
“Take it or leave it.” She sounded like Devon Parker, bitch with brass balls, and tried to soften it. “This is to protect both our careers.”
“I’m not worried about my career.” His voice was stone cold. That got her back up. “Because you’re the man, and men can do whatever they want, whereas a woman has to be careful. Any hint of scandal can ruin me.”
“May I hark back to the fact that Garrison, a man, got himself fired?”—she winced at Hunter’s reminder—“I don’t intend for that to happen to either of us. Besides, no one cares about consensual adult activities between single people.”
Why was he being so difficult? “Fine. People don’t care. We’re still doing it my way.” She grabbed her purse from the seat beside her. “I’m leaving. You should wait five minutes.”
“For Christ’s sake, as far as everyone here is concerned it was a business dinner.”
“Hunter.” That’s all she said and began shimmying out of the booth. He grabbed her arm, held on. “When we’re in the bedroom, everything’s my way.” His eyes glittered like glass.
Devon shivered. In the bedroom, she’d do whatever he said.
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GODDAMMIT. FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS WAS NOT WHAT HE WANTED. Hunter watched her go, then waited the requisite five minutes. Why the fuck was he doing what she told him to? They were adults. If they wanted to have a relationship, they could goddamn well have a relationship. He’d learned something huge in the last month. He wanted Devon Parker in his bed all night long. He wanted to call her on the phone in the middle of the day and talk dirty. He wanted to take her to dinner, to a movie, for a walk in the park, and out with his kids to a Sunday football game. He wanted her without all the secrecy and sneaking around.
He wouldn’t let her paranoia stop him.
SHE’D MADE A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL. TRUE TO HIS WORD, HUNTER didn’t make a single sexual innuendo, not even a sly remark. In fact, he rarely smiled at all. But he didn’t forget what she’d promised him. Tuesday night, he called her cell at eight-thirty. Without even a hello or asking if she was busy, he said, “Saturday night. You will come to my house at seven o’clock. You will be wearing a coat, high heels, and nothing else.” He disconnected before she could answer yes or no. Her parents lived in Monterey. She was going down only for Thanksgiving Day, and would be back in town for the weekend. She didn’t have to ask for his address, having attended work-related social gatherings he’d hosted at the house.
She’d be there wearing nothing but a coat and high heels. Wednesday, she planned on letting everyone go by noon for the holiday. The crew was small anyway, as many chose to take the week off. The auditors, however, had their full contingent. Five minutes before noon, there was Larry the Lead taking up space in her doorway. She really could not like that man.
“Larry, what can I do for you?”
He advanced into her office. “Got a question for you.” Tall, lanky, his hair overlong, he reminded her of Jughead from the old Archie comics. The thought made her smile. “Sure. Have a seat.”
He mistook the smile, because he grinned back, all teeth. A bit like a shark. She’d cottoned on to the fact the beam on his face had nothing to do with pleasantries. He didn’t sit. Instead, he laid an expense report on the desk and 159
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slid it toward her. “Can you tell me what this is?”
Oh yeah. That look was definitely a shark moving in for the kill. Devon rose. She wasn’t taller, even with her heels, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to give the kid the advantage of towering over her while she sat.
“This is my expense report. What are you doing with it? I just turned it in last week.”
“We’re obligated to review significant activity that takes place between yearend and the 10K release.”
“This isn’t significant.”
He laid another expense report side by side with hers. Hunter’s. “You, the CEO”—he tapped her report—“and Mr. Nash, the CFO”—he tapped Hunter’s—“at a resort in Sedona together is significant.”
Shit. They knew. Despite her worst fears realized, she would not fold in front of this man. “It was the annual investors’ conference. We attend every year. It happened to be in Sedona this year.” Her tone said “big deal.”
He yanked her page from the desk, stabbed a finger at the hotel line. “You didn’t put Saturday night on your expense report.” He tossed it back down, and she caught it before it flew off the edge. He grabbed Hunter’s and stabbed again. “Here we find Saturday night charged to the company.”
She let her brows knit together—“Yeah?”—and leveled him with a look that clearly said she considered him an imbecile.
He jabbed both expense reports at once. “You flew home on the Sunday flight together, Ms. Parker.” He gave her a smirk. “So where did you spend the night on Saturday? In Mr. Nash’s room?”
Her heart was beating so fast she thought she’d faint. Guilty, guilty, guilty flashed before her eyes like a neon sign. Never let them see you sweat. She was a CEO because she was capable of controlling her emotions.
“Consider carefully, Ms. Parker,” he said, a slight sneer on the title.
“Fraternization between executives could be an indicator of collusion.”
She laughed and was sure, absolutely sure it didn’t sound hysterical or guilty.
“I do not understand your desire to find fraud.” In exact opposition to his stabbing and jabbing, she gently picked up her expense report and gingerly flipped to the attached hotel bill, drawing a finger along the last line. “You’ll see right here that I paid for Saturday night with my personal credit card since I took a spa day. Mr. Nash, on the other hand, spent the day with an interested 160
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investor and therefore his Saturday night stay was a company expense.”
Larry the lead asshole’s face muscles drooped, his shoulders slumped. “Oh.”
“If you were to properly peruse all the attached documentation, you wouldn’t need to take up my time with idiotic questions.” She handed both expense reports back to him. “Please make sure you return these to the appropriate accounts payable clerk when you’re done with them.”
At least three inches shorter than when he entered, Larry took the reports, backed away, his eyes brown like a whipped puppy.
“Close the door on your way out.” She did not sound pleased this time. With the snick o
f the latch, she slumped into her chair. This was what Hunter didn’t understand. They might be single consenting adults, but they were under scrutiny. They’d skated on this one because Larry the lead asshole hadn’t done his home-work. Next time, he wouldn’t make the same mistake. Though they’d done nothing illegal or unethical, they were under his puny microscope, and any “fraternization” would land them in hot water. Devon would not destroy their careers for the sake of a little nookie. Saturday night at his house with only high heels and a coat was not an option. It could never be an option.
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13
“YOU’RE JOKING, RIGHT?” HUNTER COULD ONLY LOOK AT DEVON AS if she’d lost her mind. Or rather, her mind was completely unfathomable to him.
“Larry didn’t find anything wrong because we didn’t do anything wrong.”
Devon had closed his door and now paced the length of his office. Her suit was a staid gray, severe lines, nothing feminine, and her hair was pulled back so tightly it must be giving her a headache. “It’s the appearance of impropriety,”
she insisted.
“There is no appearance.” He almost threw up his hands in exasperation. They twitched at his sides. “We went to a conference the way we’ve done several times in the past. We weren’t extravagant, and we didn’t bilk the company. There’s no wrongdoing.”
“We had sex,” she whispered on a hiss.
“Yeah. It was fucking great. We’re going to do it again.” He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “And again.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We can’t ever do that again. If someone finds out, it’ll ruin us.”
He rounded the end of his desk, yanked back his chair, but didn’t sit. “I don’t have time for this lunacy.” He had to pick up the kids from their mom’s in half an hour. He was taking them up to Santa Rosa for Thanksgiving with his parents. They’d return Friday night, and the kids would do a mock Thanksgiving with their other set of grandparents over the weekend. He and his ex-wife traded holidays. One year he spent Christmas with them, the next year Thanksgiving. It sucked, but it was the only way to work it.
“What about Garrison?” Devon kept riding him.
“Garrison’s wife called his boss and every other member of the fucking management team.” He tried deep breathing, but it didn’t stop the harsh note in his voice. “That’s what sunk him.”
“The issue was doing his subordinate.”
“No, it was his wife’s big mouth.” Even Devon had said that the day she had to ask for Garrison’s resignation. “You’re twisting the story to support your paranoia.”
“I am not paranoid.” She gave him her best bullish look. 162
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It was possible he was being a prick, wanting what he wanted without any compromise and regardless of her feelings. “Okay, you’re not paranoid. Let me say it this way. I want you. I want to have sex with you. I want a relationship with you. We are two consenting adults, and no one’s going to give a rat’s ass. So either you want this”—he paused for impact, eyes on hers—“or you don’t.”
She bit her lip. Devon Parker never bit her lip indecisively. If she voiced one more doubt—“It’s a bad idea.”
“I’ve made a decision.” It might appear to her that the words were spur of the moment, split second, but it was something he’d known had to come eventually. Maybe he’d been putting it off because of her, but it was the right move, the right step. “Here’s my solution to our mutual problem. Joseph gave me a heads-up that Richardson over at National Dynamics is getting his ducks in a row to retire.”
She looked at him as if she couldn’t connect the dots. He connected them for her. “My career path does not end at CFO. I intend to rise to CEO, chairman of the board, et cetera. It’s time for me to climb another rung of the ladder.” He knew the people and the products at National Dynamics. The company was a good fit for him and vice versa. Devon blinked, then her jaw dropped. “You’re going to desert me in the middle of this horrendous audit with Larry the lead asshole nipping at my heels?”
“No, Devon. I am not going to desert you.” Didn’t she know him better than that? Didn’t she have more faith? He wanted to reach across the desk between them and shake some sense into her. “By the time any move I make gets squared away, the audit will be over, the 10K will be filed, and the proxy will be approved and off to the printers.”
She shot out a breath, spread her hands. “What about the public offering?”
“It’s a year away, Devon. Plenty of time for anyone else to come up to speed. Plus we’ve got a good accounting team, things can almost damn well run themselves.”
“I can’t believe you would do this over sex.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts.
He gritted his teeth, his jaw tensing. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“So this is an ultimatum? Either I have sex with you the way you dictate it or you leave?”
He leaned both fists on the desk and glared at her. “Jesus Christ, Devon, 163
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that’s not what I mean at all, and you fucking know it. I can’t hang around forever as CFO just to bolster you.”
She glared, eyes narrowed. “Oh, so now I can’t do it on my own.”
He took a deep breath because if he didn’t calm down, he’d say something they’d both regret. “We’ve got an opportunity here to have a relationship, and at the same time I can meet my career goals.”
She swallowed. “Whether you leave or you stay doesn’t make any difference,” she verbally slapped him. “We can’t have a relationship even if you’ve left the company. If we did, they’d go back and consider our actions together while you were still here.” She wasn’t going to budge an inch. He pointed a finger at her. “Here’s how I see it. You don’t want to admit there’s any solution at all.” He pulled back, buttoned his suit jacket. “I’m going to be late picking up my kids. You cogitate on it, Devon. If you’re at all interested in making this thing between us work, you will be at my house on Saturday. If you don’t show”—he stretched his lips in a smile without humor—“I’ll understand you’re indifferent to it. Quite frankly, my opinion is you’re afraid of having a relationship. You got burned in your marriage, you’ve played around with your courtesans ever since, and stayed as far away as possible from any commitment or obligation.”
She shook her head slowly, lips parted, eyes wide. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“What I want is a decision. I have never known you to have such a problem making a simple decision.”
Her lips flattened, the lines of her body militant. “You want a decision, fine. Here it is. I won’t be there on Saturday. But I wish you all the best of luck in your new job.” This was the Devon he expected. Pushed, she’d come down hard. She stalked to the door, opened it, and left it open after she passed through. No dramatic slamming. That wasn’t Devon’s way. Was it her? Was it him? Were they both uncompromising? He couldn’t quite comprehend that he’d ended a ten-year relationship with a woman he admired over a sex thing that had lasted little more than a week. Sex really fucked things up.
SEX RUINED EVERYTHING. HE’D LEFT HER, JUST LIKE THAT, WITH AN
ultimatum, be there or forget everything. Devon gritted her teeth. She was right, 164
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and this had nothing to do with her fear of relationships or her anger with men. She was not angry at her ex-husband. They were different, she accepted that. She was over it. She loved her courtesans. They were easy, went home when you told them to, and didn’t ask you to have inconvenient sex. Everything was on her terms.
None of them made her feel the way Hunter did. That was the whole issue. Devon stuffed her briefcase with paperwork she’d look at over the holiday weekend. She’d spend Thanksgiving with her parents, but with so much to do she’d return the same night.
Damn Hunter for mentioning her marriage. He was wrong. He was push
ing too damn hard, using every trick in the book. Then she heard herself, the number of times she’d said men were too much trouble. She’d said something very much like that to Courtney O’Brien all those weeks ago, that she preferred courtesans because men were a pain in the ass. Was she afraid of relationships? No. No way.
Worse, though, was Hunter’s other accusation. Had she been holding him back?
The argument kept her awake much of the night, it haunted her along the highway during the hour and a half drive to her parents’, and it made her uncharacteristically quiet with them once she got there. She and her dad barely shared two sentences in the TV room after her initial kiss on his cheek. Her father seemed to have lost much of his joie de vivre after he retired several years ago.
“Mom, here, let me get that for you.” She walked into the kitchen to catch her mother pulling the oversized roasting pan from the oven.
“I’ve been lifting the Thanksgiving turkey out of the oven for the last sixty years,” her mom said. “And I’ll be doing it for at least another ten.”
Devon had simply taken it for granted that what her mom said was true.
“That pan is heavy.”
Her mother tsked, independent as always, and set the pan on the bread board. That’s where Devon got her independence from. Her mom was eightythree, and still took her daily three-mile walks, worked two days a week at the church thrift shop, delivered the Sunday altar flowers to hospital patients. The list went on and on. Yet, she’d seemed more fragile over the last few months, moving more slowly. Devon had been rushing at such a fast pace herself that 165
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she’d seen the changes without actually taking stock of them. She visited most holidays, but that didn’t amount to more than five or six days a year. Monterey was only an hour and a half down the freeway from Silicon Valley, a three-hour round trip. She drove that distance three or four times a month for business meetings, yet she couldn’t manage to see her parents more than six days a year. It was unfathomable. It had to change.
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