by A. C. Arthur
She seemed to be thinking it over. He however, was loving the feel of her smooth skin beneath his touch. She smelled sweet and alluring, just as she had before. This was a big deal for him and the company and Adam had a strange feeling that Camille wasn’t going to easily be convinced to sell the property. He hated to admit that at this moment that wasn’t his top priority. Spending more time with her was.
“I don’t want to sell,” she said quietly.
“Just give me a chance to talk to you,” he implored.
Then as if she knew he’d been holding his breath waiting for that very action, she smiled. His insides warmed and the voice of dread echoed in the back of his mind.
This was so unlike her. Camille did not date often and when she did it was with men she’d met on more than one occasion. However, tonight she found herself sitting in the only restaurant on the ground floor of the Gramercy Hotel with the man who had haunted her dreams for months. She’d already missed her flight back to L.A. so it was agreed that she was staying in Vegas.
She’d remembered the weekend she’d spent here. The weekend she’d been Dana’s maid of honor and had been forced to do her bidding. Well, she couldn’t exactly call it being forced.
Dana Palmer was Camille’s best friend and had been since the summer Camille turned eleven—the summer after her father had married Moreen. A soft smile touched her lips as she remembered the impromptu slumber parties on those nights when Moreen was just too much to stand and through each of her bad relationships. Dana had provided that sense of balance Camille needed. When Moreen would verbally attack her, stripping her of all self-confidence and self-esteem, Dana would attempt to build her right back up.
Camille would do anything for Dana. Almost anything.
“This is your weekend. For three days it is my job to do whatever I can to make you happy,” Camille remembered saying. It was at that precise moment that he’d walked in.
The same man she’d bumped into on her way to meet Dana. This was Camille’s first trip to Vegas and her first time in a real live casino. She had no idea that casinos were hotels as well as money pits.
He’d been extremely attractive and he’d made her nervous. She was happy to get away from him, yet sad that she hadn’t had enough courage to talk to him like a sane adult woman.
“I want you to sleep with him,” Dana had said as she took another sip from her drink.
Camille had followed her gaze and immediately began shaking her head negatively.
“Uh-huh. You are out of your mind.” She had immediately turned her back to the “him” Dana had been referring to, her hands already beginning to sweat.
“Come on, Camille, he looks positively yummy!” Dana had squealed.
“Then you do him,” Camille had shot back while reaching for her drink. She’d gripped the glass, brought it to her lips, then decided she needed something much stronger. “Rum and Coke, please,” she’d asked the bartender who thankfully appeared just in time.
“I’m about to be a married woman, I can’t do him. But you’re single, so you should go for it.”
Camille had tossed Dana a disgusted look. “I am happily single and couldn’t manage to ‘do him’ if I tried.”
“What are you thinking about over there?”
His voice startled her from her memories and Camille jumped in her seat. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts that she’d forgotten she was now sitting across from the man she’d refused to “do” almost six months ago.
“What? Oh, I’m sorry. What were you saying?” She picked up her napkin and placed it in her lap. She needed something to do with her hands to keep them from shaking. Dating wasn’t something Camille proclaimed to do well. And that was mostly because she was self-conscious about her looks.
Taking a deep breath, Camille reminded herself that this was not a date. And that while Adam Donovan was her sexy dream guy, she was in no way the subject of his dreams. This was business to him. Business, she reminded herself, was something she could definitely do.
“I noticed. You were pretty deep in thought. Do you want to share?” he asked.
He looked at her quizzically, not disapprovingly, she quickly noted. “No. It was nothing.” She cleared her throat. “I’d rather talk about you. I mean, I’d rather talk about your plans for my father’s house and why you approached only one of the owners.”
Their food arrived so conversation was stalled for a few minutes. Adam had ordered the Porterhouse steak and roasted potatoes with steamed asparagus. Camille’s stomach lurched as the waiter put a huge salad in front of her. She attempted to focus on her salad, sprinkling it with lemon juice instead of salad dressing.
Adam took a bite and moaned. “Linc has got the best chef in town. I swear I’ve been to just about all of the upscale restaurants in Vegas and have never experienced a steak so tender and seasoned as this one.”
Camille stifled a moan of her own and stuffed a forkful of lettuce and croutons into her mouth. When Adam looked to her for a response she simply smiled and nodded.
“Is that all you’re going to eat?” he asked as he cut another piece of steak.
She nodded. “Yes, I’m not that hungry.” That was a blatant lie and if he could only hear the revolting sounds her stomach was making he’d know that.
“I never could understand how rabbit food could fill a human stomach. My mother serves a salad with every meal. Made me want to puke when I was growing up.”
Camille smiled and tilted her head to stare at him. “I’ll bet you were an obedient child,” she said absently.
“And you’d lose every dime of your money.” He chuckled. “My mother could tell you stories of how mischievous I was. One time when my cousins were at the house I convinced them and my brothers to take the mattress off our beds and slide down the grand staircase in the foyer.” He laughed loudly then. “We had the best time.”
Camille laughed with him because his smile reached his eyes which held hers captive. She laughed because the deep, sincere sound of his enjoyment touched a spot in her that she was sure she’d lost long ago. “What did your parents do?”
“Mom blistered my butt something terrible. But that was nothing new. Out of my three brothers I got in the most trouble.”
Camille stopped eating, placing her elbows on the table. Then as if she were right at the table with them, Camille heard Moreen’s shrill voice chastising her, “Take your elbows off the table.” Abruptly she pulled her arms down and dropped her hands in her lap. She prayed Adam hadn’t noticed but the moment she looked up she knew he had.
“Ah, are you older than your brothers?” she asked quietly.
Adam took a sip of his wine. “I am the youngest of the three and I’m twenty-nine.”
“I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“That must have been pretty lonely for you growing up, huh?”
“Yes, it was.” She found herself about to tell him how lonely and how painful her childhood had been but then she remembered this was not a social evening. She sat up straighter in the chair and resumed the pretense of enjoying her salad. “So you didn’t tell me why you thought you could buy a property with only one owner’s consent. You and your brother don’t strike me as simple-minded businessmen.”
He almost choked on his food and Camille quickly lifted his glass of water and handed it to him.
He nodded and took the glass from her. “Thank you,” he murmured. He took a gulp then set the glass down. “You are correct. My brother and I are not simple-minded. This deal came up kind of sudden. I assumed that Max had taken care of the legwork, which I am sure he did. Details must have gotten misconstrued somehow.”
“Yes, the tiny detail of my name beside hers on the will. Misconstruing details is right up Moreen’s alley,” she said dryly.
“You don’t like your stepmother much, do you?”
“Does it show?”
Adam chuckled and held his two fingers together. “Just a tiny bit.”
&
nbsp; Camille smiled again. Adam Donovan had a way of making her smile. That was something she wasn’t used to with a man. Actually, she wasn’t sure she’d smiled at all in the past six months.
“But now that we know there are two owners, we will approach the deal accordingly. Donovan Investments has no desire to cause a family feud or to face any legal hassles.”
“Good. Then you can tell your brother that there is nothing to approach. I don’t want to sell my father’s house.”
“So you plan on moving into it?”
“No. I have a condo in the city. It’s close to my shop and it’s my own personal space. I need my personal space.”
Adam nodded. “I know what you mean. Our house was big but it was always filled with people. So I couldn’t wait to get a place of my own where I could stretch out and do my own thing.”
She didn’t respond. She didn’t want to talk about personal things with him anymore.
“So what kind of shop do you have?” he asked.
“Ah, it’s a design shop. I’m a fashion designer.”
Adam contemplated her words. “You’re CK Davis Designs?” he asked incredulously.
Camille slammed her fork down then took a deep breath trying to control her wayward emotions. “Don’t sound so surprised.” She couldn’t help feeling a bit hurt by his question. As if she, the ranting woman that had interrupted their big meeting, couldn’t possibly be capable of owning a business.
“I wasn’t in any way insulting you. I own several of your suits and my mother loves your stuff. I’m just amazed that I’m actually sitting here with you.”
That’s it, she was a goner. Camille’s heart fluttered and turned somersaults at his words. He was flattered to be here with her. She could just picture him in a CK Davis suit. The head of her men’s department was Palio Victor, a very talented man who obviously knew what other men were looking for in clothes.
Here she was having dinner with a notoriously handsome man who had just admitted to being happy to be with her. If she were naïve enough to believe that she could have that type of luck she’d be ecstatic at the possibilities presenting themselves. But she knew better.
Adam Donovan was happy to be with her for one reason and one reason only, her father’s house.
This was business to him. She was just a way to get the deal he wanted.
It wasn’t personal. He wasn’t really sitting here with Camille, the woman. Why would a man as rich and good-looking as he was ever want to do that?
Adam watched her closely. There was something about the way she looked. She had very expressive eyes, ones that gave away each and every emotion she felt at the exact time she was feeling it.
He’d watched her go from simmering anger to eager curiosity to extreme sadness. And with each change his need to know her better increased.
Now, he watched the way her gaze flitted around the room, to see if anyone was watching them, he presumed. He rarely gave consideration to other people or what they said about him. As one of the Triple Threat Brothers he was always in one newspaper or another. Whether it be about his business or what the press assumed was going on in his personal life, he and his brothers had garnered their share of front-page appearances. He’d learned long ago to take it all in stride.
Adam sat back in his chair and gave this situation as much serious thought as he could muster at the moment. His carefree persona did not allow him to overly examine situations like this. The one thing he knew for certain was that he liked Camille Davis.
He’d watched her back at the office as that conference room had cleared. She was graceful and elegant, yet still a bit timid. He hadn’t tried to touch her as he’d so desperately wanted to, but instead had led her out of the room and to his waiting car in front of the building. She’d sat close to the door as if she planned to throw herself out of the car if he made one false move.
And a lot of moves had crossed his mind. Her perfume was soft and delicate and floated through the interior of the car, casting him under a heady sensual spell. His blood pumped hard and fast throughout his body, desire building a wall of tension at the base of his neck as he sensed this would not be an easy conquest. Some women took more time, more finesse than others. Camille Davis was one of those women.
“Your father was a good man,” he said because she was looking like she was about to take off at any moment. That confused him a bit. She seemed to have a very contradictory personality. She’d barged into that meeting this afternoon with confidence and spunk but now that she was here, alone with him, she seemed tense and withdrawn. “I met him once about a year ago. That’s when I first got the idea to buy his house.”
Her eyes focused on him. “You asked my father if you could buy the house? What did he say?”
“It was a very impromptu meeting. I was in L.A. I’d seen a picture of the house in a magazine at a hotel. I was so impressed by the photos I showed up on his doorstep. And because he recognized my name he let me in. He was very gracious and gave me a grand tour. I asked what the price tag was and he laughed.” Adam smiled as he remembered that evening. “He offered me a drink and told me that houses were for sale but his home was his sanctuary and there weren’t enough zeroes in the balance of the Federal Reserve that would make him part with it.”
She nodded. “That sounds like something Daddy would say.”
There it was, that tiny spark in her eyes, that wistful bit of happiness that she refused to take hold of. He wondered why she was so intent on being sad. “I don’t want you to think I’m a vulture. I did not pounce on this property the moment I heard your father had passed.” Her opinion of him was important. Why, he wasn’t quite sure.
“If you know that he didn’t want to sell it while he was living why are you trying to get it now?”
He sighed because her gaze pierced him. She was making him think about this deal way too deeply. “Because it’s my business. It’s what I do.”
“You buy properties that aren’t for sale?” she inquired while slowly lifting her glass to her lips.
He didn’t miss the bite in her words and found he preferred even that to her looking sad and defeated. “I find properties with the potential to make me a lot of money. I buy them and I renovate them. Then I resell them for a profit.”
“A shrewd business man, I see.”
Adam shrugged. “I’m good at it.”
“I’m good at cursing people out but I don’t do it for a living,” she snapped.
He smiled. “I’m not a hitman or a traitor. I’m an investor. It’s a legitimate business, not to mention a profitable one. It’s sort of like you being a designer.”
She frowned. “How do you figure that?”
“You look at old styles, old clothes that used to work or used to be in fashion. And then you put a new spin on them. You add more expensive material and your classic level of design.” He smiled because he could see that she was seeing the similarities. “And then you sell them, making yourself a tidy profit.”
She dropped her fork and glared at him. “Whatever. I am not selling my father’s house and this dinner is over.”
She was pushing her chair back, about to stand, when he reached across the table and grabbed her wrist. It was an impulsive move. He didn’t know why he’d done it and he didn’t know what he planned to do now that he had. All he knew for certain was that the thought of her walking out of the restaurant and out of his life again was too much to bear.
She stilled. He loosened his grip, letting his fingers rest complacently. He noted the erratic thumping of her pulse and wondered briefly if she were afraid of him. If so, he definitely wasn’t winning any brownie points. He took a deep breath and tried to regroup.
Women loved his smile. They said it made him seem more human, more approachable than his brothers. So he smiled.
She arched an eyebrow. “You can either let my arm go or I can scream for security. Which do you prefer?”
He pulled his hand away as if he’d been burned and
watched in amazement as she stood. Never once in all his years of wooing women had his signature smile not worked.
Then, because she was about to walk away, he hurriedly stood and moved in front of her, being careful not to touch her this time. “I thought we were going to talk about the house. You haven’t even heard why I want to buy it.”
Camille rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest, an action that lifted her heavy breasts upward until he could see even more of the creamy mounds above the rim of her blouse. Adam swallowed. Hard.
“You said you buy houses and then sell them. That’s your job so I assume that’s what you plan to do with my father’s house. If so, I am not interested.”
Damn, she was sexy when she was angry. Adam had visions of having a knock down, drag out argument with her then scooping her up into his arms and releasing all that frustration in the bedroom. She would let loose then, he knew it instinctively. She would be uninhibited, passionate and seductive. His head pounded as the blood rushed from there to his groin. She would be magnificent.
“Are you not interested because you dislike me or because you dislike your stepmother?”
She gasped as if he’d struck her and took a step back.
He instinctively reached for her, catching her elbow before she could pull away. “Camille, I’m just trying to have an intelligent conversation about this deal with you. In all fairness you really haven’t given a valid reason for not wanting this deal to go through.”
“It’s my property. I don’t have to have a valid reason,” she taunted.
Adam sighed. He never worked this hard to get a woman into bed. He’d never had to. That probably made him callous and arrogant where women were concerned and up until now he hadn’t given that a second thought. But he readily admitted that Camille Davis was beginning to try his patience.