As she lathered her hair under the warm spray of the shower, she thought about how the small kiss from Victor had completely changed the story line. The first meeting was different, the characters were different, more three dimensional. She could see them more clearly. It was almost like they were in her head, standing in the places where she’d left them in the book. They were waiting for their next lines! When she realized this, she hurried through her shower, dried off and pulled on a pair of stretch pants and an old shirt, eager to get back to the story so her characters could continue their journey.
She worked until it was dark outside. As she looked back at her edits, Lana was amazed at how much better the text was. She loved this feeling of success and accomplishment, of knowing that her words were invoking the feelings, the picture she had in her mind for the reader. She’d never felt so satisfied when writing before and she was eager to do more, but she held back, wanting to work through the scenes once again and make sure they were heading in the right direction.
Victor! The thought of him waiting for her call made her stand up out of her chair quickly. But then she shook her head, knowing how silly she was being. Victor wasn’t the kind of man who would be waiting by a phone, anticipating when a woman would call. No, more likely, he was in a meeting, their kiss from the day before, which had driving her to a higher standard of writing, had most likely been forgotten from his mind the moment he pulled away from the curb last night.
Regardless, she’d promised to call him and she’d been so absorbed in her writing, that she’d blocked out the task. She had to get in contact with him. If she were honest with herself, she’d acknowledge that she’d been procrastinating, afraid of the final moment when she’d have to make a decision.
But now, looking at the text to her manuscript which almost jumped off the computer at her, she knew that, at a minimum, she had to thank him for the kiss, which had worked wonders for her today.
Smiling, Lana raced to her bedroom and grabbed his card, excited about telling him of her story line.
Chapter 2
Victor snapped at his secretary, giving her instructions on the contract, then stormed into his office. He’d been in a foul mood all day long and his staff had borne the brunt of his moodiness. It was unlike him to let his frustration show, which only irritated him further.
Cursing at the file he couldn’t concentrate on, he slapped it across the coffee table in his office and glared at the phone. This was completely unacceptable, he told himself. He was known in the business world as a shark. He never allowed emotions to rule him in business or even his personal life. He kept everything in check, knowing that others would use his emotions against him if they could read anything on his face. He used that tool against his adversaries so he knew how powerful it could be. One crack, one telltale emotion, and he knew he’d won the battle.
And now, one small, slender woman was driving him crazy with the need for an answer. Walking over to his desk, he stared out the window, more frustrated than he’d ever felt in his life.
Taking a deep breath, he rubbed his face in an effort to gain a little perspective. She was only a woman, no matter how soft and pretty she had felt in his arms. And just because her lips had haunted his dreams last night didn’t give him any reason to be this out of control. She was a woman, just like all the others and he could easily find another that would suit just as well.
He’d been telling himself that all day and so far, it hadn’t worked. Victor stared grimly at the work piling up on his desk and wondered how she’d twisted him into a frustrated knot with just that one, simple kiss. And several gut-punch smiles. And the cutest butt and sexiest legs he’d ever seen.
Damn her! Why hadn’t she called?
He looked at the phone on his desk for the hundredth time, wondering what she was doing.
She wasn’t going to call. It was already well past five o’clock and if she were going to follow through on his suggestion last night, she would have called earlier. With a frustrated sigh, he sifted through the files on his desk, wondering why he cared so much. It wasn’t disappointment he felt, he told himself as he tried to concentrate on a suggested merger. It was only that he was interested, curious, in her and her plight. So what if she had the best figure he’d ever seen on a woman? And the loveliest eyes? And lips a man could kill for, he thought for the millionth time. There were so many women out there, he could find a replacement easily. He should just end this silly wait and call up one of those women who would love to be on his arm tonight.
The phone on his desk rang and he smacked the contract down on the other papers, irritated that he hadn’t absorbed a single detail. “Yes!” he snapped into the phone, distracted and irritated as he looked outside and saw the darkened sky.
Lana hesitated, hearing his irritated voice. “I’m sorry. Is this not a good time?” she asked, terrified of what she was about to do and grabbing at any excuse she could to back out of her decision.
A deep chuckle came from somewhere deep down in his chest, and his mood instantly lightened now that she was talking to him. “Lana, don’t you dare hang up this phone,” Victor said, amusement and relief ringing in his voice. Leaning back in his chair, his mind started imagining what she probably looked like right at this moment. He could see in his mind’s eye her pretty white teeth nibbling nervously at her full, lower lip and his body hardened. Painfully. He knew all the things he wanted to do with those lips, one of which was nibbling on the lower lip with his own teeth. A feral smile tightened his face which would have terrified her if she’d been in the room with him instead of on the phone.
With a silent groan, he pushed that image aside and focused on the conversation. Getting her to meet him was not a foregone conclusion, if the nervous tone of her voice was any indication. It would take all his negotiating skills to bring her around to his way of thinking. But failure was not in his vocabulary.
“It’s about time you called. What are you doing?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and looking at the ceiling. Relief was pumping through him and he didn’t want to analyze any of the other feelings. The room was quiet and there was nothing but white on the ceiling. But in his mind’s eye, he was thinking of all the different things he was going to teach her now that she’d finally given in to her curiosity.
Lana hesitated, biting her lip. “I’m standing in the middle of my living room wondering why I’m calling you.”
He laughed softly, enjoying the fluttery sound of her voice, the feminine tone that told him she was beautiful, even through the phone. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
She didn’t return the laughter. “No. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m doing.”
“You’re satisfying your curiosity. And now that you’ve made the call, I’ll make the rest easier for you. What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked.
Lana took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Nothing.” She gripped the phone more tightly as a shiver of both fear and excitement traveled up her body, ending in the pit of her stomach and creating a heat wave of desire, pooling somewhere low. She’d committed herself now, she thought worriedly. She couldn’t back down.
“Good. I’ll send a car around to pick you up at seven o’clock.”
Lana could hear the satisfaction through her phone line and had to smile. Victor was certainly a dominating kind of man. If anyone could get her through this silliness that had gripped her for most of her life, Victor could do it. “Okay. What should I wear?”
She heard the deep chuckle before he said, “I can honestly say that what you wear won’t make any difference in tomorrow’s events.”
Lana swallowed painfully. “Are you sure it won’t be….” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Memories of slipping into bed with Drew, of the horrible thoughts that had filtered through her mind and the instantaneous need to put some space between her and her ex-husband flitted through her consciousness. She hated that Drew could influence her this way, even after all this time.
Instantly all the amusement was gone from his voice. His tone now was soft and reassuring, deep and masculine and definitely filled with a confidence she obviously didn’t share. “Don’t worry about anything. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Lana smiled and hung up the phone. Her heart was beating frantically and she wasn’t sure she could make it another twenty-four hours before seeing him again. She still wasn’t looking forward to the sex part but she couldn’t deny how alive she felt when she was around him. If he could at least help her to feel that once again, then she could add that into her stories and make her characters more alive. That would be worth a lot, she told herself.
And if he could kiss her like he had yesterday, well, then that would just make her dizzy, she thought and actually skipped to her bedroom to put the cordless phone back in its cradle.
Chapter 3
Twenty-four hours later, she wasn’t feeling as giddy. She felt horrible. Her stomach was twisting around in knots and every muscle in her body told her to turn around and run away. She thought of several places she could go to hide. She could just leave her apartment, go to the mall, window shopping, a coffee shop, a friend’s house. Anywhere that might put her out of sight and out of the hands of humiliation that were sure to grip her as soon as Victor took her into his arms.
As soon as she’d woken up this morning, her mind had screamed at her to call him up and cancel. When consciousness demanded that she face her fears, her heart wanted nothing more than to stay under the covers and pretend like the day wasn’t going to happen, that she wasn’t committed to something awful and terrifying and horrendously embarrassing.
Lana forced herself to get out of bed and shower, eat breakfast despite the fact that she had no appetite and her cereal tasted like sawdust. She sat at her computer, wishing she could write something, anything, to get her mind off of the evening ahead, but her fingers couldn’t type the words because her mind refused to budge from the dread of facing her worst fears.
As she made herself a sandwich for lunch, she tried to become philosophical about the issue. Was sex really her worst fear? She hated spiders, but since she lived in New York City, high up in an apartment building, she didn’t run into many spiders. And public speaking wasn’t on her agenda very often, but she hadn’t enjoyed the experience too much when she’d had to present reports in school. So yes, she thought as she abandoned her half sandwich to the trash bin, sex was her current worst fear, but she allowed that there could be others in the future that would take its place in the queue.
At least ten times during that day, she’d picked up the phone intending to cancel their rendezvous. And ten times, she’d replaced the phone, fearing what his reaction would be. She was being a coward, she knew but she couldn’t help it.
What if Drew was right? What if she was frigid and no man could really turn her on? What if she saw Victor tonight and he kissed her and touched her and she hated it just as much as when Drew had kissed or touched her? Just because he’d kissed her once and it had been interesting, well, thrilling she admitted, who was to say that those feelings would come back? And she’d disappoint yet another man.
Her fingers shook as she showered once again, preparing for her meeting with Victor. She shampooed her hair and dried it so it fell in a soft cloud around her shoulders, the ends curling slightly. She limited her makeup to concealer to hide the dark circles created from a lack of sleep plus powder, mascara and lipstick to add a bit more color to her now-pale features. Looking in the mirror at her reflection, she knew that her eyes were too revealing. Victor would take one look at the terror lurking there and would know what she was thinking.
Sighing, she turned away from the mirror and faced her next dilemma; what to wear. She tried on several dresses but in the end, she decided on a simple black, wrap around dress that hugged her figure and gave her a small amount of confidence.
The knock on her door told her that her time was up. She had two choices. She could open the door and go with the driver to meet Victor and find out if he could show her something different. Or she could send the driver away and hide here, never know if she could be missing something wonderful, something exciting and adventurous. A little voice inside her assured her that any time spent with Victor would be extraordinary.
Although, if she went with the driver, she could be humiliated beyond anything she’d ever experienced before. Drew wasn’t nearly as devastatingly handsome as Victor. Victor was a man’s man and seemed to thrive on challenges and overcoming obstacles. Why she thought that after one afternoon in his company, she didn’t know but instinct told her it was true. And if he was demanding, what would he think of her if she couldn’t perform up to his standards? Would he reject her? Taunt her as Drew had done?
But she could also find out something wonderful. Victor’s kiss from the other night had certainly stirred something within her that she hadn’t realized was in her capabilities.
Another knock sounded at her door and she jumped, startled at the sound when her mind was working a mile a minute to figure out what to do.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door, still not sure what she was going to tell the driver. Her strappy shoes were dangling in her fingers as her hand shakily opened the door.
But instead of a cab driver or uniformed driver, she saw Victor himself, holding a huge bouquet of red roses. “I thought you’d never answer the door,” he said a moment before he walked into her apartment. He tossed the flowers down onto her kitchen counter, then took her into his arms and kissed her, one hand sliding into her hair and holding her head, the other wrapping around her waist, bringing her body close against his.
The kiss was wonderful, sweet and gentle but at the same time, made her stomach tighten with expectation and yearning. When he started to pull away, he came back to her, pulling her soft body more firmly against his hard one, leaving no space between them from her shoulders to her knees but she didn’t mind. She loved the excitement that stirred inside her, making her feel pretty and wild and wonderful. She wanted the feelings to never end. This kind of exhilaration banished all of her worries. She couldn’t think, couldn’t dread the night and the inevitable events. All she could do was follow his lead and enjoy the thrilling shivers that raced through her body as his hand stroked her side.
He lifted his head and looked down at her. “You were about to change your mind, weren’t you?” he said, his voice husky as his dark, blue eyes looked down at her.
She wanted to deny it but couldn’t lie. “Yes,” she finally admitted.
Something fierce burned in his eyes and she shivered slightly. Then it was gone and he was in control. “Come along,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her out the door.
Lana quickly slipped her shoes on her feet, then grabbed her coat before following him out of her apartment. “What about the flowers?” she asked, suddenly terrified now that he was here and larger than she remembered.
He took her hands, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about the flowers,” he said calmly and gently led her out the door, shutting it firmly behind them. “I’ll buy you more if those wilt. I want you where I can convince you that everything is going to be perfect.”
Twenty minutes later, Victor was ushering her into the most beautiful apartment she’d ever seen in her life. It was enormous and looked down onto Central Park. She saw all the buildings lit up in the distance and gasped with awe. “This is amazing,” she whispered, unaware that he was pulling her coat off of her shoulders and handing it to the butler who had magically appeared at their side.
She looked around and shivered. This was not an apartment, she realized, seeing the stairs off to one side of the enormous living room. Out one of the doors was a courtyard filled with trees and grass and an area larger than most people’s yards. Good grief, was that a swimming pool out there?
“Do you swim during the summer?” she asked, blinking at all the luxury around her.
“I swim all year round.”
> That was definitely out of her realm of experience. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to swim whenever one wanted to. Swimming in the city for ordinary folks meant heading to one of the recreational centers or YMCAs that were scattered about the city. Private pools were reserved for houses that were located out in the suburbs. And swimming in the winter? She shivered, looking at the corner of the pool visible from her current vantage point. It didn’t look very warm right now. “Doesn’t it get cold in the winter?” she asked, curious and fascinated at the same time.
He smiled at her horrified expression. “The water is heated during the fall so it’s pretty comfortable right now. But when it gets too cold to get in and out of during the winter, there are walls that go up and it becomes an indoor pool. Want to go swimming?”
She took an involuntary step backwards, shaking her head. “I didn’t bring a suit.”
He chuckled a moment before his hands came to rest on her shoulders. “I don’t think you’ll need a suit if you go swimming with me.”
The Tycoon's Seduction Plan Page 4