The Real Deal

by Lucy Monroe

  “He’s not old enough to have fought the vote, missy.”

  She swung around, her finger still pointed accusingly in front of her. “Jacob! What are you doing here?”

  Chapter 10

  “Ferry’s not running.”

  His laconic answer did nothing to clarify the situation. “I know that, but how did you?”

  “News travels fast on an island.”

  That sent her spinning back toward the hapless ferry employee. She glared at him. “I suppose gossip accounts for this sort of thing too.”

  The young man appealed to Jacob over her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to offend her. Really. We were just talking.”

  “Have I suddenly disappeared now that another man is in the room?” she demanded with bite.

  “Leave the poor boy alone.” Jacob came to stand beside her. “You’ve got him scared to death.”

  “Scared of a woman?” she asked derisively, somewhere at the back of her mind realizing she was overreacting, but unable to stop the words from flowing out of her mouth. “Imagine that.”

  “I’m not a chauvinist,” the ferry official asserted, his courage apparently bolstered by Jacob’s presence.

  “Then how do you explain your inappropriate comments earlier? The result of a bad breakfast?” Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten anything yet that day, bad or otherwise.

  “He made inappropriate comments to you?” Suddenly Jacob’s voice had gone arctic, his homey accent dropped for precise diction.

  “He implied that rather than business associates, Simon and I shared some kind of personal and intimate relationship.”

  “My employer does not appreciate speculation regarding his private life.”

  The ferry official blanched.

  Amanda didn’t blame him. The deadly tone even sent a shiver up her spine.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it. Honest.”

  “The implication that a man and woman must have more than a business relationship is never a welcome one,” she said before Jacob could reply.

  “It was just the shock of you staying overnight. That’s all. Mr. Brant hasn’t had an overnight visitor since his cousin missed the last evening ferry a couple of months back.”

  “The Secret Service has nothing on Washington State ferry personnel, does it?” She was amazed the man knew so much about Simon’s life. She didn’t even know that much about the neighbors she’d been living next door to since leaving Lance two years ago.

  Apparently realizing that everything he said made the situation worse, the orange clad official started backing away toward the office. “I’ve uh . . . got a lot of paperwork to catch up on. I’m sorry about the inconvenience the cancelled ferry has caused you, ma’am.”

  “You intimidated him.”

  She stared at Jacob, disbelief warring with offense inside her. “I intimidated him? You were the one that turned into The Enforcer. You were so cold, I’m surprised the guy didn’t get chillblains standing next to you.”

  Undeniable satisfaction reflected in Jacob’s expression. “It’s a role I play rather well.”

  “I’d say you play all your parts with the professionalism of a trained thespian.”

  “For that sort of flattery, I’ll make you a Napoleon for dinner.”

  Just thinking of the flaky crust and sweet custard filling of the decadent dessert had her mouth watering, but she had no intention of going back to Simon’s. “I’ll just wait here until the ferry resumes service.”

  “Not a good idea. Could be tomorrow morning before you can get back to the mainland.”

  “I find that difficult to believe. They can’t just leave passengers stranded without a means to get off the island.”

  “The island’s population is so low it has the least priority of all the ferry routes. Besides, most residents have their own boats to use if they’re in desperate need of getting to the mainland.”

  She remembered the yacht moored on Simon’s private dock. “But I have a car. I can’t just hire someone to take me across.” Though the thought was a tempting one.

  “Couldn’t hire someone anyway. Jim Fletcher’s the only resident that takes paying passengers and he’s off-island right now.”

  “So, I’ll wait here.”

  Jacob looked around the sparsely furnished, miniscule room. “Be more comfortable at the boss’s house.”

  That’s what he thought. She’d be more comfortable in a thicket of blackberry bushes than she would be at Simon’s. “I’ll be fine here. If I get tired, I can take a nap in the car.”

  “What about food?”

  She didn’t feel like eating, even with her stomach growling, but she was thirsty. “I’ll go to the general store for supplies.”

  “You’re being stubborn.”

  “Think what you like, Jacob. I just don’t want to inconvenience Simon anymore. I’ll stay here, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “The boss ain’t going to like it.”

  “He won’t even notice. By the time you get back he’ll have forgotten why he sent you out to begin with.”

  “The boss ain’t senile.”

  “No, but he is preoccupied with his work. Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine where I’m at.”

  Jacob left, muttering about intransigent women who might be better off if they never had got the vote.

  She couldn’t help smiling. Jacob was an irascible old codger, but he’d gotten defensive on her behalf before she mentioned the nature of the ferry official’s inappropriate comments. The old faker liked her, even if he would never admit it.

  Amanda grabbed the six-pack of bottled water and headed toward the antique looking cash register. The clerk, a middle aged woman in an oversize T-shirt bearing a picture of cats on the front, was talking animatedly with an elderly woman in white slacks and a sweatshirt.

  Neither one of them noticed Amanda waiting to be rung up.

  She didn’t say anything. Why interrupt their discussion when she only planned to take the water and go back to the ferry terminal? She had thought about taking a drive around the island, but what if the ferry came while she was gone? She was fairly certain there would only be one sailing today. She was determined to be on it.

  The bell above the entrance jingled. Both she and the chatting women turned to look at the newcomer.

  It was Simon.

  “Morning, Mr. Brant,” the clerk called.

  He nodded politely to the two women and then turned to walk toward Amanda. He stopped less than a foot away. “Jacob said you didn’t want to come back to the house.”

  The accusation in his voice was unexpected.

  “I didn’t want to put you out any more than I had already,” she said, giving him the same excuse she’d made up for Jacob.

  He flicked a glance to the water in her hand, his expression enigmatic. “I don’t mind.”

  “Thank you, but I wouldn’t feel right imposing.” He looked like he was about to argue, so she went on. “You allowed me the opportunity to present the merger proposal to you. Our business is concluded and there’s no reason for you to feel responsible for my comfort. It’s not as if I was a guest in your home.”

  His mouth quirked. “So you told the man at the ferry. Jacob said you were pretty adamant about it.”

  She bristled with remembered indignation. “It’s the truth. That man had no right to imply otherwise.”

  “Living on a small island is like living in a very small town.” Simon’s gaze went temporarily to the two women who pretended to be talking, but were clearly more interested in his conversation with Amanda than their own. “Everyone knows everyone else’s business, or thinks they do.”

  “Well, it’s not right. That sort of gossip is intolerable.” She didn’t realize her voice had risen until the woman talking to the store clerk gave up all pretense of not listening and stared at her with blatant curiosity. Great. More gossip.

  She smiled and nodded, hoping they would go back to their prev
iously absorbing conversation, then turned back to Simon. “There’s really no reason for you to wait around here. I’ve got refreshments.” She lifted the six-pack of water. “I’ll be fine until the ferry gets here.”

  “But you’ll be better at my house. Jacob’s set on spoiling you.” Simon’s voice had taken on a seductive quality that her body did not identify with food. “He’s working on the pasty crust for a napoleon even as we speak.”

  Her face felt tight. The last thing she needed after Simon’s unknowing rejection was the high-calorie dessert. “I’m sure you will enjoy it then.”

  “He’s making it for you.” Simon slid his hands into his jeans pockets, outlining a certain male part of his anatomy she was better off not noticing.

  She forced her gaze to his face and kept it there. “I’m sorry I won’t be there to eat it,” she said, adding another lie to the ones she’d already told that morning.

  “Why won’t you be there?” He frowned at her, his sensual lips forming into a thin line. “There’s no reason for you to wait around in that dinky room when you can relax in comfort at the house. We could even get some sparring in.”

  He said it like that should be some sort of incentive, but she flinched at the thought.

  No way was she going through another tortuous session of touchy-feely martial arts training with Simon. “I don’t mind. Really. I’m sure you’ve got experiments or something.” She waved vaguely toward the door. “I won’t keep you.”

  She started to turn away, hoping he’d finally get a clue and leave. She wasn’t going back to his house. Period. If he thought she was being neurotically polite, so be it. Better that, than the chance he would discover the desire that seemed to grow with each lungful of air she took in his radius.

  The in-drawn hiss of his breath was all the warning she got. He grabbed the water from her hands, dropped it right there in the aisle and then swept her up into his arms like she was some damsel in distress. Only, the real distress started the moment he touched her because her senses went haywire.

  “Well, I’m damn well going to keep you. You’re being too stubborn for your own good.”

  “Simon! Put me down. You’re causing a scene. It’s going to be all over the island by the time we reach my car.” And judging from the twin expressions of avid interest on the other two women’s faces, Amanda didn’t think she was exaggerating.

  Simon ignored her and carried her outside. He stopped behind her car. “Push the unlock button.”

  She didn’t even think of arguing with him. If she didn’t get out of his arms soon, she was going to do something drastic. Like kiss him. Or bury her fingers in the black, silky hair he’d left loose to hang around his shoulders today.

  The snick of unlocking doors sounded and Simon went around to open the passenger door. He bent down and put her inside.

  “What are you doing?” She was shrieking. She never shrieked, but then she’d never been kidnapped by an eccentric genius before either. “This is my car.”

  “I’m driving.” And his tone suggested she not argue about it.

  She’d never been all that great at taking suggestions. “But the rental agreement doesn’t have you on it.”

  He just looked at her.

  “Well, it doesn’t.” She turned to face the front, her mouth in a mutinous line.

  He shut the door. Firmly. Seconds later he was sliding into the driver’s seat. “Keys?” He put his hand out.

  She glared at him in mute defiance. No way was she giving him her keys.

  With the incredibly swift reflexes he had exhibited during their Tae Kwon Do sessions, he snatched the keys from her.

  She yelped.

  He didn’t respond to the sound of outrage, but put the key in the ignition and started the car. “Fasten your seat belt.”

  She glared at him. “Make me.” Where had that come from?

  He didn’t hesitate. While the car idled, he reached across her, his chest pressing against her breasts and he grabbed the belt. Every rational thought in her head went on vacation and it was all she could do to limit her reaction to breathing in little pants and a heart rate that could be measured on the Richter scale.

  He pulled the seat belt across her and clicked it into the lock. “You’re hyperventilating. Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  He thought she was frightened? She was, scared silly, but not of him. Of herself.

  He put the car into reverse and pulled out of the small store’s two-car parking lot. “I need a ride back to the house. I had Jacob drop me off when we spotted your car.”

  “If you needed a lift. All you had to do was ask.” At least her voice worked and she hadn’t warbled on a single word. “There was no reason for the he-man kidnapping or for you to appropriate my keys and my car.”

  His smile was devastating. “Wasn’t there?”

  She crossed her arms over her still heaving chest. “No.”

  “You weren’t going to come back to my place without an order from the Senate.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, what’s ridiculous is your stubborn insistence on waiting out the ferry at the terminal! What would you have done if ferry service didn’t resume? Slept in your car?”

  Since that was exactly what she had planned, she didn’t feel the need to answer him.

  “This may be a small island, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe for a beautiful woman to sleep alone in her car all night.”

  Beautiful woman? Right. She made a rather rude noise in response to his blatant attempt to win her acquiescence with a falsehood.

  “And I’d like to know what you were going to eat. All I saw was bottled water. Jacob said you didn’t have breakfast. Did you plan to starve yourself?”

  She went cold at the question. She didn’t starve herself. Not anymore. She wasn’t anorexic. It was just that rejection had a negative impact on her ability to eat. “I wasn’t hungry.”

  It was his turn to make a rude noise of disbelief.

  “What I eat, or don’t eat, has nothing to do with you, Mr. Brant.”

  “Why not? I thought we were friends.”

  “We’re business associates.”

  “We can’t be friends too?”

  Not when she wanted him more than she wanted to breathe, more than she wanted to guard herself against rejection. She’d allowed that want to dictate her actions last night and look what had resulted. She’d been humiliated, even if he didn’t know it.

  “I doubt I’ll even see you again after today.”

  “You will if you continue to pursue the merger.”

  They’d reached his gate, which Jacob had left open for Simon. No cat and mouse games from the old codger for the boss.

  Simon stopped the car in front of the house and got out. She opened her door and was climbing out when she realized he had popped open the trunk and was pulling out her suitcase.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting your things.”

  “There’s no need.” She tried to grab her suitcase and put it back in the trunk, but he placed it on the other side of his body. An impossible barrier in her current state. “I’ll be on the ferry in a couple of hours.”

  He shook his head while reaching in to pull out her laptop. “I don’t think so. More likely the first ferry out will be tomorrow morning, but even if it is, you won’t be on it.”

  “What do you mean I won’t be on it?” she asked with a fair amount of panic.

  “We aren’t done discussing this merger business, which I would have told you if you’d bothered to stick around long enough this morning to say goodbye.” He sounded really miffed by the fact she hadn’t.

  But why would he care if she said goodbye, or not?

  She ignored the part of her brain that insisted he was right that they weren’t done discussing the merger and said, “I’ve told you all the facts.”

  “What if I have a question?” He pulled her briefcase from the trunk and turned to loo
k at her with nothing less than accusation. “Or want to discuss some aspect of the proposal?”

  “You don’t want the darned thing!” This was stupid. Simon wanted that merger about as much as she wanted a cozy friendship with her ex-husband. “Why would you ask me any questions?” she demanded. “You didn’t bother to last night.”

  He picked up her laptop and swung the case strap over his shoulder, then picked up her suitcase. “I was busy listening.”

  More like ignoring her. “Right.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I can prove it.” Then he started spouting facts at her like bullets out of an automatic pistol. Every one of them accurate, every one of them something she had told him the night before. When he was done, he looked smug. “Maybe I don’t want the merger, but I thought you were going to try to change my mind.”

  This was too much. He could quote her words back to her verbatim, but that didn’t mean he believed a single one of them. “You can’t turn a stone into water.”

  “Are you saying I’m dense like a rock?” Amusement twitched at the corners of his mouth and her temper exploded.

  “No, stubborn as a mountain of rock!”

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  Heat surged into her face as her temper continued to escalate. She wasn’t embarrassed; she was angry. “It’s not funny. This is my career we’re talking about. You won’t even consider the merger regardless of whether or not it’s the best thing for both of the companies.”

  Suddenly the laughter stopped and his gray eyes fixed on her with serious intent. “And your job is all that matters to you, isn’t it?”

  “A career doesn’t let you down like people do.”

  “And if this merger doesn’t go through are you saying you’ll get what you want out of your career anyway?”

  Remembering the silken threat in Daniel’s voice, she grit her teeth against an honest answer. “What difference does it make to you?”