The Real Deal

by Lucy Monroe

  Warmth filled her. “I’d like that a lot.”

  His thumb brushed her collarbone above the scooped neckline of her top. “I want to kiss you, but I’m afraid if I do that I’ll carry you back to bed.”

  Delight that he found her desirable to that extent thrilled through her. “You’ve really got to watch these caveman tendencies you’re developing.”

  He laughed, the sound deep, rich and very, very sexy. “I feel pretty primitive around you, sweetheart.”

  She loved it when he called her that. “It’s mutual.”

  “So, why did you come into the lab?”

  She hadn’t fooled him. She didn’t know why she’d thought she could. He was a genius inventor, trained to look minutely at all data. “I thought better of it. It wasn’t anything important.”

  “Which one is it? You thought better of it, or it really wasn’t all that important?”

  “Both.”

  His thumb moved to the sensitive spot behind her ear and her concentration on the topic at hand was severely compromised.

  “You’ve got me curious. It’ll gnaw at me and I won’t get anything done for the rest of the day.”

  She didn’t believe that for a second. The man had more focus than the Hubble telescope. “Try to make me feel guilty, why don’t you?” she teased, breathless from his small caresses.

  “Is it working?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No.”

  “I really want to know.”

  She sighed, facing the inevitable. Those amazing powers of concentration of his were focused on getting the information from her and he wasn’t about to give up. The man could be so stubborn. Just look at how he’d kidnapped her yesterday. “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

  His fingertips trailed up her face. It felt good and it was all she could do not to reach up to trap his hand against her cheek and just hold it there.

  He brushed her chin and then let his hand fall. “Nothing about you is stupid. Nothing.”

  “This is, believe me. But I’ll tell you anyway.” She owed it to him after pulling him away from his work. She inhaled, hoping she wouldn’t sound as idiotic as she felt. “It’s just that I got worried you might think, now that we’re sleeping together, that I would try to convince you about the merger with a more personal form of persuasion.”

  “You’re worried that I believe you’re trying to manipulate me with mind-blowing sex?” He sounded only mildly curious.

  She liked the mind-blowing part. “Yes.” She smiled wryly to let him know how ridiculous she realized that supposition was.

  “Are you?”

  “What?”

  “Are you trying to use your body to convince me about the merger?” He didn’t look like he was teasing her, but again he didn’t sound overly concerned by the prospect.

  So much for Amanda Zachary as the newest corporate Mata Hari.

  “How could you ask me something like that?” It hadn’t occurred to her that he might actually have considered such a scenario. “I would never do something so despicable.” Not to mention obviously impossible.

  Unable to remain sitting with the confusion of emotions roiling through her, she shot up from her chair, knocking his hand away from her neck. “If that’s what you think of me, maybe I should leave right now.”

  Stupid! That wasn’t what she wanted. Oh God, let him realize how wrong he is and ask me to stay.

  Daniel suggesting such a thing had made her angry. Simon believing she was capable of it hurt. But then, Daniel was just her boss. Simon was her lover. He should know her better. But her inner voice nagged: The only thing he knows well is your body. You love him, but his feelings are a lot more basic. Why should he automatically trust in your integrity?

  “Amanda, you’re the one that brought it up.”

  “I didn’t think you’d believe something so vile about me,” she said helplessly, pain radiating outward from the region of her heart.

  “Then why did you come into my lab?”

  The very reasonableness of the question fanned the flames of her anger. She was feeling vulnerable and she didn’t like it. “Because I wanted to tell you I wasn’t doing any such thing!”

  “If it wasn’t a possibility, why bring it up at all?”

  “Because I’m not used to sleeping with business associates and I wanted to make sure you understood one had nothing to do with the other.”

  “I’m glad.”

  She glared. Bully for him. “Let’s be real. It’s not like it would ever have worked anyway.”

  He pulled her into his arms, seemingly oblivious to her stiffened body. “Are you sure about that, baby?”

  “Of course I’m sure. You have too much integrity to make a business decision based on sex.”

  “Thank you.” He bent down and kissed the side of her neck.

  She shivered. “But it makes me really angry you think I’m some kind of slut who would use my body as a bartering tool.”

  His hold on her tightened. “No, I don’t.”

  “But you said—”

  His finger pressed against her lips. “I asked you an academic question. I did not mean to imply I believed the answer would be yes.”

  “Then why ask it?”

  “Why come into my lab to tell it wasn’t a possibility?”

  “Because!” She took a deep breath, trying for a calm she was far from feeling. “Because I didn’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us.”

  “Exactly.”

  Oh. Maybe she’d overreacted a little. “Are you sure you’re not secretly wondering if I’m just going to bed with you to manipulate your attitude toward the merger?”

  “Very sure.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip.

  “Baby, in order for you to be the kind of woman who bargains with her body, you would have had to ask for something in exchange for what you gave me yesterday. You didn’t.”

  “Maybe I was trying to soften you up.”

  “I don’t get soft around you.”

  When his meaning sank in, she grinned despite a lingering ache inside. “I noticed that yesterday.”

  “I won’t try to manipulate you with sex either.”

  “I never thought you would.”

  He squeezed her at the unsubtle dig. “Behave.”

  She nuzzled his chest. “It still feels funny.”

  A featherlight kiss landed on top of her head. “What does?”

  “Making love with someone I’m doing business with. I’m afraid I’m going to lose my objectivity.” She had the terrible feeling she already had.

  “Are you going to give up the idea of the merger because I want you to?”

  “No.” Yet, if he told her she had to choose between the merger and him, she wasn’t sure what she would do. Thankfully, she would not have to face that choice because Simon would never stoop to such measures. He was too confident of his ability to get his own way with straightforward means to resort to emotional blackmail as a weapon.

  “Then there’s nothing for you to worry about, is there?”

  She shook her head. Nothing she was going to admit to.

  “Do you have something urgent you were working on?” he asked in a voice that made her melt inside.

  “No.”

  Then his mouth rocked over hers and she forgot all about the merger, Extant, and the phone call she would have to make later to her boss.

  Simon had never found it a turn-on watching a woman eat before, but everything Amanda did excited him, especially now that his body knew what it felt like to make love to her. He cursed his own stupidity in waiting so long to touch her. All his worries seemed inconsequential now.

  The thought that she might have left the island, and his life, without his ever having touched her passionate nature made him break out in a cold sweat.

  He’d never had sex so good, but then he’d never had Amanda. She was the perfect lover. So responsive. So passionate. So giving.

  So temporary. Once she
realized he wasn’t going to change his mind about the merger, he would lose her. Not because she was trying to use sex to convince him, but because her job was the most important thing in her life. She wouldn’t thank him for messing things up for her.

  He wondered if she would grow bored with his lifestyle before that even happened. Other women had, women he hadn’t wanted as much as he wanted her. They’d made it clear that being with a man who became obsessed with his work to the point of forgetting they were there grew old real fast.

  He’d done that this afternoon to Amanda. She hadn’t said anything yet, but he was sure his failure to come out of his lab until dinner had upset her.

  She wasn’t acting like it, but women were good at hiding things like that. They didn’t forget though, and then, one day, they walked away, saying he didn’t respond to their needs. “I’m sorry I didn’t come out for lunch like we planned.”

  Maybe he would get points for apologizing before it became a major issue.

  She laid her fork on the edge of her plate and smiled so sweetly he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and never let go. Right, Simon, women don’t do forever with you.

  “You had to make up for lost time. So did I.”

  “But I missed our sparring session too.”

  “We can have one tonight if you like, but personally, I enjoyed the form of exercise we employed this morning too much to complain.” She winked at him.

  He was immediately ready for another bout of the kind of exercise she was talking about. “You’re not mad at me?”

  “No. Why should I be?” She looked genuinely puzzled. “We both chose to spend the time we should have been working, doing something far more personal and less productive. So, we had to forego the pleasure of a picnic lunch.”

  “But I forgot about you.” Why had he said that? She didn’t need to know. She’d come up with a plausible excuse and here he was rejecting the salvation it offered. Dumb, very dumb.

  “I forgot about you too, to tell the truth. I had a lot of work to catch up on after taking all of yesterday off.”

  “You forgot me?” He found that disconcerting. He’d been yelled at, dumped, even slapped for his insensitivity by women, but he didn’t think he’d ever been forgotten.

  “Mmmm.” She popped a bite of the blackened catfish Jacob had made for dinner into her mouth and chewed, making a humming sound of pleasure. “This is delicious.”

  “What if I had come out and wanted to go on our picnic?” he asked, unable to let the subject go.

  She shrugged. “Then I would have remembered you.”

  “Would you have gone on the picnic with me?”

  Her mouth twisted as she considered his question. “I’m not sure. Probably, but we would have had to keep it short.”

  “If you’d knocked on my lab door, I would have answered.”

  Her smile was radiant. “I’ll remember that.”

  Jacob served chocolate-dipped strawberries and champagne after dinner. Simon enjoyed watching Amanda’s sexy mouth bite into each succulent strawberry too much to eat his own dessert.

  She stopped eating and looked at him. “Aren’t you going to have dessert?”

  “Later.” Only, she was going to be the dessert. He wondered if Jacob had any of the chocolate sauce left.

  “Oh.” She pushed her dessert plate away from her. “Did you want to ask me anything about the merger?”

  He shook his head. “Finish your strawberries.” The merger could wait. Forever, as far as he was concerned.

  “I’m full.”

  He didn’t believe her. “No, you aren’t.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Something about this scenario bothered him. “You were enjoying your dessert until I told you I wasn’t eating mine.”

  She started to get up. “I’ll just go get my briefcase. I thought of something this afternoon that you might be interested in regarding the two companies coming together.”

  He grabbed her wrist. “If I eat my dessert now, will you finish yours?” He was trying to understand what was going on, but he felt like he was missing an important element.

  He hated feeling that way.

  She sat back down, but she frowned at him. “Simon, this is ridiculous. You’re making something out of nothing. I said I was full, can’t we just leave it at that?”

  “Jacob will be offended if you don’t finish.” Remembering the old man’s reaction to having to serve them napoleons that had been sitting in the fridge the night before, Simon said, “He’ll get cranky.”

  “Isn’t he always?”

  “Don’t let him hear you say that.” He reached across the table and pushed her dessert plate back in front of her.

  “Look, it’s not as if I need it. My hips won’t thank me for the high-fat chocolate.”

  “You think you need to diet?” The idea shocked him. She was perfect.

  “I could lose ten pounds, yes.”

  Like hell she could. “Taking your body below optimum weight can cause problems for your immune system.”

  “I’m not exactly anorexic.”

  He was beginning to wonder. “That’s fortunate. Anorexia nervosa is a debilitating disease.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I was being sarcastic. I would think it was obvious that I don’t have a problem with eating.”

  “How is it obvious?” he probed, feeling like he was getting closer to the missing element. Then, as often happened in his lab, several pieces of information clicked together in his head. “He told you that you were fat, didn’t he?”

  “He who?”

  “Don’t play dumb.”

  She looked away, with an air of fragility that had not been there seconds before. “I already told you Lance did not find me the epitome of perfect female form.”

  “Tell me about it, baby. Please.”

  She shook her head. “It’s over.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  She looked at him and the pain he saw in her face ripped at his gut.

  He stood up and pulled her to her feet. “Come here.”

  Tugging her along, he made straight for his large, overstuffed sofa.

  Chapter 14

  Amanda let him pull her down onto the couch so they were facing each other. He wanted her to tell him about her marriage to Lance, but what woman wanted to admit to such a colossal failure? She let her gaze travel up his strong, broad chest to his face.

  His expression was filled with a compassion she had never expected to receive. “Tell me what that bastard did to you.”

  “How can you be so sure he did anything?”

  Simon’s laugh was harsh. “I would have to be a blind idiot not to know that something had happened to you. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known and you act like your body is grotesque.”

  “It’s not that bad!”

  “Maybe, but you sure as heck don’t have a clue how lovely and sensual you are.”

  Maybe that was because she’d never been sensual with anyone but him. Part of her wanted to tell Simon about her past, but for him to understand her marriage, she had to tell him about her family. “My brother introduced me to Lance during my junior year in college. I didn’t date. I was too shy. Too serious. Too sure I was as awkward and unattractive as my mother claimed. Besides, I didn’t fit in with my Southern California peers.”

  He reached out and took both her hands, letting his thumbs rub soothingly over the backs of them, but remained silent.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Lance got along really well with my family. He was a lawyer with an impressive client list. My parents were both surprised he was interested in me. My brother told me how lucky I was.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “I thought I did. I wanted so much for our relationship to work. I wanted to feel like I belonged to someone.”

  “But your family . . .”

  Memories of her childhood still had the power to hurt. So, she usually suppressed them, but she wan
ted Simon to understand. “I was an ‘oops’ baby. My brother, Brice, is ten years older than me and the only child my parents wanted to have. My mother planned to have an abortion, but unfortunately for her, Grandfather’s housekeeper had caught on to the fact she was pregnant. He threatened to cut her out of his will if she got rid of me.”

  Simon had gone rigid beside her. She could imagine. He’d lost his mother when he was a child, but from what he’d said, she had loved him. No one had loved Amanda in her entire life except for Jillian.

  “I was three years old when Grandfather died. Alive, but not wanted. The only time my parents ever gave me even the least bit of approval was when I caught Lance’s interest. I married him believing I would finally be accepted into my own family with the added bonus of having one of my own. I was on a euphoric cloud for the entire ten months of our engagement. Lance didn’t even protest waiting until we were married to make love for the first time.”

  “You never slept with him?”

  She shook her head. “I read a lot as a child. My sense of morality came from my books, not my family because they ignored me or criticized me. Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, The Five Little Peppers, and other classics—books that weren’t exactly peopled by your typical Southern Californian.”

  She turned to stare out over the water, loving the peacefulness of the scene all over again. “My wedding night was a disaster. Lance wanted me to do things I’d never heard of. I was scared and embarrassed. Sex hurt. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The most painful part of my wedding night was having Lance turn out the light so he could fantasize I had a different body.”

  “He told you that?”

  She didn’t look at Simon. “Yes. Over the two years of our marriage, he pestered me to have breast reduction surgery, watched every calorie I consumed, and nagged at me if I didn’t work out at least an hour every day.”

  “Why did you stay with him?”

  “Because I was used to not being loved, I guess. I’m not really sure. It hurt being married to him, but no more than it had hurt living at home. I kept trying to make my marriage work, but nothing I did could fix the problem.”

  “Your ex-husband is a bastard. That’s not a problem you could fix.”