Reece didn’t take offense and let the insult slide. He supposed he wouldn’t much like being twisted in a knot either but if being a Buchanan had taught him anything in life it was this: there were winners and there were losers.
Always be the winner, at any cost — that was the Buchanan way.
bookmark: 6
Chapter 6
z
Tana left Revitalize Inc, stunned.
The deal was off the table?
What’d happened? Everything had looked promising — even if it hadn’t been a sure deal.
Now, the offer was dead.
Darren Isaacs had barely met her stricken gaze when he’d delivered the blow.
If he’d been any colder, the room would’ve frosted over.
And then he’d given no explanation as to why he was no longer interested.
She felt as if the proverbial rug had been jerked out from beneath her feet and she’d been dumped flat on her bruised ass.
She hailed a cab but found herself unable to return home just yet.
How could she face Papa with this news?
It might derail his sanity even further to hear that his family’s legacy was going to be reduced to rubble.
A rare moment of self-pity robbed her ability to remain strong. Her lip quivered and she bit back a wild sob. What was she going to do?
Buchanan Enterprises was going to swoop in and take the building.
The city was pressuring them to take the deal and Revitalize had been her Hail Mary.
Now that Revitalize had taken themselves out of the running, she was left with absolutely nothing to combat the imminent take-over by Buchanan Enterprises.
They wanted to destroy the Tamarack and build luxury high-rises.
Cold steel with no history or beauty, just a towering column poking the skyline so that the over privileged could stare down at the masses beneath them.
Good God, it made her sick.
Goodbye Greek marble and hand-carved crown molding.
Sayonara lovely inlaid Italian tiles and hand-painted murals.
Why didn’t anyone care?
Tana found herself at her best friend Gypsy’s apartment, desperate to unload some of the misery breaking her heart.
Gypsy, another bartender at Nos, opened the door and quickly ushered Tana in when she saw that Tana was about to lose her shit.
“What’s wrong?”
Tana flopped onto the paisley sofa they’d snagged at a thrift store and let it all out.
“It’s done. The Tamarack is finished. Buchanan Enterprises is going to swoop in and destroy it so they can build their stupid luxury high-rise and there’s nothing I can do about it because the city wants it to happen!”
“What happened to the deal with Revitalize?” Gypsy asked, distressed. “I mean, I thought you said it was a solid possibility.”
Tana’s answer was as hopeless as she felt. “I thought so, too, but when I went to the meeting with Darren Isaac he dumped the project without so much as an explanation. It doesn’t make any sense. I thought I was pretty good at reading people but apparently I suck at it because I never saw this coming. Darren had been so excited — or so I thought — to get his hands on the Tamarack building that I thought for sure it was a done deal. Honestly, I thought I was going to sign papers today but instead, I got kicked to the curb.” She gave a small, pathetic moan before covering her eyes. “It’s totally demoralizing and depressing at the same time. I have no idea what I’m going to do!”
Gypsy flew to her side and wrapped her in a tight hug. “Something will turn up. It has to. That building is part of New York’s history, for Christ’s sake!”
“And nobody cares,” Tana bemoaned. “It’s like I’m yelling into the wind for all the good it’s doing me. Papa is going to lose whatever marbles he has left when he finds out that the deal is sunk. He was counting on me to save our family legacy and I’ve totally failed.”
“You didn’t fail,” Gypsy disagreed firmly. “You hit a setback. That’s all. You will figure something out. It’s not in you to fail.”
Tana loved Gypsy for her unfailing confidence but the situation couldn’t look more bleak.
“Have you tried talking to the Buchanans? I mean, try to get them to see that they’re about to destroy an integral part of the city?”
“They don’t care. All they see is potential dollar signs for their new high-rise,” Tana returned with acidic bitterness. “All they care about is the bottom line.”
“Have you actually talked to any of them?”
Tana wiped the moisture away from the corners of her eyes. “Well, I’ve only had contact with Reece Buchanan,” she admitted. And Reece didn’t seem like the devil. He seemed…nice. Until recently, it’d been the lawyers who’d been her point of contact. And the Buchanan Enterprise lawyers weren’t exactly known for their compassion.
“What’s Reece like?” Gypsy asked.
Hot as sin and just as dangerous.
Flustered by her own thinking, she shook her head and scowled. “What does it matter? He’s not going to torpedo this deal for me.”
“I think you underestimate your power. You’re a beautiful woman. Start using what God gave you, girl.”
Gypsy, bless her blind soul, was always telling Tana to wear make up and stop dressing like a thrift store reject, but Tana didn’t see whatever Gypsy was selling. “Putting on make up and a skin-tight dress isn’t going to change anything. This is big business, not a hook up.”
Gypsy’s expression said she wasn’t going to let her point slide. “How many times have I wiped the floor with you on our tip competitions?”
“Totally not fair, you have bigger boobs.”
“And I make sure that these babies are front and center,” Gypsy agreed as if Tana had just made her point for her. “A little make up, a flattering top that shows off your best assets, and suddenly guys are desperate to put a little extra cash in your hand. The same philosophy applies to getting what you want from any man. I’m telling you, tits and ass are your best weapons.”
Tana disagreed. “No, the mind is the best arsenal. Tits and ass change with time. Besides, I’m not sure I could respect myself in the morning if I manipulated someone to get what I wanted. It’s just skeezy.”
“No, it’s strategy. Smart girls use every weapon at their disposal. There’s winning and there’s losing, there’s no in-between. It’s not as if they will tear down half the building, right?”
Tana knew Gypsy was right but it went against everything she believed in.
She didn’t play games or bat her eyelashes to get out of a speeding ticket.
But the very thought of her papa losing the one thing that still mattered to him, that he clung to with his rapidly deteriorating faculties, made her want to jump from the highest building (which was probably owned by the evil empire known as Buchanan Enterprises).
“So what are you suggesting?” Tana finally asked with resignation. “Shove my tits in Reece’s face in the hopes that my glorious nipples will turn him into my champion against his own family?”
“What other choice do you have?”
None.
Tana swallowed, totally out of her element. Use her feminine wiles? Did she even have them? Could she fake them? She looked piteously to her best friend, who was, in her humble opinion, the most beautiful woman on the planet. “Will you help me?”
Gypsy squeezed her tight, happier than a woman who’d just been given designer shoes for life. “Of course, you goose! I’ve been waiting years for this moment.” She grabbed Tana’s hand and pulled her up. “C’mon, we have to go shopping. There’s nothing in your closet that would ever entice anyone to do anything but feel sorry for you.”
“Hey!” Tana frowned. “I happen to like what’s in my closet.”
“Exactly. New rule of thumb: if you like it, keep walking.”
It was hard to drag her feet when Gypsy was practically running and her hand was clamped around Tana’s, pul
ling her along but Tana wanted to vomit.
Dress to impress?
She knew what that meant.
But dress to seduce?
That was a foreign language —one she didn’t know if she had time to learn.
***
Victory tasted pretty sweet but nothing could compared to the unexpected phone call from Tana later that afternoon.
“I’m working the mid shift tonight. Do you want to meet me at nine for drinks when I get off?
Was Tana was asking him out? The plot thickens. It wasn’t that it was rare for a woman to seek him out, it was that he never imagined that Tana would purposefully do so and he wasn’t above teasing her about it. “Are you asking me out on a date? What happened to your aversion to all things Buchanan?”
“Do you want to meet me for drink or not?” The fluster in her voice was oddly endearing. Was that a tremble? He hoped so. He liked the tiny betrayal. How could he refuse?
“I would be happy to meet you for drinks.”
“Good. I will see you at 9 o’clock.”
The line went dead. No awkward goodbye, no lingering chit-chat. Short and to the point. That had to be the strangest way he’d ever been asked out. It was almost as if she were performing a chore and had wanted to just get it over with. Most women manufactured excuses to keep him talking until it became excruciating.
But then, as he was discovering, Tana wasn’t like most women.
As tickled as he was that things seemed to be going his way, he couldn’t deny that there was a small part of him that didn’t feel right about pressing his advantage when Tana was at her lowest point.
But even as that tiny, fractured part of his mind that must’ve been his conscience warned that what he was doing wasn’t right, the bigger part of his brain that was in control reminded him that poverty would fit as well on him as a polyester suit from the clearance rack.
So when the time came, he suited up, ready to put his plan into action.
He spent a little extra time making sure he was dressed to kill (or panties to drop) and when he walked into the throbbing din that was Nos, he was brimming with the usual swagger and confidence that most people assumed a Buchanan was born with.
But as he made his way through the crowd to the bar, his easy smile froze.
Holy hell.
That wasn’t Tana, right?
What happened to the no-nonsense worn jeans and vintage rock T-shirt, brown hair tied up in a messy bun?
The spit dried in his mouth. His heartbeat quickened.
And the swarm of men around her? Yeah, that didn’t make him happy.
A spurt of something foreign and alarming had him shouldering men out of his way to get to the bar.
Tana saw him and flashed a bright smile that did weird things to his insides.
She was breathtaking. There was no other word for what he was seeing.
What a transformation.
What the hell happened? How’d he miss the tantalizing beauty hiding behind the plain Jane facade?
“Let me just clock out,” she called out, gesturing behind the bar but as she was removing her apron, revealing more of that insanely hot figure — and whoa! Those tits! — an overly aggressive patron tried to persuade her to stick around by reaching after her until Reece shut him down with a hard shove to the chest.
“For your own health and welfare, keep your fucking hands to yourself.”
“Yeah? Who the fuck are you?” the man shot back belligerently. “She ain’t wearing no ring.”
“Touch her again and I’ll beat you with your own arm.”
The man must’ve sensed that Reece wasn’t kidding and backed off, slinking away from the bar with a scowl. By the time Tana returned from the back, the man was long gone and she was none the wiser for the scene on her behalf, which was how Reece preferred it.
Honestly, he didn’t know why he felt such immediate rage at the idea of that idiot touching Tana but it left him edgy, which was another foreign feeling, too.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Tana said above the music, smiling again. It was hard to decide what he enjoyed more — her radiant smile or that banging body — but his cock was plenty unhappy in his pants judging by how he was practically busting out of his jeans. “Let’s grab a table,” she suggested, pointing to one of the intimate spots in a darkened alcove.
“I have a better idea,” he said, shocking her when he pulled her close. “Let’s dance.”
Any excuse to press that sweet body against his sounded like the best idea ever.
He didn’t even care if she could feel his monster erection through his jeans. He had to feel her against him.
That sweet ass fit perfectly in his hands and those breasts…good God, he was aching to test the weight of them in his palm.
Tana gasped when he squeezed, instinctually lifting up on her toes, her lips tantalizingly close to his.
How could he ignore such an inviting offer?
His best intentions were to be suave and in total control of the situation, but there was a crazed, sexually frustrated lunatic inside his brain that wanted one thing: TANA.
Reece took her mouth, sealing his lips to hers as his tongue sought that warm space, needing to taste.
He wanted to know Tana at a primal level. He wanted to suck the juices from her drenched pussy as she gasped and writhed beneath his tongue and lips.
He wanted to know if she was a screamer or a delicate moaner when she came.
He wanted to toss her over his shoulder and fuck her until morning.
But none of that could happen unless he slowed down, finessed the situation.
It was going to take Herculean strength to rein in his raging desire to toss her over his shoulder and carry her cave-man style back to his apartment, strip her bare, and fill her up with his seed but it had to be done.
With an internal groan of regret, he slowed his kiss, but even so, they were both breathless when he pulled away.
Her eyes, dark pools of brown wonder, were the most dazzling he’d ever seen.
Had he been fucking blind?
“You look different tonight,” he finally said when he could speak without embarrassing himself.
“You noticed?”
“Yeah,” he answered dryly. “I noticed.” Every human being with a Y chromosome noticed. “What’s the occasion? Am I to assume you did this for me?”
She lightly scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Buchanan. I had a job interview before work and didn’t have time to change.”
A job interview? Where? A strip club? That dress was almost criminal. “Well, if I were the one interviewing you, you’d get the job, for sure.”
“Because of a tight dress and some make up?” she asked, cocking her head. “That’s pretty shallow, don’t you think?”
He grinned. “I never said I was deep.”
“Fair enough.”
“But you’re a smart girl. You know that when you look like this…people are going to notice.”
“That’s the problem with society,” she grumbled, half to herself, seeming more like the Tana he’d met than the siren that’d bewitched him with a smile and an insanely hot rack. “I’m the same person as yesterday, just packaged differently.”
Reece couldn’t argue and frankly, he didn’t care about the point she was trying to make.
He knew society was shallow, he knew that he was part of the problem but really, who the fuck cared?
He wasn’t about to solve society’s problem by debating the issue in a crowded bar when his cock felt ready to burst.
“You smell nice,” Tana said abruptly, but her expression said otherwise.
“Thanks? I showered today. That always helps.”
A reluctant smile spread across her lips. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop being a decent human being. It throws me off.”
He laughed. “Okay, not sure how to react to that request. One minute I’m the devil and the next, I’m n
ot enough of one?”
Tana saw the ridiculousness of her request and laughed with him. “Okay, you got me there but I just don’t know how to act around you when you’re being nice and sweet.”
Sweet was never a word used to describe Reece Buchanan. Not sure how it sat with him but he knew for certain she wouldn’t call him sweet if she were to peek inside his brain and see all the depraved things he wanted to do to her body.
He was curious as to why she’d pursued him. “Not that I’m not thrilled, but what’s with the sudden change of heart and attire? Are you trying to seduce me, Miss Brooks?”
Tana stammered a little as she shook her head. “N-no, why would you ask that?”
“Just seems a little out of character from what I know about you.”
“You don’t know me at all.”
“Fair point. And you’re open to letting me get to know you?” To emphasis the point, he squeezed her ass again, loving how she felt in his hands. She sucked in a wild breath but jerked a short nod in answer. “Excellent. I’m open to that idea. Let’s get out of here,” he said, surprising her when he grasped her hand and pulled her away from the dance floor.
“But what about that drink?” she asked, allowing him to wend their way through the crowd.
“I have plenty of alcohol at my place.” He stopped and she nearly collided with him, tottering a little in her wedges. He pinned her with his gaze, wanting her to know that he meant business. “If you leave with me, there’s no turning back. Do you understand?”
Reece would never force a woman but he wanted Tana to know that he wasn’t playing around. He wanted her. Plain and simple.
And if she left with him…he was going to have her.
bookmark: 7
Chapter 7
z
Tana was in deep.
Possibly too deep.
But her heart was slamming so hard she could barely breathe and yet, she couldn’t quite stop her feet from following wherever Reece was leading.
Gypsy had talked her into wearing this ridiculously tight dress and these awful heels (mini wedge, my ass!) and now she was climbing into Reece’s Towncar with the knowledge that by the end of the night, her clothes would be on Reece’s floor.
Pushed (Billionaire romance): Pursued By The Billionaire (Buchanan Romance Book 2) Page 5