Made for Me (Danielle Grant Book 1)

by Sarah Gerdes

  Danielle raised an eyebrow and smiled. “A man with a billion dollars wouldn’t want to.”

  The magnetic pull that seemed to connect them increased as they neared one another. “You’re right,” he said, his voice inviting. “The challenge is in the chase, getting the woman to come to him.”

  “There is no chase, because I’m not running away.”

  His knee touched hers, electrifying her body. “Make no mistake Danielle, with you, there will always be a chase.”

  Danielle placed the tip of her index finger on his lower lip, tracing it, watching his eyes as she did so. She heard the music in the background, knowing this is where Anna meets her soon-to-be-lover.

  “Is this venue and this interaction considered discrete?” she whispered, feeling his warmth long before his hand touched her back. His eyes were immobile as she continued to feel his swell of his lip.

  “I told you, inter-office relations are not an issue. But to answer your question, no one can see us in this box.”

  Danielle suppressed an exhale when he opened his mouth. She thought back to her recent decision to allocate him to a file box of memories without emotion or future. Her finger tingled as she followed the curvature of his lip then moved down to his chin.

  “And you’re not worried that we will end up like the doomed lovers in this ballet?” she asked him. Lars moved his fingers into her hair. She shivered and lowered her eyes in pleasure, inviting him to proceed as he wished. He gently pressed against the back of her neck, pulling her to him.

  “No, and as far as I can tell, I’ve been right.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly, her eyes starting to close. “You have been right all along.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Experiencing Lars was an exercise in continual seduction. Just when he stopped in one area, he began in another.

  His first kisses were so light she barely felt them, his fingers at the nape of her neck tickling. After their passionate, more aggressive posturing in the gondola, he was making it clear this was the antithesis. Ironically, the slower he went, the more aggressive she wanted him to be.

  Lars touched under the tips of her fingers, sensually caressing the ends, making her twitch. Smiles lifted their lips, and she involuntarily exhaled as he moved the caress to the webbing of her fingers, the action so stimulating she bit her inner lip. He wrapped her finger between two knuckles and slid up to the end then up again, another suggestive motion disabling her ability to breathe evenly.

  Another hour of this…there was no way. Lars seemed to understand he was doing too good of job, and he changed his touch on her hands and lifted his lips from hers. His eyes glanced at the stage, and she followed his lead, looking down at the performers.

  Anna and her lover were engaged in a passionate dance tinged with danger, for Anna’s sole focus was turning away from her child, as well as her husband. She leaned in to him and he encircled her shoulder with his arm, rotating his upper and lower bodies. Suddenly, they were touching—connected—from shoulders to feet, all while sitting upright, in an opera house. It was…unbelievable. They remained in that position until the first Act came to a close.

  “What do we do during intermission?” she asked him as the curtain dropped.

  “We sit up straight.” Danielle repositioned herself in the chair, uncrossed her legs and had a glass of water as the lights went up.

  Danielle asked him how he knew she’d be at the show.

  “I actually own the box, not the company. Easier to manage that way.”

  “And then I guess you reminded Ulrich to tell me to use the tickets?” He nodded. “A little obvious isn’t?”

  He took a finger and skimmed the inside of her forearm. “What? Me telling him we didn’t want good tickets to go to waste? Not at all. I do watch the numbers.” Danielle smiled appreciatively. “In case you are worried, only I can tell what I’m doing to you right now.”

  “Which is?”

  “Making you want to kiss me.” Danielle’s gaze focused on his dark brown eyes, thinking that if she allowed herself to love him, he’d become her world. “Exactly,” he said in a low voice.

  The lights dimmed twice, the signal Act 2 was about to begin. She turned her attention to the stage, yet she felt like she was once again on the gondola, wanting to slow down time as Lars repeated his expert touch over and over, right up until the last dance of the ballet.

  “Can I take you home?” The notion of walking around with Lars, in public, was…odd. Her hesitation was clear. “Alternatively, I can have Dominic drive you home and then return to get me,” he added.

  His suggestion drew a scowl. “I’m not an object to be picked up and dropped off,” she said flatly. “If you want me, you pick me up. You drop me off.”

  Lars touched the inside of her wrist, the skin so sensitive a shiver went up her arm and to her neck. “I would happily drive you back and forth, but I can’t. I lost my license earlier this year—speeding tickets.”

  Danielle couldn’t resist a smile. “Criminal.”

  He nodded. “Freedom returns in another thirty days or so. Until then, I will gladly ride to and from where ever you are. I wouldn’t want anyone else to escort you but me.”

  She found the light glow of possessiveness flattering but only nodded.

  “Danielle, before we leave, I’d like to know if you want to continue seeing me, after hours.” This was it, she thought, the moment she’d been waiting for the last ninety minutes and really, if she were honest with herself, since the morning after the gondola ride.

  “Why do you bother to ask me questions when you already know the answer?” she asked, piqued.

  “Because I want to hear you say it. I need to hear you say it, so there is no confusion between us.”

  She wanted to tease him. He didn’t need to be so…professional about it all. He was no longer the managing director to her, not now.

  “Lars,” she said softly, unwilling to give in so easy. “You knew the answer to the question on the gondola, the same as I did. Otherwise you never would have touched me.”

  “Is that a yes?” he asked, his lips moving against hers.

  Danielle’s chest felt like she had been in the depths of an ocean and was now coming up for air too quickly. “Yes, Lars. I want to see you, after hours, for personal reasons.” She took an inhale through her mouth, breathing him in. “The time I get to see you during business hours in a bonus, but will remain professional. Purely…professional.”

  Lars’ lips curled up at her response; a beautiful, full smile, and one she’d never truly seen before. He applied pressure to her back, an unnecessary encouragement, thought Danielle as their lips met.

  He was right. She did have room left in her heart to love.

  CHAPTER 39

  Lars escorted her through the crowded lobby, pausing several times to greet acquaintances he knew. On each occasion, he introduced her as Danielle Grant, without an associated title of friend, girlfriend or co-worker.

  “What a beautiful companion,” an older, elegantly-dressed man said, the compliment directed to both of them. She’d rarely heard the word used in the States, but she liked what it implied. It was one more subtle and funny difference of the two cultures. Everyone wants to be in a category that’s defined by certain parameters.

  “I’m hungry,” Lars announced once he was in the car, his directness making her laugh.

  “For food?” she teased.

  He placed his hand on hers. “And other.”

  “I barely know you!” she protested.

  Lars nodded. “Then let’s rectify that, starting with dinner.” Danielle held back responding, just enough for him to divine something wasn’t right. “No?” he asked, low enough so Dominic couldn’t overhear their conversation.

  “Lars, I do want to be with you and…have some dinner,” she smiled slightly. “But, honestly,” she said, pursing her lips in regret, “I don’t trust you.”

  Lars looked shocked. “In what way?”<
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  “I don’t trust that you will be normal. I’m worried you’ll ignore me on Monday, and Tuesday, and every workday for another four weeks until you’re settled again. By then, we will have already gone past another mile marker that can’t be taken back.” Danielle looked down at his hand, still holding hers. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

  “I’m sorry again for my behavior,” he said sincerely. “I just needed to make a decision. That’s done. I made it. I’ll be myself, I promise you.”

  Danielle felt his sincerity and wanted to believe him, as much for the desires of her head and heart as for her body. But this time around she was going to exercise Swiss-style discipline.

  “Let’s see how you do this week,” she said kindly.

  “What, if anything, can we do that wouldn’t be overly intimate, but compelling enough for you to get to know me better while I build back a solid level of trust?”

  Danielle smiled mischievously. “I can think of two things. You said you race cars. Well, I’d love to see that, even if it wasn’t an actual race. Just going to the track and driving would be awesome. Then you can see me in my environment. Not the sailboarding, but at the restaurant.”

  “What’s to see?”

  “Lots. We can do the restaurant any night of the week, but I’d prefer Friday. What about racing?”

  Lars was evidently mystified but was playing along. “I have a friend with a private race track. It’s a lot closer than going to Germany. I’ll see what I can do. Next Saturday?” She smiled, genuinely eager but still cautious. Lars squeezed her hand and gave her a look of earnest frustration. “And you can’t think of one thing we could do before then?

  Danielle laughed brightly. “This car is so darn big, we could get take-out and lay a picnic in the back while we drive around for a while,” she laughed.

  Lars gripped her hand. “That’s a wonderful idea. Dominic…” and he spoke rapidly.

  “I was kidding,” she said, staring at him.

  “Oh no,” he said, drawing her close to him. “You were serious. I know the difference.”

  Danielle walked her fingers along his leg. He probably did.

  For the next two hours, Danielle got to know Lars the man as they ate Thai, then ice cream and a late night snack of cheese and fruit. She learned his favorite sports were alpine skiing “not downhill as it’s called in the States,” and climbing, ice in the winter, rocks in the summer. He savored authentic Mexican food “impossible to get over here,” and he had raced cars on the amateur circuit until his father suffered a debilitating heart attack.

  That put him on the road of business and he never had the opportunity or the inclination to look back. He loved the time he spent in New York and divulged that he’d fallen in love with a woman while there. A woman, he said, who was also a client. Neither her husband nor his wife had appreciated the relationship very much. That was the cause of his divorce, his return to Switzerland, and his abiding by the rules that he himself had set.

  “You never answered my question in your office,” she reminded him. “Did you get involved with someone at MRD?”

  “Is anything too personal with us?” he asked her seriously.

  Danielle considered his question. “No, nothing,” she said. She couldn’t imagine a topic he’d bring up that she didn’t feel comfortable answering.

  “And it’s all confidential?”

  “Yes. And that goes both ways.”

  He looked gratified. “Then I can tell you she was a client, or rather, her husband was. They withdrew the account and remained together, and in fact are still together.” Danielle figured the partners had been furious and said so. “They didn’t know we were involved,” he told her.

  “Were you…hurt?” she asked.

  Lars’ uncompromising facial expression told her not so much. “It was very physical.”

  She could certainly identify with physical attraction. “But it wasn’t that way in New York?” Lars shook his head, and Danielle could see he had lingering emotion about that one. “If you both got divorced, why didn’t you stay with her? Why come back here?”

  Regret. That was the emotion on his face. “She wanted to, and so did I, to a degree. But she had children. The challenge of raising them wasn’t the problem, because I think I’d have been up to the task. It was the notion of having two fathers; the uncertainty of who do you listen to when.”

  “And then if you disagree with what one says you go to the other,” she added.

  He nodded. “It just didn’t have high odds for success.” She wholeheartedly agreed. One could only do so much for love.

  Since he was revealing a part of himself, she returned in kind. “I’ll tell you before you ask. I never found the clients interesting, because it was a line I wouldn’t and didn’t cross, as David confirmed to you. It was the friends of the clients that were far more suitable.”

  “Ahh,” Lars said.

  “Nothing serious though,” she said. “Between college and work and family issues, I never had the time to get involved in a serious relationship.” She told him about the pregnancy in college, graduate school, her mother and the financial bills of her father. “And let’s admit it. The life of a trader isn’t conducive to even getting to know people.”

  “I know you trade to eleven but that ends Friday night. You have time.’”

  “I’m in bed thirty minutes later,” she said. “Saturday and half of Sunday I’ll sailboard and I’ve been teaching. I also volunteer at an elderly home for a few hours but Sunday nights are spent researching. Maybe two nights a week I’ll help out at the restaurant, but only for short hours, not a full shift.”

  Lars studied her. “That’s it? That’s all you do?”

  For an instant, Danielle was reminded he was still the managing director.

  “I intimated that it wasn’t easy getting a date for these company events!” she said, scolding him while laughing. “I accidentally met Andre the second day I was here, otherwise I would never had had a single date.” Lars remained silent. “Why are you so surprised?” she asked him.

  He shook his head, his eyebrows raised as if that would be his last notion. “Your schedule is really that strict, all the time?”

  She smiled then, a renewed sense of pride in the satisfaction as he sat there, gazing in unmasked awe of her discipline. She also felt the opposing forces of his business role and his personal desires fighting with one another. “Numbers don’t lie Lars,” she said flatly. “There really is no other way to get the returns I do without putting in the hours.”

  “And you are telling me that the only time we can see one another outside the office is on the weekends?”

  Danielle wanted to laugh. He was finally starting to get it, just like Andre had. She placed her drink inside the inlaid wood holder in front of her and crossed to him as he sat motionless in the luxurious leather seat.

  “You, my gorgeous managing director, may leave the office at three-thirty. But your traders—your top trader’s—work and then eat, then work some more. Then we do research. Then we sleep. That’s what we do. But, even assuming this evening’s events don’t throw you for a loop,” her voice progressively becoming quieter as she neared him. “I don’t intend on changing that schedule. To change means to risk my numbers go down.”

  Danielle placed her hands on the leather to either side of his waist, kissing spots near his shirt, murmuring he might have to get it dry-cleaned. “So, what do you want? Me, or the numbers?”

  “I want both,” he said firmly.

  Danielle hummed her appreciation of his response. “Until such time as you can make a decision, you will just have to make do with this,” she said, covering his lips with hers. He did, right up until the time he walked her to the door.

  CHAPTER 40

  Sunday late morning, Danielle went to the restaurant. Lani put multiple plates of food in front of her for a taste test. She happily sampled the new dishes, while Lani showed her the November menu Andr
e had drawn.

  “I didn’t know he was an artist,” Danielle said. “This is really great. You know he really is part American. I think this pecan pie needs more vanilla.”

  Lani frowned. “I used the same Madagascar vanilla and in the exact amount I’ve always used.”

  “Don’t want to overstep my bounds,” Danielle began, causing Lani to laugh and give her the familiar hand gesture for ‘yeah right.’ “Try using the bourbon vanilla, instead. The flavor is much richer and lingers longer. The Madagascar burns out.”

  Lani was fully prepared to argue but instead cocked her head. “I think you might be right.” When Stephen came to join them, Danielle told both of them about Lars. Lani was speechless, and Stephen felt sorry for Andre. “Swiss men are usually so patient by nature,” he remarked, giving Lani a wink. Danielle’s happy factor went up considerably. The last thing she wanted was her friends to split apart.

  “I’m telling you about this now so you won’t be surprised when Lars shows up this week. He needs to see the highly proficient waitress that I am.” Lani put her hand to her mouth and unconsciously straightened her hair. Stephen took it in stride.

  “More good press,” he said, smiling.

  Danielle spent the rest of the day visiting the Asper Home. Once she was back at her flat, she took a long soak in the tub and did her obligatory work on the computer. Dad wasn’t feeling well, cutting their conversation short after she revealed she was seeing someone new.

  “I’m glad,” he told her. “Even if he is the boss, he sounds like your intellectual equal, so I’m inclined to approve.”

  It wouldn’t really matter if he approved or not, thought Danielle as she snuggled under the down comforter. Lars would either make it through this week without a hiccup or he would fail and their short interludes would be over.