Sorry, Derek. I don’t think we’re well suited for each other. It was wonderful to meet you, though.
Lame. But she refused to give it or him another thought and pushed the send button, powered down her computer, and walked out the door.
Chapter Twelve
“So why the early morning summons?” Derek asked as he entered his mother’s office. He was still bristling over Jaclyn’s easy dismissal of him. Not suited for each other? They seemed more than suited for each other last night. Deirdre must have said something to her to scare her off—he should have guessed that as soon as he saw her standing in his bedroom with Jaclyn nowhere to be seen. He was going to have to do something to get his sister to back off.
His mother leaned forward, both hands resting on her desk. “I wanted to talk to you about the new job I gave you.”
“You just told me about it last night. I haven’t even had the opportunity to look into it yet.”
“Fair enough. But I wanted to make sure you are going to follow through.”
Annoyance flamed his festering irritation. “Why wouldn’t I?”
She studied him. “I heard you have a soft spot for the girl.”
“You heard wrong. We just met. Not that it matters, but Jaclyn doesn’t have anything to do with the embezzling.”
“How can you be sure the girl is so innocent? As you said, you just met.”
“You read her as well as I did. There were no signs of deception.”
“Maybe, maybe not. A good audit will get to the bottom of it.”
He leaned back in his chair, pulling up his leg over his knee, giving off a stance of nonchalance. At least hoping he was. “Fine. I’ll set it up. If Jaclyn or her partner are behind the embezzling, I will find out.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I expected more of a fight out of you.”
“Why is that?”
“You’ve become too soft, Derek. I would say it was that woman making you this way, if I didn’t already know you’ve been a disappointment for years.”
Derek took a deep breath, swallowing the anger growing in his chest. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, I’ll make you a deal. You want the ninth level, I’ll give it to you on one condition.”
“Do I even want to know?” he asked, dryly.
“I want an heir. A grandbaby. And I want you to give it to me. Have dinner with Sabine. She has changed. She is ready to settle down.”
“That’s terrific. I’m not.”
“You are, you just haven’t realized it yet.”
Derek closed his eyes to keep from rolling them. He could think of other things he’d like to give her, but a baby wasn’t one of them. “So if I sell my balls and give up my soul to a loveless marriage with a woman I don’t trust just to give you a baby, you will give me the promotion I deserve?”
“Think about it,” she said with a smile. “That’s all I ask.”
“How could I not?”
“In the meantime, do your job. Pay a visit to this foundation today. Give the pretty Miss Jaclyn this check for $20,000 from Reginald and Zacharius so we can track the funds. And if you can, see what you can glean from the employees.”
“Today?”
“Yes, or I will turn it over to your sister. She’s jumping at the bit to take this job on.”
“Is that why she’s been hanging around making my life miserable?” He looked past his mother to Deirdre, who’d just entered the room and was watching them with undisguised interest.
His mother shrugged.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Watch me.” She smiled, and right then he wished he could do what Sabine had done, and disappear to parts unknown. “Give some thought to what I said. Sabine is waiting for your call.”
“She’s going to be waiting a very long time.”
Derek parked in the gravel lot outside the Safe Haven Foundation and stared at the boring cinderblock building.
His sister had to have said something to Jaclyn to screw this up for him. Women didn’t usually brush him off so easily. They were the ones who swarmed around him. He was the one swatting them away, not the other way around. He was half-inclined to blow her off, but he had a job to do. He would go in and find out what he could about her organization. If Jaclyn was involved in wrongdoing, he’d find that out, too. And he’d show no mercy. A lot of non-profits could be problematic; several were tax shelters paying obscene salaries to the people that ran them. Jaclyn had better hope she wasn’t in that category.
He got out of his car. There wasn’t a vehicle in the lot that screamed high salaries. But Marlena Wescott was never wrong. Something was going on here. He walked into the building. The front room was small and empty but for a metal industrial desk in the corner piled high with file folders.
“Hello?” he called and continued into the next room. It was large, brightly carpeted, and dotted with small, round, kid-sized tables. By the placement of tables and chairs, and short bookcases, the room was divided up into different sections. In the center of the room, Jaclyn sat in a chair too small for her reading out loud from a storybook to at least twenty children who listened with rapt attention.
Her eyes flashed with confusion and then annoyance when she saw him. She continued reading, her voice animated, her face full of expression, though. He couldn’t help but feel mesmerized as he watched her. She gave her all to the story as if there wasn’t anything else she’d rather be doing. The children looked up at her with huge smiles and complete adoration. In that moment, he had to admit he didn’t mind her long skirt and button-up frilly blouse. But he sure wouldn’t mind a glimpse of those long, luscious legs again, either.
As if reading his thoughts, Jaclyn closed the book and stood. “Lunch time.”
The children ran like a pack of wild animals toward the back of the room, where a small kitchen was set up and an older woman was making what looked like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then setting out bowls of cut up apples.
He stood in the corner and watched Jaclyn with the kids. He had to admit she was so much more than a beauty hidden beneath a shapeless smock and a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. A smock he would love to get her out of, though the glasses were a little sexy.
“Derek. What are you doing here?” She moved with grace and style as she approached him. How could he have ever thought she was awkward and a schoolmarm? “I thought I told you I—”
“I was hoping for the grand tour,” he cut in, not wanting to hear her vocalize why she didn’t want to see him again.
“You were?”
“Yes. I’d like to see where my colleagues’ money is going.”
“Your colleagues?”
“Reginald and Zacharius. I believed they pledged to you last night. I have their check right here.”
“You do?” Her eyes widened as she stared at the check. “I-I didn’t really think—”
“That they’d follow through?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what those charity events are all about.”
“I guess so.” She stared at him, her dark green eyes warring between relief and embarrassment, but then she took a deep breath and smiled. It did something strange to his insides. Something not at all comfortable.
“So about that tour?” he asked.
“Yes, of course. Come with me.”
She led him out of the noisy room and into the back of the building. He took her hand and drew his finger up her palm, feeling her shiver next to him. She pulled away. Images from the night before ran through his mind, her tentative touch, her passion-filled kisses. Seduction of the little schoolmarm had been quite exquisite. And he knew damned well she’d enjoyed it as much as he had. He could see the same images running through her mind when they touched and he had to admit, the effect was extremely arousing.
He moved closer to her as they continued down a hall that led to the private rooms; most were filled with twin beds. A twin bed would be plenty. “Are the rooms soundproof?” he asked.
“What?” She looked up at him with a touch of confusion in her eyes.
He stepped close to her, so close the tips of her breasts were touching his chest. “For when I make you come so hard you won’t be able to hold back your moans. Will they hear you?” Her pupils dilated and he leaned forward to pull that plump bottom lip, the one she was worrying with her teeth, into his mouth.
She quickly moved back.
“Through here are the restrooms,” she said as they passed a bathroom with ten stalls and showers. Acting like she wasn’t affected by him. By the night they’d shared. Acting like she didn’t want him to take her right there, when they both knew she did.
“This area of the facility is available for the kids to take their naps. We aren’t an overnight shelter yet. We don’t have the staff or the funds now, but hopefully soon,” she said, her words a tad too quick, her gestures slightly too awkward.
He grinned, loving the effect he was having on her. “So it’s basically daycare for families who can’t afford it.”
“Yes. Daycare is outrageously expensive. Here, parents who don’t have jobs or homes can use our facility as a home address to put on their job applications. They can leave their kids during the day while they search for work or go to their jobs until they are able to get back on their feet. To date, we’ve helped two hundred and thirty families.”
“That’s quite an accomplishment. And you do this all by yourself?”
“My business partner, Trish Anderson, and I run the foundation together. I work with the families and kids and she handles all the administrative work. We also have high school volunteers needing service project hours come in every day after school. That helps tremendously.”
“Trish Anderson,” he repeated. He recognized the name but couldn’t place it.
“She’s the one who usually works the charity balls. You’ve probably met her at one point or another.”
“That must be it.” At the end of the hallway, he reached for her, brushing a loose curl back from her face.
She stepped back, biting her lip again. “I-uh-I’m surprised you came by after my email.”
“I told you why. To bring you your check.”
“Yes. And I appreciate that, but why do I think there is more than that?”
He shrugged, and smiled at the increased thudding of her heart. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted it as much as he did. He leaned forward again, his lips mere inches from hers. “I can’t help what you think.”
“But—”
“We had a great time last night,” he whispered, moving his lips to nibble on the column of her neck.
She sucked in a breath. “Maybe.”
“You want me. And I want you. Can’t you feel it?” He shifted, pushing his erection against her hip.
“Oh, God.”
“So why the brush off?” He found her sweet hollow at the base of her neck and sucked.
“I can’t,” she pushed out on a deep breath and took a quick step away from him. Before he could respond, she pivoted back. “I can’t believe you told your sister about our bet! I was so humiliated.”
He froze. “What are you talking about?”
“What am I talking about? You. Your stupid bet. Your sister had a great time rubbing it in my face this morning. I’ve never been more mortified in my life.”
“Whoa, now,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “You’ve got this all wrong.” He was going to kill Deirdre, long and slow and painfully.
“Do I?” She challenged, her eyes two glittering stones of fury. “’I see Derek won his bet,’ were her exact words.”
He rolled back on his heels and took a deep breath.
“She wasn’t referring to our bet,” he explained, gesturing between them with one finger. “I didn’t tell anyone about our bet. She was referring to the bet I had with the boys.”
“The boys?”
“My colleagues who set up our blind date in the first place.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “You made the same bet with them that you did with me?”
He could see this wasn’t going well. The mood between them lost, he figured he might as well come clean. “Yes.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“Shouldn’t it?”
“Let me get this straight. Not only were you not the one to ask me out for coffee in the first place, but you made a bet with your buddies, who found me on an online dating site, that you could get me into your bed? What are we, children?” She was beginning to screech.
This was going from bad to disastrous in a heartbeat. “I know, it sounds bad.”
“It sounds like you are exactly what I thought you were to begin with. No good. A damned devil.”
Not too far from the mark. “I’d say after last night, I proved just how good I am.” He smiled, his most devastatingly charming smile yet. This woman needed to lighten up. “And how good we can be.”
Her lids lowered to half-mast. “Congratulations.”
She turned to walk away. He grabbed her arm. “What difference does it make how our date got set up in the first place? Admit it, we had a great time last night.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Are you a professional gambler or just an addictive one?” she asked, side-stepping the question.
“Excuse me? Of course not.”
“Are you sure? You had not just one, but two bets that you could get me into bed last night. One of them with me! You must have been damned sure of yourself.”
“Damned sure that I wanted to be with you.”
“You mean sleep with me.”
He shrugged. She had him pegged, nail on the head. “Yes, that, too. But I also wanted to go out with you. Find out what made you tick. You fascinate me.” There he said it. “And I don’t regret it. I had a great night last night.”
“Why?” She blurted, the one word dripping with doubt. “Why were you fascinated? What was it about me that made you want to play this game? Wait, let me guess. It was my wild curly hair, my glasses, my overall not your perfect-ten usual.” She swept her hands down her body.
He couldn’t respond. He didn’t know how. She was spot on. But it was so much more than that. She was so much more than that.
“You have an incredible body.” He closed the gap between them.
“We should get back to the kids.” She turned and marched back down the hall.
How could he be fucking this up so drastically? He was the charming one. The smooth operator. But when it came to this woman…
Okay time to try a different tactic. “You’re really good with them,” he said when he finally caught up with her. Truth was, he didn’t know what to say to her, or how to come back from her too-close-to-the-truth accusation.
“They mean the world to me,” she said stiffly.
“Do you have kids of your own?” he asked, fairly certain she didn’t, but trying desperately to lighten the mood. But as soon as he did, he remembered his mother’s ultimatum, and her demand that he see Sabine again, and his stomach clenched. Especially since he’d lost his head and hadn’t used a condom last night.
Another thing he never did with women.
Maybe he should just throw in the towel on this one. He could see a train wreck headed his way, and she was a doozy.
“No, I don’t have children,” she said. “Not yet, anyway.” Her lips twisted into a smirk filled with vulnerability, and a little voice inside him whispered it was time to run. As fast and as far from this woman as he could get.
Jaclyn was a good one. And good or bad, once the hunt was over, the kill taken, the trophy on his counter, he lost interest. He always did. It was harsh. It was why he spent the bulk of his life alone, but it was what it was.
“But for now, these kids are my kids,” she said, leading him back into the main room that was too bright, too loud, and too chaotic.
He started looking for a way out, an escape hatch, when something tugged on his jacket. He l
ooked down to see a little girl with wide expressive eyes and a head full of brown curls. “Hey, Mister. Have you seen my daddy?”
She touched his hand lightly, briefly enough for him to see the image of her daddy pop into his head. Yes, he’d seen her daddy. Right before he’d destroyed the guy’s life. Something ripped through him.
Jaclyn dropped to a crouch in front of the child. “Sweetheart. We’ve talked about this. Your daddy had to go away for a while. Mr. Wescott hasn’t seen your daddy. None of us have.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Yes, he has. I want my daddy. Where’s Mommy?”
Jaclyn gave the girl a big hug, held her, and rocked gently. “It’s okay. Your mommy’s at work, but she’ll be back soon. Okay?”
“No. Not okay. I want her now.”
“How about we go into the drawing room and you can draw your mommy a picture for when she gets back. Would that be nice?”
The little girl nodded, and Jaclyn took her hand and walked her toward the corner where the older woman was helping the kids create artwork.
“You handled that well,” he said when she returned, and he meant it.
“These kids break my heart. Each and every one of them.”
His, too. Which was why he needed to get the hell out of there. He was the Prince of Hell, for Lucifer’s sake. He didn’t get all choked up over crying kids. If he did he’d suck at his job and, no matter his mother’s complaints, he didn’t suck at his job. He took his time, he found their weak spots, and used them to bring the bastards down. Was there collateral damage? Every time. Did it bother him? Sometimes. But it didn’t stop him.
“They are very lucky to have you,” he said, and he meant it. He really hoped she wasn’t involved in the embezzling.
She looked up at him and when she did, something moved within him. Something foreign, and not at all unpleasant.
“So how about another date?” he suggested. “There’s another charity ball I have to go to tonight.” He waggled his eyebrows and turned on the one-hundred-watt smile.
“I don’t think so.” She pivoted, headed out the door and into the front room. Damn, it was a good thing he had a healthy ego. Maybe his mother was right. Maybe he was getting too soft. Maybe it was time to exploit her weak spot.
All Bets Are On Page 7