by Lauren Dane
Wen barked out a laugh. “Damn, I’ve never seen you this transparent before.”
Forest had more than enough of Wen’s amusement for one day. “And you should get back to your office before I find someone else to fill it.”
“I agree.” Wen stood and rolled his shoulders back, generally making a show of heading out.
Forest knew that battle ended too easy, and when Wen spun around again, Forest hated being right. “Damn,” he mumbled under his breath.
“I’m just wondering how long it will be before you make up a reason to come visit me today.”
“I do own the company.” Though, at the moment Forest didn’t feel as if he was in charge of anything.
“But you’ve never used it as a dating service before.”
“I’m not now.” But the comment struck a little too close for Forest’s liking.
This was not about finding a date. This was about getting to the heart of the mystery that was Jordan. And if that included sex—and it better or he might lose his mind—that was just a bonus.
Wen’s stupid smile came roaring back. “I’m betting I see you by noon.”
Chapter Five
Subject Request for Wen Strong: Is his ladies’-man reputation for real? —Member 71
Response from Member 9: Dated him last year. He’s smart, charming and amazing in the sack. He also heaves at the thought of commitment. Sex—yes. Anything serious—no.
JORDAN SENSED HIM before she saw him. People buzzed in and out of the double doors of the executive suite all day. She’d spent hours answering the phone, scheduling and copying the information Wen needed for this and that, all while watching out for Forest.
The entrance to his Big Boy private office sat directly across from her on the other side of an open lounge area. He’d stepped out several times to head for other offices and a conference room off to her right. He never looked her way. Never came over. Never went into the office behind her to see Wen.
But all that was about to change.
She spied Forest’s charcoal-colored suit as he stepped into the lounge and headed her way. He walked with his head down and fiddled with his watch. The movements were brisk and determined...and when he lifted his head and pinned her with his green-eyed gaze, a rough breath shook her chest.
She blamed the reaction on the strange case of bouncing nerves she’d had since the temp office called with this assignment for the first time last Friday. First of three times. Seemed her presence had been specifically “requested” by someone on Redder’s HR team.
Yeah, right. More likely that she got in the last word with the guy before she left the wedding and it gnawed at him until he tracked her down.
Because that wasn’t nuts or anything.
Either way, he’d won because her temp coordinator threatened to keep her off any other assignments if she said no. For now, she needed the position. It provided her with extra cash and the perfect ruse to collect information for Need to Know.
But there were other temp agencies in town, and Jordan would find one as soon as this job ended, but she would not be run out thanks to Forest. She’d leave on her own terms—ticked off and spitting mad for being pushed around—and not look back.
Speaking of looking, this time he didn’t duck or ignore her. He walked straight for her desk, never breaking eye contact. He’d somehow managed to clear the place out as he moved, because the busy activity dropped away and people disappeared, leaving behind just the two of them.
He’d waited until almost five o’clock to wander over and make his stand. Whatever control game they were playing, he seemed to be winning it. She hated that.
He stopped right in front of her, all big and imposing, and treated her to a curt nod. “Ms. McAdam.”
The deep voice rumbled around her. She had no idea how he made it echo and bounce, but it left her a little breathless. “Mr. Redder.”
He didn’t budge as he nodded in the direction of the closed door behind her. “Is your boss in?”
“Wen?”
If possible, Forest’s mouth flattened even further. “You can call him Mr. Strong.”
Looked like Mr. Tall, Dark and Demanding preferred to draw a bright line between management and staff. That matched with his overbearing, suck-the-air-out-of-the-room personality.
The guy certainly knew how to suck the interest right out of her...almost.
“He said to call him Wen,” she pointed out.
“And the second Wen owns the place, he can make that decision. Until then—”
“You’re in charge.” Yeah, she got it. Forest didn’t exactly allow for gray areas.
“Exactly.”
She shifted in her chair, keeping her legs tight together to keep her foot from tapping, and her fingers linked to stop any fidgeting. Something about him had her insides jumping and a soft fuzz slipping over her brain.
Usually the buttoned-up suit implied a certain personality type. One she wanted to avoid as much as possible—alpha, annoying, desperate to move up the ladder and looking for a quick lay. She’d tried that type and gotten smothered under a pile of lies.
Forest appeared to be the exception. She wanted the package—all six-feet, put together, commanding presence of him—to repel her. That wasn’t happening. Maybe if he kept talking that would do it. It wasn’t as if she was doing all that great with the other male types. Then there was the issue of the bad-boy streak she sensed running under Forest’s surface. Yeah, if she tapped into that, her control could be a problem.
“And no,” she said, picking up a lost thread to the conversation. It was either that or let her mind wander, and danger lingered in that direction.
He frowned down at her. “Excuse me?”
“Mr. Strong is still not back from his two-thirty appointment.”
Still, Forest didn’t move. He stood there with those broad shoulders blocking her view and dimming the lights around her. Another neat trick.
She knew she had a few choices. She could play it cool, ignore him and hope the weird uptick in her heart rate that happened whenever she saw him soon knocked it off. She could walk out and not come back, which was damn tempting. Or she could hit the unspoken issue zapping between them head-on.
Since she had nothing to lose, she went with the third option. “May I speak with you a minute?”
His face went blank. “Sure.”
“In private.”
A smile twitched at the edge of his mouth, then disappeared. Looked like Forest already marked this round in his “win” column. Honestly, the size of his ego astounded her.
He gestured toward the closed door. “We can use Wen’s office.”
She preferred an open space. Private or not, locked rooms spelled trouble. Still, no way was she backing down from this fight, not when she pretty much started it this time around. “If you insist.”
“I do.”
Before common sense could step up and slap her, she slid out of her chair and grabbed her cell. She needed it nearby because it sounded as if the Mom—Felix connection had already taken a nosedive. This week’s love troubles almost made Jordan wish she could forbid her mom from leaving the country.
Jordan walked the few steps to Wen’s private office. She could feel Forest’s presence behind her as she opened the door, not touching, but just inside her comfort zone. His scent wrapped around her and his reflection cut through the Georgetown skyline mirrored on the wall of windows behind Wen’s desk.
She took in the plush leather chair and thick carpet. The space was done in blue, as if to match the painting to her left and its splashes of color. It looked like a mishmash of streaks to her, but she guessed it cost more than all the furniture in her condo combined.
Rather than spend more time admiring the décor, she launched into h
er verbal attack the second she heard the door click shut behind them. She spun around and her balance faltered when she saw a short three feet spanning the distance between them. Man, the guy snuck up without making a noise.
But she needed to focus. Smelling him was not going to make that happen. “What is this about?”
His face tightened in a frown. “Excuse me?”
“Tell me why I’m here.”
Forest folded his arms across his chest. “You wanted to talk with me.”
He just never stopped testing. “You know what I mean. In your building. Working for you.”
“You don’t technically work for me.”
The man could make a nun reach for the nearest weapon. “You’re parsing that line pretty thin, aren’t you?”
Forest exhaled then, in the way men did when they found women tiresome. “Wen needed a temp and you appeared to be out of work, so I thought the fit made sense.”
Forest even gave her eye contact as he lied his impressive butt off. Nice try. “Even after our conversation at the wedding and my comments about not wanting the job, you talked to someone at my company and demanded I be the one to take this position.”
“I asked for you.”
She wondered if he knew they were saying the same thing. Seemed his asking sounded a lot like ordering and she’d bet he was well aware how people jumped at his serious tone. “My temp coordinator threatened to fire me because of your call.”
His arms dropped to his sides as a bit of his stern control slipped. “What?”
Huh, that almost looked real. “Fired.”
“You’re serious?”
She shifted until a few more inches separated them. Not that it helped. She needed an entire football field of distance to keep her wits around this man. “What’s the end game here, Forest? Or am I required to call you Mr. Redder, since you’re the Big Boss?”
“Oh, I definitely want to hear you say Forest when we’re alone.” His voice changed. Actually dropped and roughened as it licked at her senses.
Whoa.
“Let’s go back to the part where—”
“Yes.” Pivoting away from the sound of his voice and the way it made her stomach do a strange little dance was a good idea. She needed focus and to tap into that deep well of anger inside her. She shifted until she stood at the side of Wen’s desk with Forest in front of it. “Fired, Forest. I had to obey your command or risk losing my job.”
He held up his hand in what looked like a pledge. “Okay, wait a second. The firing part was not on the table.”
“Sure sounded like it to me. Probably because the coordinator actually used the word fired.”
The skin pulled taut over Forest’s cheeks and stress showed in every line of his face. “I never threatened that and would never threaten that. You were supposed to be offered a bonus for taking this assignment.”
As soon as the flicker of positive feeling ignited in her consciousness, it vanished again. With this guy’s help, she could easily turn into her mother. A bonus here, a television there. Find a guy, grab the heirloom diamond and head for a quickie wedding in Vegas before the fighting started. Jordan had lived through that cycle too many times to get sucked into it now.
Forest did this and the temptation to kick him in the shins hit her hard enough to knock her breathless. “So, you’re paying for extra services now, like I’m some sort of special on the menu?”
“No way am I saying yes to that.” He rested his fingertips against the desktop.
She tore her gaze away as soon as she realized the gentle tap of his fingers mesmerized her. “That’s smart, because you know what that sounds like, right?”
His hand flattened with a thud. “None of this is coming out right.”
“No kidding.”
“One more time.” He made a dramatic scene with a loud exhale. “Because it was last minute, and because I was insisting, I said I would pay more and your boss said she would pass that on to you. That’s it.”
If he was making it up as he talked, he managed to sound pretty convincing. Still, the heavy-handed thing needed work. “Uh-huh.”
He shook his head as he took off again. In two steps he met her at the side of the desk and stared down into her eyes. “Look, I’ll talk to your boss. Straighten all of it out.”
The grim expression, the body language—it all struck her as the actions of a man struggling with a smack of guilt and need to atone. She might have found the whole scene a bit more chivalrous if he hadn’t been the one to cause the mess in the first place.
Her cell picked that minute to buzz. She tightened her fist around the plastic and felt it dig into her palm. For a second she thought about ignoring it.
Forest’s gaze bounced from her hand to her face. “Do you need to get that?”
“It’s my mother.”
“How can you tell?”
With a few swipes of her thumb, Jordan verified the sender. Saw something about needing money to rent a yacht and looked up again. “It’s almost always my mother. Sometimes friends. Every now and then a date. But usually my mother.”
His shoulders tensed. “Date?”
“That was a general statement.” And why she felt the need to point that out she had no idea. It would be better if he thought she was taken. That might kill off whatever odd attraction kept zapping between them.
Of course, with her luck, he might be the need-to-steal-her-away type. Jordan’s least-favorite type on the planet after the hairless asshole who stole bikini underwear, if there was such a combination type and she guessed there was.
“Well, is she okay?” Forest asked.
Jordan loved her mom, but there was just no way to answer that one quickly. “Depends on your definition.”
“Excuse me?”
She noticed he liked that phrase. “She thinks she prefers Felix’s friend John to Felix.”
Forest shook his head. “Should I know what that means?”
“I’m not all that thrilled I know.”
“We seem to be having a communication issue.”
As far as she could see they had a much bigger problem. Even at this distance she could feel the heat of his body and pull of something inside him tugging at her. “You know what this is about, right?”
“The ‘this’ is what in that sentence?”
Because the guy couldn’t say “huh” like everyone else on the planet. He had to add ten extra words. “The chase.”
He blew out a long breath. The head shaking came a second later. “Okay, I thought I’d caught up, but you lost me again.”
“You have a certain reputation with women.” She took a step back and her thigh slammed into the edge of Wen’s desk chair. A harsh breath hissed through her teeth as pain spiraled to her hip. But when Forest reached out for her, she shook her head. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
The man was all but chasing her around the desk, kind of proving her argument, but she decided not to point that out. “Don’t try to throw me off. We’re talking about your reputation.”
His eyes narrowed. “Which is?”
Sex God. “You get the women you go after.”
“Where did you hear that?”
Like she was going to stroke his ego and repeat all the gossip. “Doesn’t matter.”
His head rolled to the side as he groaned. “Damn it, not that stupid site.”
“Uh...” The brakes slammed on in her brain. “What?”
“You think this is a game to me?”
“Go back to the website comment.”
He shook his head. “Answer the question first.”
Need warred with curiosity. He’d mentioned Need to Know, not by name, but she got the idea, and she wanted to double back and poke around t
here. See what he knew and assumed. Her defenses rose as fast as her urge to stick up for all her hard work. But she continued to fight for focus. “I’m a challenge to you.”
The smile came out of nowhere. So did his hands. One skimmed over her shoulder to the side of her face. “You are that.”
She never thought he’d admit it. And the touching...not good. Not when her defenses against this guy, maddening and bossy and all, were stuck on permanent sputter. Hell, one caress and her insides took off on a spell of shivery nonsense.
Just the thought of that had her anger spiking again. “You thought you could spin me right off that wedding dance floor and into bed, and since that didn’t work you’re making a second run.”
Her hand went to his with the intention of pushing him away. That pushing thing didn’t happen. She just stood there, hand on his, engaging in a staring contest that had her heart hammering hard enough to echo in her ears.
His gaze searched her face and he leaned in closer. “You should see someone about your low self-esteem.”
Right, she was the one with the confidence problem.
“I left without falling into your arms and now you’re sniffing around.” She meant to yell the observation, but it came out as a breathy whisper.
“So, now I’m a dog in this scenario?”
The laughter in his voice brought that kicking instinct winging back. She broke the contact then, ducking away from his hand and ignoring the warm tingle in her skin from where he’d touched her.
Anger. Yes, that was the only way to ensure her skirt stayed down and his lips stayed over there. “You’re interested because you heard no from a woman and you expected to hear yes.”
Forget that he hadn’t actually spelled out his interest and she hadn’t actually said no. She’d run from that dance floor. Found her purse, grabbed it and kept moving until she hit the parking garage. Between the banter and the pressure of his palm against her back during that dance, her control had teetered and stupidity loomed. She’d almost said yes to that drink, and that “almost” panicked her.