by Maggie Marr
“There are cell phone towers up and down the entire California coastline and the one spot in Los Angeles where I can’t get a signal is your office?”
Meg Parson’s voice was brighter and lighter than the curves of her body would suggest. She shifted her weight and her hip teased forward against her suit skirt. The outline of bone against taut fabric taunted Cole with hints of lace panties. In a careless moment his gaze roamed over her legs, caressed her skirt, and brushed over the outline of her breasts.
Hunger for Meg clutched his belly and twisted hard. Cole turned toward the ocean and the unwatched sunset—away from Meg. Better to feign interest in the blossom of color on the horizon than to indulge his desires to stare at his colleague and former assistant.
“Hello? Hello?” Meg said into the phone.
In the window, Cole caught Meg’s reflection as she flipped her long sable-colored hair over her right shoulder. She tightened her jaw and closed her eyes.
His stomach clenched as Meg’s tongue caressed her pout of a mouth. Cole took another slug of his drink, hopeful that the liquid heat burning down his throat would distract him from his desires.
No. Luck.
He set his jaw in opposition to his craving and pulled his gaze away from Meg’s indelible imprint on the glass. He didn’t need the reflection; her every sinew was seared into his mind but Meg was off-limits.
In the three years she’d worked for him, Meg made herself indispensable, and he had been fool enough to let her become a necessity. She knew everything about him—from the way he took his coffee down to his shoe size. She ran his business affairs seamlessly. He leaned on her. Depended on her. Cole even began to need her and needing anyone was intolerable. To need a person was to appear weak. Need allowed vulnerability to take root. Need was the end of strength. No, to need Meg was completely unacceptable.
“Yes, hi. This is Meg Parson. I have Cole Jackson for Stan Morton,” Meg said.
With the sound of his name on her lips he faced her. This was a business deal, nothing more.
“Of course I’ll hold.” Meg covered the mouthpiece and her blue eyes sparkled with the thrill of the deal. “Why didn’t we use your landline?”
Cole’s heart quickened as Meg’s excitement spilled over to him. Cole sipped his drink and watched Meg over the top of his glass. This time, her proximity, and not the bourbon, seared through him.
“They’re getting Stan,” Meg whispered, still covering the mouthpiece.
Stan Morton owned one of the two things Cole wanted most in the world: TBC Studios.
And the other thing?
Cole’s eyes traced the porcelain curve of Meg’s neck as she twirled a piece of hair between her thumb and pointer finger. Well, the other thing wasn’t for sale, nor was it negotiable. Office dalliances weren’t Cole’s style and neither was a long-term commitment. Meg was the type of woman who required he break both rules, and Cole preferred his relationships exactly as they’d been for the past decade: hot, fast, and disposable.
This deal was Meg’s baby, and once it was consummated Cole would have to promote Meg. If he waited any longer another company would swoop in and grab her. One of his competitors might already be trying.
“How will you celebrate?” Cole rarely asked Meg anything so personal. A dusty pink flush crept over Meg’s ivory-colored cheeks.
Protectiveness surged through Cole.
“I’m thinking Bali.” A smile started in Meg’s eyes and quickly encompassed her whole face as she thought about a luxurious and well-deserved beach vacation.
“Nice choice.”
“And you?”
Cole tilted his head toward Meg. Her question surprised him. He’d celebrate the same way he always did: with more hard work. There was no family in his life. His parents were dead. He had an uncle in Florida who he didn’t speak to⎯could never speak to again.
“I know what you’ll do.” The sparkle in her eyes danced. “You’ll find another company to buy.”
He lifted one corner of his mouth, assured and yet uncomfortable that she knew him so well. Meg was right. He’d pour over more market reports to determine what company was undervalued. Spotting good deals had taken him from a college dropout with thirteen dollars and seventy-six cents in his pocket to owning houses in Malibu, Aspen, New York City, and Paris.
“It’s like you’re obsessed,” she said.
Obsessed or obsessive. Either way he continued to win. Cole gathered up all the things he wanted. The things he needed. The things that proved to him and the world that Cole Jackson would stand on his own. He wouldn’t cave, cower, or run away in fear. Meg’s fingertips caressed the gold necklace she wore.
A tremor rumbled low in Cole’s back. Again he looked away and searched the horizon for a solution to the problem that was Meg. After he promoted her he’d send her to New York or perhaps even Hong Kong. Extreme distance would alleviate the feelings that swept over him when he looked at her.
He had fought too long and too hard to regain control of his parents’ company after their death, and he refused to put Comnet in jeopardy just because Miss Meg stirred a vulnerable spot within him. No⎯to trust was to lose and Cole wouldn’t lose, not again. Out of sight, out of mind; and the farther out of his sight that Meg Parson was, the better.
“Where’d they have to go to find him? Zimbabwe?” Meg whispered. The phone still pressed to her ear, Meg arched backward in a feline stretch and her white blouse clung to her body.
His chest tightened with the sight of her nipples pert and tight pushing against her bra. He worked hard to press air in and out of his lungs. To stay steady. He ached to reach out and entwine his fingers into the silky strands of her hair. He wanted to, but he wouldn’t. He could, but he didn’t.
*
“Miss Parson?”
“Yes?” Finally Stan’s secretary was back on the line. How long did they have to wait? How long would Cole wait? Not long. Cole Jackson didn’t wait for anything and especially not to give someone a half-billion dollars.
“I’m sorry but Mr. Morton is unavailable,” the crisp cool voice on the other end said.
“Excuse me?” Meg’s stomach spiraled as she spun away from Cole. “Did you say he’s unavailable?” she whispered.
“Unfortunately, yes. He’s not accepting any more calls this evening.”
“Did you tell him who it is?” Meg forced an even tone into her voice.
“I did. And he said that perhaps he’d speak with you tomorrow.”
Perhaps? Perhaps wasn’t good enough. Possibilities and maybes and perhapses wouldn’t cut it when Cole Jackson stood beside you and anticipated closing the biggest deal of his career in the next five days.
“Good night, Miss Parson,” Debra said smoothly into the phone.
Meg said nothing. Not a word. She didn’t want to turn around. She didn’t want to face Cole. She didn’t want to see the edges of his sharp cheekbones or the dark shadow of a beard that in the evening clung to his jaw. She didn’t want to glance at his black hair, the edges of which brushed the collar of his still-crisp white shirt. And she definitely didn’t want to look into his hard blue eyes. The eyes that seemed to peer into her soul. She didn’t want to experience the disappointed downslope of his full mouth. Her heart ached at the thought of Cole turning away from her in disgust and irritation at her inability to close the deal.
She needed this job. She needed this success. For goodness’ sake, after three years of working for Cole she needed a promotion.
Meg closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“She…” She looked up into Cole’s intense blue eyes, and her heart jumped. His face, set like ice, belied no emotion. He stood so very close to her.
His nearness pulled the air from her lungs. She wanted to step back, but couldn’t. A contagious heat radiated through his shirt toward her. Even with his tie pulled loose he appeared stunningly sexy.
“They couldn’t reach him.” Meg braced herself for the onslaught. She
had witnessed other VP’s get their asses handed to them when they messed up a deal much smaller than the acquisition of TBC. “She said that perhaps we’d speak tomorrow.”
Meg averted her eyes so as not to stare at Cole. Of course she was physically attracted to him. Every woman on the planet was physically attracted to Cole.
Cole’s face clouded like a thunderhead rolling across the sky. His right eyebrow pulled upward was a harbinger of his extreme displeasure. “Did you say perhaps?”
Meg nodded.
“I don’t do perhaps,” Cole growled.
Tingles shot through her limbs and her body tightened. She was hyperalert, aware of Cole’s presence, his disappointment. Her nerve endings tuned in to his every move.
“How did this happen?” His ice blue eyes bit into her. “How, Meg, could you let this happen?”
Anger lurched upward from her belly and pushed aside her fear. Her? How could she let this happen? Meg turned to Cole, her eyebrows knit tight. She handled this deal exactly as he had trained her. Each step guided by how she had observed him operate over the last three years. Skillful and precise. She had learned from the best. She had learned from Cole.
“I did everything, I⎯”
“It wasn’t enough,” Cole cut in roughly. He stepped forward.
Her breath shortened as Cole crowded her against the glass wall.
“Somebody else got to Morton. Some other company is going to close this deal. Metro Media? Maybe they found out.”
They were nose to nose, and Meg’s heart fluttered fast. A tremor shot upward through her knees and thighs and clutched the base of her spine, where her backside skimmed the glass. His scent filled her, and her mind grew fuzzy. He was so close, so present. His intensity rushed through her as if she’d caught a sizzling electrical cord in her hand. She closed her eyes and exhaled. She grounded herself.
“No one knows about this deal. Stan…Mr. Morton…he’d sell only to you. Not Metro Media.”
As much as she was irritated by his quick assessment that somehow she had failed, she fought a fierce desire to lay her hands on his broad chest, tip her face upward, and⎯
“Where is he?” Cole’s breath tickled her face.
She blinked and forced her mind to focus. Cole Jackson was not the kind of man you lost focus around. He collected women in the same way she collected new shoes: often, and always keeping an eye out for the next beautiful pair.
“Costa Rica,” Meg said. “This week Stan’s in Costa Rica.”
Cole sighed, as if in that one breath he released a week’s worth of air. He looked past her to the ocean. “Call Thompson,” he said. “Tell him to get the jet ready. We leave in an hour.”
Anxiousness grabbed her insides.
“We?”
She hadn’t spent much time with Cole in nearly six months and wasn’t sure after these moments together that she wanted to spend much more.
“It’s you that Stan Morton wants. Not me. Not Comnet.” Cole tilted his chin, his voice low and full of gravel. “I’ve thrown every executive I have at him and he’s never even blinked, before you.”
Meg’s heart pitter-pattered against her ribs. To step away would intimate fear, or worse yet, weakness. She wouldn’t be banished again, not when she was this close to success.
“So yes, we leave for Costa Rica, in one hour. Because you, my little Meggy, will make sure that Stan Morton agrees to this deal.”
*
Did you like what you read? Can’t Buy Me Love, along with the other titles in the Eligible Billionaires series, is available at major eRetailers and many library systems.
A CHRISTMAS BILLIONAIRE
Maggie Marr
Copyright © 2014
All Rights Reserved.
978-1-62051-130-5
AGENCY INFORMATION
NLA Digital LLC
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