“Holy hell.” Gage grabbed Reid’s arm and dragged him back into the hallway they’d just exited, Reid complaining since he’d sloshed coffee onto the carpet and narrowly missed his shoes. Gage had done a good job of spilling his own coffee on his shirt. Hot liquid burned through the pale blue button-down, and he swore.
“What just happened?” Reid shook coffee droplets off his fingers.
“She’s stalking me.” Gage scrubbed at his shirt with one hand.
“Who?”
Reid peered around the corner and Gage slunk farther into the hall. When he’d concluded that the redhead was “crackers,” he’d thought he’d been half joking. Apparently, he hadn’t.
“That’s the woman I was just going to tell you about,” Gage whispered, though there was no way she could hear him from the conference room. “She approached me at the bar Friday night and offered to pay me two grand to spend a weekend with her.”
Reid’s eyebrows lifted, wrinkling his brow. “And you said no.” He stole another peek and regarded Gage dubiously. “Why?”
“Because she’s insane?” That seemed the only reasonable explanation now.
“You’re the insane one, my friend, if you didn’t snap her up and have your way with her right there on the bar top. Hell, I wouldn’t have charged her at all.”
“The offer wasn’t for sex. It was for me to fly to Ohio and attend a wedding. She wanted me to pretend to be seeing her or something.”
“Oh.” Reid’s disappointment was obvious. “That’s not the same thing at all.”
“No. It’s not.” Gage returned to the break room and set his mug aside. He grabbed a dish towel and scrubbed at the coffee stain low on his shirt.
Reid wasn’t far behind. “What’s she doing here?”
“I have no idea.”
“Gage?” Yasmine stepped into the break room. “Andy Payne is here to see you.”
“Perfect timing.” Gage gestured at his soiled shirt. “Tell him I’ll be right out. Who’s the redhead?”
Yasmine blinked. “Andy Payne.”
“Andy Payne is the fixer, love,” Reid told her gently. “We want to know who the vixen in the cream-colored suit is.”
“Andy Payne,” Yasmine repeated with slow insistence and enough confidence that Reid and Gage exchanged glances.
“She’s Andy Payne?” Gage asked, still trying to wrap his head around the idea that the woman who approached him at the bar was the “guy” he’d hired to whip his sales team into shape.
“Surprising, right? How sexist are we?” Yasmine shrugged. “I thought Andy was going to be a dude, too.”
Reid smiled to beat all. “I believe I’ll go with you to meet this Andy Payne, Gagey. Do bring up Friday for my benefit, yeah?”
“No,” Gage growled, his head still spinning with the new information. “I’ll go alone to meet...her.”
As he exited the break room, he muttered, “Again.”
Four
The projector was positioned, her laptop open and the PowerPoint presentation cued up.
Andy tidied the bound sales plans—one for her and one for Gage. She’d arranged herself at the head of the conference table and placed the report to her left elbow at the corner. She found it easier to coordinate a plan when they weren’t facing each other from opposing sides.
Sometimes these meetings went smoothly, with the managers or CEOs who’d hired her easing into the adjustment as they learned that Andy Payne was the female currently introducing herself. Other times, they reacted angrily and accused her of pulling a fast one on them. Mostly it was the former.
They’d hired her for her expertise, and that was what she reminded them of when she arrived. She’d only had three men ever react poorly and had only ever lost one job because of it. The sexist bastard. No matter, her contract was ironclad and nonrefundable. She’d bought a weekend spa retreat with the money that particular time and had no qualms about enjoying her paid leave.
She sat on the edge of the padded chair and turned her head in time to see a man rapidly approaching the conference room. She recognized the scruffy jaw, the slight curl to the longish hair on top of his head...and the answering recognition in his caramel-brown eyes.
She stood slowly, feeling her jaw drop to the floor as he shut the conference room door behind him and looked down his nose at her. Although she wasn’t that much shorter than him.
“You’re Andy Payne,” he said flatly.
Her mouth still agape, she managed a stunned nod. Warmth seeped from her cami, over her décolletage and up her neck. No doubt she was turning a stunning shade of pink while he watched her.
And he did watch her. Carefully. And unhappily.
As quickly as she could move, she slapped the lid closed on her laptop and yanked the cord free from the wall. “I’m—uh,” she said as she hastily stacked the reports. “I have to...um...”
She yanked her bag off the chair but the strap caught, scattering the pages in her dossier on Monarch to the floor along with several pens, her cell phone charger and a tube of lipstick.
This was going well.
She crouched to the floor to sweep the contents of the bag back into it. “You must be Gage.”
“In the flesh.” He knelt next to her and picked up one of her pens that had fallen to the floor.
“I didn’t know you were you when I approached you on Friday or I never would’ve done it,” she said as she gathered her things. A lock of hair swept over her eye and she blew a puff of air from her lips to move it.
“You don’t say.” His eyebrows flinched slightly, but some of the anger simmered away, his expression almost bemused as his eyes roamed over her face.
He was stupidly attractive. Even more so in a suit. Even with a coffee stain on his shirt that looked fresh. That attraction was all the more reason why she couldn’t stay another moment. She’d never be able to look him in the eye again after she’d... God...offered to pay him to be her date.
“I’ll refund your money for the consultation contract.” She snatched the pen from his hand and stood. He stood with her and the view of the rest of him was finer than it had appeared on Friday night. His muscular chest pressed the confines of his shirt, a dark blue tie in place and knotted just so. His slacks were navy as well, and a brown leather belt bisected his waist. His shoes matched—expensive and shiny.
“First you want to hire me, now you want to give me a refund. You offer to pay me an awful lot.”
She blanched.
“And the hell you will.” He folded his arms over his impressive chest. His unsmiling mouth pursed. “I hired you to do a job. You’re not running out on me just because you—”
“Don’t say it.” Her eyes sank closed and she palmed one burning-hot cheek. Was it possible to die of humiliation? “I know what I did and I apologize.” She reopened her eyes and turned them up to his. “Please tell me you didn’t tell anyone about it?”
“I told my friend Reid. He works here. You’ll meet him later.”
“You told someone?” Her voice was edging along hysterical and she forced herself to calm down. “You could’ve kept that to yourself.”
“Is that a joke? A gorgeous woman approaches me in a bar and I decide to stay one drink longer to get to know her and then she offers to pay me two grand for my companionship? It’s a hell of a story, Andy.”
He thought she was...gorgeous? And he’d wanted to get to know her?
It was far and wide two of the most flattering compliments she’d heard in a while.
“I didn’t know you were the Andy Payne when I told him. I thought you’d tracked me down at work, and that you were going to... I don’t know, try and reconvince me.”
That was fair.
Why would he assume she was here for any other reason? She’d been on a mission to achieve her goal on Friday and ha
d—incorrectly—assumed that when she ran from that bar, mentally vowing never to return, she wouldn’t see Gage again.
She hadn’t asked him his name, either.
“I wasn’t myself that night. I was angry about my date not working out and then I noticed you—” She snapped her mouth closed before she accidentally said too much, and then rerouted the conversation. “This is no fault of yours. I’ll go directly to my office from here and refund your money immediately.” She added the laptop and reports to her bag and pulled it over her shoulder.
“No deal.” He stepped in front of the door and blocked her path.
“Step aside, Mr. Fleming.”
“Not going to happen, Ms. Payne.” His nostrils flared as he pulled in a breath. “I hired you. You agreed to do a job. I know you’re the best—I did my research. You’ve been cited as an asset by hundreds of companies, and I’m not letting you go because you made a mistake and now you’re uncomfortable. We have a contract. I was told your fee was nonrefundable.”
That was true. Normally. “I’ll make an exception.”
A warm, gentle palm landed on her upper arm. His voice was equally gentle when he said, “I don’t want an exception. I want you to stay and double or triple our numbers like you promised. This is important.”
His words were sincere. And a good reminder that she prided herself on her work ethic. She never let clients down. She worked tirelessly for them because their businesses mattered. Employees had families to care for, and when she made their companies more money, the companies in turn lined the pockets of those hardworking men and women. What she did wasn’t about fattening up greedy CEOs. She did this work for the people. All of them.
And right now Gage looked like someone who needed her help.
“Did you find a date for the wedding yet?” he asked.
She blinked, stunned by the change of topic.
“I’ll go,” he said. “You stay here for the time you promised and I’ll go with you to Ohio to your sister’s wedding.”
“But—”
“I suspect you’ll insist, so I’ll let you take care of the room and flight, but you can keep the two grand.” He dipped his chin in a show of sincerity. “Okay?”
As much as she hated to admit it, his offer was really, really tempting. She had to face reality, and the reality was that she was no closer to finding a date for Gwen’s wedding than she was to sprouting wings and flying there on her own steam.
A bigger part of her was tempted simply because of Gage. He was attractive, and had found her attractive, and she wouldn’t mind spending more time getting to know him. Of all the dates she’d set up in an attempt to find a companion for Gwen’s wedding, Gage, from his warm brown eyes to his shiny leather shoes, was the only one who’d made her heart flutter. Dr. Christopher certainly hadn’t wanted to get to know her better. He hadn’t even had the decency to turn the money down.
Even so, she found herself answering, “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“Too bad. You already did, on Friday night. Now I’m accepting.” He lifted her bag off her shoulder, his fingers leaving behind an imprint of heat she couldn’t ignore. He set the bag on the conference room table, pulling her laptop out and extracting the reports, one of which had an ugly crease on the otherwise pristine cover.
What a metaphor for Andy herself right now. She’d come in here neat and poised and now felt more than a little bent.
He opened the laptop screen and took the wrinkled report and sat in his seat. She again considered refusing his offer. Her pride told her to bolt and never look back.
There was only one problem. She needed him.
Almost as much as he needed her.
Five
Gage had to hand it to her. Andy knew what she was doing.
A week later, he sat at a conference table with Flynn and Reid and his right-hand guy on his sales team, Bruce, reviewing the numbers. The numbers were good.
Really freaking good.
“Bonuses will look great this quarter,” Bruce commented, his smile wide. A thirty-nine-year-old father of seventeen-year-old twins, he could use the extra money. Both of Bruce’s daughters would be graduating and going to college soon.
“Share the good news,” Gage told him. “That’s all I have. Flynn? Reid? Anything?”
“Not on my end,” Flynn said. “Just, good job.”
Reid echoed the sentiment, shook Bruce’s hand, and then Bruce left the executive floor with some really good news for the sales team.
“She’s as good as she claims,” Flynn commented to Gage. “Andy.”
“She is.”
“And bloody fast,” Reid commented. “I’ve never seen anyone swoop in and offer suggestions that work immediately.”
“She’s amazing,” Gage admitted. She was also all business. She strode in here Monday through Friday to train, observe and then meet with Gage on her findings. He’d done some observing of his own—of her—and he couldn’t escape the idea that she’d walled part of herself off.
Last week, when he’d walked into this very conference room, she hadn’t been determined and all business. She’d been flustered and embarrassed. She’d been human. He liked witnessing that human side of her—the flush to her cheeks as her seriousness chipped away leaving her open vulnerability visible. She was able to get shit done, took no crap from anyone, and yet he’d noticed a shier, more withdrawn part of her.
“Are the two of you still on for the wedding arrangement?” Reid asked, a troublemaking twinkle in his eye.
“I agreed to help her out so she wouldn’t walk. You’d have done the same thing. It’s only a weekend.”
Four days, technically, but he was trying to downplay it. He’d agreed so she wouldn’t walk out, yes, but he’d also agreed because learning that the woman from the bar and Andy Payne were the same person had intrigued him in a way no other woman had in years. He wanted to cash in on his fantasy vision of her beneath him, sure, but he was also curious as hell why she felt the need to pay someone—him, specifically. She’d hinted that day in the conference room that there was something about him that had drawn her in. Why him? What had she seen across that bar that made her approach him?
In the time she’d spent at Monarch he still knew next to nothing about her. She was as uncrackable as a sealed safe. He still wasn’t sure what he was supposed to “do” at her side at the wedding. What role was he to play other than a date who danced with her or fetched her a glass of champagne? He needed to find out, but in order to do that he had to get her out of Monarch and into an environment where she wasn’t so...distant.
“She’s not light and bubbly like the women you’re used to seeing. Maybe a wedding will loosen her up.” Reid stood.
“She’s serious about her job but that’s not a bad thing,” Gage said in her defense. He rose from his chair and Flynn followed suit.
“It’s not,” Flynn agreed. “She’s a hard-core professional. Does everything she says she’s going to do, and follows through like a boss.” The description sounded like Flynn himself.
“I was just pointing out that she’s the opposite of the type of woman you gravitate toward.” Reid narrowed his eyes. “Lately.”
What Reid was not-so-subtly hinting at was that Andy was, at first glance, a lot like Gage’s ex-fiancée.
He didn’t want to talk about Laura any more than he wanted to bring up politics at a dinner party. He’d admired her strong work ethic and serious nature. In the end, he’d believed in them more than she had.
She’d broken the engagement, coldly stating that he wasn’t enough like her. He had a case of the “toos.” He was too likable, too fun and too easygoing. She’d claimed she needed someone “serious” about the future. The corrosion of that engagement was his biggest failure.
Gage hated failure.
He’d been sure that
Andy was that same kind of woman—cold, calculating—until he’d witnessed her flustered. Seeing that chink in her armor had drawn him in rather than pushed him away. He hadn’t completely understood it. After the hell Laura’d put him through he’d be smart not to pursue Andy at all.
But he’d never been one to back down from a challenge, and Gage sensed there was warmth and gentleness underneath Andy’s rigid exterior that had yet to surface. The more of her flaws he exposed, the more he proved that the attraction wasn’t some masochistic repeat of the past with Laura, but some new, fascinating layer to Andy herself.
He liked that she had an imperfect, human side that rarely showed, that she was a mystery waiting to be uncovered. That she didn’t have it together 24/7. Plus she was downright sexy. If he found an opening to show her how sexy she was, he’d happily oblige.
Not that his agreeing to be Andy’s wedding date had been totally magnanimous. He’d needed her to stay on at Monarch for both appearances and results, and a few days in Ohio seemed a small price to pay.
Flynn and Sabrina had left the office around five. Now that Flynn had a girlfriend in Sabrina, he rarely worked as late as he had before. Reid had a date as well, so he’d packed up and followed them out. That left Gage alone in the executive corner of the office, waiting at his desk for Andy’s daily report, which came at around 5:30 p.m.
She strolled in wearing her office attire of black pants, low shoes and a silky white shirt. Her gold jewelry was simple and understated, except for the large-faced watch, which she glanced down at before she entered.
Mouth a flat line, determination in her eyes, she stalked toward him like a hungry lioness. Much like the first time he’d seen her, he watched her approach with an even mix of intrigue and attraction.
Could he uncover the fun, flirty girl under that armor? Was there one?
Temporary To Tempted (The Bachelor Pact Book 2) Page 3