“We can do it in private, or we can do it here,” he said, his voice pitched low, just as it had been the night before. The insinuation was hard to miss. “The choice is yours.”
Memories from the bar hit me hard, and my body’s reaction was instant. I felt the same rush of desire, a little tremor down my spine, and heat blossoming between my thighs. Damn, he had a way about him. I hated my body for betraying me. Resigned, I rose to my feet. I could spare him two minutes for a conversation, but that was all.
“This way.”
He followed me down the hall as I led him into the conference room. He closed the door behind us, and I spun around to face him.
“Caleb?” I hissed, sounding like a jilted lover despite my promise to myself to stay professional. “You said your name was Caleb.”
“I said a lot of things last night. Things I’m sure will stay between us.”
“As if I would want anyone to know I almost slept with one of the vilest men in the city.”
Aaron didn’t seem insulted. In fact, he looked amused. “I got the impression at the bar that you didn’t know who I was,” he said. “And now, suddenly, I’m the devil?”
“Yeah, that about sums it up,” I said. “Are we done here? I have to get back to work.” I tried to push past him, but he blocked my way.
His mouth twitched up into a smirk, and his body language shifted. Although he had kept his distance before, now he drew in close, letting me feel the heat radiating off his body. The same powerful urges I’d felt last night came rushing back. I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss him or smack that smug smile off his face.
Both. Definitely both.
“You can act hostile all you want,” Aaron said. “But I remember what you looked like when I touched you. You want me.”
I scoffed. “Wanted. Past tense. I don’t anymore.”
“Sure, you don’t.”
His cockiness last night might have charmed me, but now, all it did was make me want to murder him. A thought popped into my head, and I took a step back to put distance between us once more.
“Did you know?”
“Did I know what?”
“That I work here. Last night, you approached me. Did you know I worked at Pace?”
“Even if I had, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
I didn’t know if I believed him, and, honestly, I didn’t care if he was telling the truth. All I wanted was to be far away from him. In the back of my mind, I realized Ronny was still alone with Devon, and I cursed myself for forgetting about my cousin. I needed to get back to my desk to make sure he was okay.
“I never want to see you around here again.” I gave him my best death stare.
“I don’t think that’s up to you.” Aaron chuckled. “But I like that you’re trying.”
His arrogance, once again, squashed any lingering lust I may have felt.
“Just stay away,” I warned. “Stay away from Pace.”
“What about you?” He angled his body toward me as I tried to walk past him. His eyes flicked down to take in my figure. “Do you want me to stay away from you?”
“Yeah, I do,” I said. “We’re done here.”
“That’s a shame.” He moved closer again as if to remind me how much my body liked to betray me. It took all my willpower not to lean into him. “We had great chemistry.”
He was the one to walk away this time, leaving me alone in the conference room, an unsettling mix of frustration and disgust churning within me.
3
Aaron
I sat in my office, plans for Matrix Publishing displayed on the screen in front of me. I had been angling for the Matrix account for what felt like ages, but now that I had all their secrets and plans laid out in front of me, I had barely looked at the files.
Devon and I had met with Ronny Pace last Friday and had presented a very favorable proposition. He could either join with Patterson or fade into obscurity. After all, that was where his company was headed if he lost any more clients, and if he refused to adapt his old-fashioned advertising methods to the digital age. He had remained calm, much to my surprise, and then he had politely declined.
It was a stupid decision on his part. Combining our businesses made good sense. Patterson was growing bigger by the day and turning Pace into another branch would divide the workload and double the profits for all parties involved. But Ronny Pace was a traditionalist, preferring vague, sentimental ideas about loyalty to cold, hard profit margins. That was one of the reasons he was floundering.
I had assumed Pace wouldn’t go for a partnership. I had only entertained the meeting at Devon’s insistence, confident it would take Pace a few more months of slow death to give in to our tempting offer.
The potential merger aside, I found myself distracted for another reason.
I had been thinking about Audrey, Ronny’s pretty, brown-haired assistant, more than I cared to admit. Seeing her sitting at that desk had taken me by surprise. When I woke up that morning, I hadn’t expected to run into the same woman I had almost bedded the night before. Not that I felt any embarrassment at running into her again. I was too busy, and life was too short to waste time on embarrassment. My taking her aside had nothing to do with embarrassment, and everything to do with not wanting to fuel any gossip about our encounter.
But her reaction to me had me dwelling on our meeting.
I had expected agitation from her. But her cold demeanor made me curious. She should have felt all too lucky even to have almost slept with me, yet she acted as if she didn’t want anyone to know. I supposed it was because she saw me as a threat to her boss—which I was.
But she also had a sense of pride about her that I found intriguing. She didn’t want me to charm or chase her, not even after learning who I was.
Scowling at myself, I put Audrey out of my mind and turned my focus back to work. I had the month’s financials to look through, and they required all of my attention. I had a meeting with the board at the end of the month to discuss the projected revenue for the next six months. I began to comb through the data my accountants had compiled, pleased to see revenue had increased across the board. However, there were a few dips between this month and the last few months that I needed to look into.
As time dragged on, and I dug further, I noticed a few numbers that made me pause. When I reviewed the average service costs, several of them weren’t as high as they should have been. I had set the pricing the previous year, and I knew what the averages should be.
I picked up my desk phone. “Nora,” I barked. “Call a meeting with the sales staff right now.”
Nora took a second to make sense of what I had shouted at her. “Do I need to tell them what it’s regarding?”
“Their jobs.”
I slammed the phone down and glowered at the computer screen. If the average for services was lower than it should have been, it meant one of two things: either my staff was giving away unauthorized discounts, or my accountants were bad at math. Seeing as I’d had the same accounting staff since I’d started, I doubted they were to blame.
Five minutes later, I strolled into the conference room, radiating anger. Nora had turned on the display screen for me, and I walked over to it and brought up the report my accountants had provided me that morning.