He raised his face, resting his chin on his hands. “You’re sure?”
“No,” she answered honestly. “I’m just telling you what I see at a first look. If you bring a team in they may find less, they may find more. Whether or not they could prove it’s him? There’s no way to know right now.”
His smile was forced and weak. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She stared into his eyes, wishing Hallmark had a card for something like this.
Chapter Seven
Sophie stared out at the room full of women stretched out on their backs, all breathing in sync. How was it she could relax twenty women into near trance, yet she was so tense her neck felt it might snap?
“Feel your breath as it fills your solar plexus.” Lucky for her she was able to operate on autopilot.
She’d been wound up like this ever since David dropped her off on Saturday night. After a few hours of creative accounting he’d driven her home in silence. He’d walked her to the door, let her hug him, kissed her on the forehead and driven away.
Sophie wanted to call him, but didn’t have a clue what to say. It was hard to try and find a bright side, especially since she didn’t know much about David’s relationship with his father. If only she knew him better.
It was a tough blow to her master plan. She had decided to make a play for him. Give it her all and try and live the fantasy. She’d always regretted not trying to dance with him at Daphne’s wedding. No more regrets.
She’d been throwing herself at him as best she knew how. He’d been deflecting her less and less, so that was progress. But in the wake of such seriousness their fun banter seemed deflated. Finally making love to the man of her dreams seemed pretty shallow given his present situation. She wanted him, but what was that to him really?
Women wanted him. He’d proved as much to her last week when he’d gone through class with his shirt off. In front of their husbands, the other women had openly ogled him. She’d tried to play it off, not wanting him to see how insane it made her. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they were really together, if they shared more than her fantasies.
That fantasy was slipping, evolving into something different. She was beginning to think of David as more than the dating rules she and Daphne had laughed over so many times. He was more than a commanding physical presence, so handsome and charming people simply melted in his company. There was a kindness in his eyes that made her ache. A quick wit that made her hang on his every word. And when he touched her, he found nerve endings she didn’t even know existed. She knew she had to be careful because he was rapidly becoming more than just a fantasy.
Sophie dropped down on the platform at the front of her classroom as the students filed out. Maybe she would call to ask if there was anything else she could do for him. Accounting-wise, of course. It would be too insensitive to proposition him right now. Even though all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and make him forget everyone who’d ever wronged him.
With him, she forgot that she didn’t really know how. She was completely obsessed with sex because of the class. She had read more sex manuals and erotica in the last few months than most women did in a lifetime. It caused a major case of sex on the brain, and the knowledge gave her a confidence she’d never known.
Sophie was waiting for that wall of nerves she always hit with men. The point at which her stomach clenched, guilt and fear squelched all arousal, and she called the whole thing off. The guilt was always a strange sense of betrayal of her fantasies of David. Now she wasn’t sure if the fear was gone, or her attraction to him was just so high it overrode every other emotion, leaving her completely at his mercy.
Not that it mattered, because he was dead set on doing the right thing. Sophie actually respected him for it. She liked him more for turning her down. This was one twisted relationship.
Shaking her head, Sophie followed the last of her students out the door. She had an hour until her next class. She hoped she’d be able to pay more attention. If she could only focus on something besides David, she’d be just fine.
Before she even made it to her office three employees gathered around her. “Daphne’s been calling since we opened. She says she has to see you.”
Sophie’s stomach plummeted. “Is she okay?”
Laurie, the masseuse, roared with laughter. “You’d better get over there. But first you might need to prepare your defense.”
“My defense?” Sophie looked down at the newspaper shoved into her hands. “The Living Section? Are we in here?”
“Not we honey, you.”
“Me?” Why should she be in the Living Section? “Am I a fashion don’t or something?” Sophie tried to open the pages but Laurie’s hands stopped her.
“On the front, honey, Colin’s Column.”
“What’s that?” Sophie asked as her eyes scanned the page. A side bar on the right side caught her attention. A thumbnail picture of a man she guessed was Colin, followed by five tiny headlined blurbs, leading with Sensual Merger.
Strong Gyms Inc. CEO David Strong has been lending his services to competitor Working It Out for their Sensational Sex Couples Workout Series. Is diehard playboy Strong looking to expand his company with a tempting acquisition, or just hoping to merge with the rival club’s co-owner?
Sophie’s temperature rose as she hissed out the breath she was holding. As if she needed this. David had enough to deal with, and her sister did not need anything else raising her too-high blood pressure. Sometimes this town was just too damned small.
———
He should have called. But the only thing David could trust himself to say to her the last few days was thank you. He’d already said that, so there was no need to push his luck. He couldn’t risk leading her on. She was already testing his resolve. If she suspected he felt more than simple gratitude, he didn’t think she’d ever give up her pursuit of him.
He couldn’t have gotten through this mess without her. Sophie had swept into his life at just the right time, helping him keep this mess with his father entirely private. Which made her worth her weight in platinum. His father’s embezzlement would look bad enough, but he’d only been in place as CEO for two years. There were board members still skeptical someone in their thirties could run a billion dollar corporation. They didn’t need any more ammunition.
Sophie had helped him more than simply finding where the money went, she helped cover it up. David had expected her to say no, would have bet money on it. But she dove in, cleaning up his father’s unethical transactions, reframing them as capital draws, essentially personal loans. To fix the problem David repaid the loans, making it look as though he knew all along about his father’s need for cash.
It had been her idea, a way to clean the books instead of cook them. Not a lie, just a revision of history. Without her, he would have had to let the entire executive board in on his father’s disgrace. They would have brought in an accounting firm and the publicity that provided, publicly humiliating his father. Sophie saved him all that.
David’s feelings for Sophie had come on so gradually he hadn’t even noticed them building. It was as if he’d always felt for her the way he did now. As if she was the only person in the world he’d ever truly trusted, ever really liked completely.
He liked everything about her. Every move she made had him smiling. He didn’t trust himself around her with his newfound knowledge. It had been killing him to hold back before, now he didn’t know what to do.
He wasn’t sure what to do next in his personal life, so he focused on business. He met with his bankers. He practiced and reworded the speech he was going to give his father today. He did everything he could not to think of Sophie. But everything seemed to work back to her.
“We need to talk.” Craig’s voice jolted him from his revelry.
David looked up at his friend’s tight features. Something was wrong. Before he could formulate a question Craig dropped a section of newspaper on the desk in front o
f him.
“Tell me nothing’s going on. Tell me I can trust you. Tell me you’re not sleeping with her.”
“I’m not sleeping with her.” Sophie’s “omit, don’t lie” theory worked like a charm. Craig’s face softened and he plopped into a chair.
“That’s good, because Daphne nearly killed me when she read that this morning.”
“What?”
“Colin’s Column. The gossip guy.”
David scanned the paper until he found his name. “Diehard playboy? That stings.”
“Truth hurts, buddy. Daphne isn’t happy. She wants me to take over the classes.”
“No.” David realized he’d said it too quickly, but there was nothing that could be done. He was not going to let Craig get his hands all over Sophie, no matter who he was married to.
“Oh, yeah. Turns out, Sophie’s had a crush on you for years.”
“We can’t let this guy’s little innuendo change our lives.” Wait a minute, Sophie had a crush? On him? For years?
Craig arched his brows, then softened. He seemed to be buying it. “I know. It’s not like you’re actually sleeping together. Still, Daphne doesn’t like the attention.”
“No, Daphne doesn’t like me. Free publicity is good for business.”
———
Sophie sauntered into her sister’s bedroom, finding Daphne propped up on tawny pillows with the day’s newspaper spread in front of her. Her long blond hair was rolled haphazardly into a clip.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Without a word, Sophie removed the blood pressure monitor from the nightstand drawer. She effortlessly strapped it on her sister’s wrist. Sophie smiled at how comfortably she fell back into her roll as caretaker. As the machine beeped a healthy reading, Sophie joined her sister on the bed.
“This is so decadent. Do you read the entire paper every day?”
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
“I think that’s great. Do you read out loud? I read that he can hear you now.” Sophie beamed, her mind hyper vigilant. She didn’t want to upset her sister, but she didn’t want to discuss David with her either.
“What other things are you and Craig keeping from me?”
Sophie rolled her eyes and looked toward the television. “You’ve started watching soap operas and talk shows haven’t you? They’ve made you completely paranoid.”
“I’m very firmly planted in reality. You’ve been teaching a very provocative class with a man whose reputation even The Oregonian knows. And neither you nor my husband saw fit to mention that it was going on.”
Sophie had nowhere to go. There was nothing to deny.
Daphne took her silence as an invitation to continue. “Imagine my surprise to find out he’s been coming to my club, bringing you gifts. He’s trying to take advantage of the situation, isn’t he?”
If only he would. “No, he isn’t.” Unfortunately. Daphne must have grilled the staff and found out about David’s visit. His only visit. “I looked over some accounting reports for him. He brought chocolate as a bribe.”
“Sophie please, the man is a total womanizer. I’ve never seen him with the same woman twice and I’ve known him for ten years. He has an entire floor of accountants. Why would he need your accounting advice?”
Sophie took a deep breath. How did she get out of this? The truth would betray David, but lying would betray herself. Complete redirection was the only way. “I’m flattered you think he’d be interested in me.”
Daphne narrowed her eyes into slits. Sophie held her gaze. Don’t blink, she chanted in her head.
“You’re right, you aren’t his type. But still, you should be careful. He probably thinks you are using the class to come on to him. His ego is enormous. Craig can help you finish the class.”
“No.” Too fast, the alarm in her head warned. Diversionary tactics needed. “Craig is a wreck worrying about you and the baby. He’ll only go in to work when I come over. If both he and I are at the club he won’t be able to concentrate and he’ll be totally useless.”
Sophie began to feel the adrenaline course through her veins as she neared panic. She’d already solved David’s accounting debacle. Without the class she had no tie to him, no excuse to see him. Daphne could not take him from her.
Daphne pursed her lips together and stared hard. “You have to be on your guard, Sophie. I know you’ve had a thing for his body forever, but he is not the kind of person you should be getting involved with. He can’t commit. Women are disposable to him. You are much too sensitive to be treated so harshly.”
Sophie shook her head. David could commit. He was committed to his friendship with Craig, committed to honoring his father no matter his indiscretions. He’d just never found a woman to commit to. Yet. Sophie smiled at her sister.
“Daphne, you make it sound as if he committed a crime. He’s just helping out with a class as a favor for Craig while you are on bed rest. Cut him a break for once.” Sophie got up from the bed. It was hard to bite her tongue, even harder not to defend David.
“Oh, not you too. His interest in the classes is just to get his greedy paws on my club. He’s wanted it ever since I opened.”
Sophie felt her temperature rise again. My club? The one Sophie owned seventy percent of? Her blood was now on an even simmer. She had to get out of here before she reached full boil. “Let me worry about him. You just focus on staying healthy and picking out names.” Sophie pressed a button on the monitor and waited for another reading.
“Sophie, you have to be careful. It is one thing to fantasize about him, it’s another to try and play his game. He can’t give you the security you need.”
“I’d consider myself warned if I had anything to worry about.” The reading was four points higher, but still okay. “I doubt he even looks down far enough to notice me.” She smiled as her sister laughed. Self-deprecating humor. Had she really been reduced to this?
———
David stretched his hands over his head and tried to take deep breaths. Those long calming breaths Sophie was always going on about in class. If only he could breathe in serenity and exhale stress right now. If only he could concentrate on anything at all.
His thoughts were scattered, flitting between his father’s betrayal and Sophie’s loyalty. They’d both stunned him in such different ways. David wanted to stop thinking about the old man. Which was why he was waiting for him now, to get the whole sordid thing over with. Then he’d be able to concentrate on Sophie and whatever was happening between them. On just what he wanted from her, what they wanted from each other.
“You wanted to see me, son?” The warm voice cut through his thoughts. He didn’t need to turn around to know it was his father, the man he resembled so closely one of his stepmothers had nicknamed David the clone.
He’d spent the first half of his life wanting to be just like Lance Strong, and the second half wanting to be nothing like him. As if he had a choice. David’s stomach sank. If he was just like him, what did that mean for Sophie? He shook his head hard to dispel the thought and picked up the folder from his desk. Handing it to his father he let out the breath he forgot he held.
“What’s this?” Lance asked, flipping through the file. The two men were exactly the same height, their weight within five pounds of one another. Lance’s hair was graying, though his hairstylist kept most people from noticing. The only telling differences were the deep lines on Lance’s face and the color of their eyes. Lance’s steely blue gaze locked on to David’s face.
“A buy out agreement.” David answered, thankful he had prepared everything in advance.
“For what?” Lance asked, still smiling.
“My company, the one you’ve been milking.” There. He’d said it. It was out. Game on, old man.
Lance didn’t even flinch at the accusation. Instead he kept his face loose as he read over the pages in the folder. “I assume you’ve been generous.”
“Always.” David fought his qui
ckening breath. No denial? No apology?
“How much did you find?”
“You’ve embezzled 2.6 million since April.” David struggled to control his breathing. How could he just stand there so calmly?
“Borrowed.” Lance tapped a finger against the pale paper. “This says a shareholder’s draw.”
“Now that I know about it, it is,” David snorted.
“I’m impressed.” Lance smiled wide, as if there was something happy and warm about this moment. “You found it all.”
“I wasn’t looking to impress you. Let’s just make that clear.”
“How will this affect the prenup?”
David closed his eyes and drew in a wistful breath. If this weren’t his father, he’d be swinging by now. “The majority of your assets at the time of the marriage were hidden within the company infrastructure. This agreement pays you for your remaining share of the company, minus the draws you have already taken. It will be an arguable issue at a divorce hearing. The prenup set an alimony payout, but she could try for more. But this agreement also states you won’t be investigated for any financial issues that may come up.”
Lance shook his head slowly as he walked toward David’s desk and set down the folder. “Did you finance my buyout personally or is it through the company?”
It was none of his damned business after what he’d done. “Personally.”
“Good, good.” Lance picked up the folder again. “Where exactly do I sign?”
“Dad, you should have a lawyer go over it. Retain counsel who you can trust with the facts of the situation. Then, we’ll—”
“I didn’t put you through law school so you could give me some get a lawyer bullshit. I’m sure it’s fair. Let’s get this over with so we can go grab some lunch.”
“We? I’ve completely lost my appetite.” David didn’t want to share anything with this man. “This is really how you’re going to handle this?”
“Were you looking for a denial or an apology?” Lance asked, the wild scratch of pen on paper echoing through the room.
He didn’t know. He’d played this conversation in his head a hundred different ways, but not this one. He wanted to hear that it was all Tessa the Terrible, that the old man needed help exorcising her from his life. “I deserve an explanation.”
Compromising Positions Page 8
