Lead Me On

by Victoria Dahl

  So she wasn’t truly angry with her mom anymore. She was just…uncomfortable.

  Her family—her mom and stepfather and brother—knew who Jane really was. They knew the kind of girl she’d been, and they saw right through her false transformation into a conservative businesswoman.

  The problem wasn’t so much her family. The problem was that Jane Morgan was a fraud. And she didn’t like being reminded of it.

  Better to keep the two halves of her life separated by a wide expanse. That way, no one got hurt, especially Jane.

  WILLIAM CHASE CRANKED UP the stereo as he roared down the mountain. The wide-open windows let in the crisp spring air and quite a bit of dust from the road. Chase didn’t care. After a blast like that, nothing could ruin his mood.

  Fifteen hundred pounds of dynamite chewing up granite as if it were papier-mâché. Sweet mother. Without a doubt, Chase had the best job in the world.

  He tapped his hands against the steering wheel and grinned. Blasting days were his favorites. They didn’t come often enough, though. It took a lot of planning to execute, plus an unbelievable amount of paperwork. And hell, most excavations didn’t require even one single stick of dynamite, just a backhoe and a bulldozer. But when a new hotel was going up on Aspen Mountain, the foundation had to go somewhere, and that somewhere was straight into the bedrock.

  Though he’d started Extreme Excavations only six years before, Chase had already made a name for himself as the go-to guy for tough jobs. Not just the big stuff, but the intricate work, as well. Chase could blow out a wall of rock fifty feet wide and leave the hundred-year-old barn that stood two feet away without even the slightest creak of boards.

  He was good, and he knew it, and that made the work even better.

  Smiling, he turned onto Main Street and passed his favorite coffee shop without a glance. No need for caffeine today. He was high on life. And explosions.

  When he pulled into the parking lot of Jennings Architecture, he didn’t get out right away. Instead, he let his head fall back against the headrest and waited for his favorite song to end. When the bass-heavy music faded away, the drip of water from hundreds of roofs became the dominant sound. Winter was officially over, and months of grueling work stretched out before him.

  Scoring a job with Quinn Jennings was a big coup. Quinn was one of the most sought after architects in town, and though Chase normally worked on commercial projects, he’d jumped wholeheartedly at the chance to work with Quinn on a few residential builds.

  Chase cut the engine and headed into the small office building. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he was stopped in his tracks by a large desk guarded by a woman whose posture radiated cool judgment.

  A pair of big brown eyes studied him through black-framed glasses. “Good afternoon,” the woman said. Her eyes flickered to his chest and then back up. Chase felt a jolt of interest, but the disapproval in her gaze made him wonder why he felt like smiling.

  “Hi, I’m Chase,” he said, giving in to the smile.

  She didn’t respond, except to raise an eyebrow. Even her fingers stayed poised over the keyboard, as if she were only waiting for him to move along so she could get back to work.

  “I’m with Extreme Excavations,” he clarified.

  “I see. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Chase.”

  “It’s just Chase.” Another arch of her eyebrow. Chase cleared his throat and tried to shake off the urge to squirm. “Quinn Jennings asked me to stop by to pick up some preliminary plans. I told him I’d be here today.”

  The woman finally lifted her hands from the keyboard and folded them primly on the desk. “Mr. Jennings is on the phone right now. If you’d care to have a seat, he should only be a few moments.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m Jane. In the future it may be best to speak with me about project materials. Mr. Jennings has a tendency to overlook those kinds of details when he’s working.”

  “Um…okay. Nice to meet you, Jane.”

  “Can I get you something? Coffee or water?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll just…”

  Her head tilted toward the grouping of chairs to his right, as if Chase were a child in need of coaxing. Chase nodded and sat down without another word, relieved that this woman wasn’t his secretary. He’d live in terror of ever being late to work.

  Then again, she was kind of pretty.

  Chase’s brow fell into a frown, as startled by the thought as he had been by the little zing of interest he’d felt under her gaze. He glanced up to watch her type something on the computer. Her stylish little glasses slipped down her nose and she nudged them up again.

  Was she pretty?

  Well, despite the fact that she seemed to be made of ice, her full lips looked very soft. And her brown eyes were gorgeous in spite of her reserved expression. The rest of Jane was difficult to decipher. Her black suit jacket was tailored to reveal nothing of her figure, and her shiny brown hair was pulled back into a tight knot. The only jewelry she wore was a pair of small pearl earrings.

  In every way she looked like a conservative professional woman who didn’t believe in letting loose.

  Fingers typing away, she glanced toward Chase, and he averted his eyes to the nameplate on her desk. Jane Morgan.

  Something about that rigid exterior made his fingers itch.

  He dared another peek and happened to catch Jane licking her lips. The tip of her tongue looked very pink against her mouth. If she wore lipstick, it was the very plainest of colors, but there was nothing plain about that little flash of her tongue.

  Chase shifted in his seat and drew her eye back to him. This time she glanced away. A flush crept into her cheeks, and his pulse sped in response. He probably wouldn’t even have noticed such a faint hint of color in another woman’s cheeks, but it seemed like a significant response for her. She was aware of him, and he narrowed his eyes and let his gaze slide down to her elegant neck.

  Her skin looked soft as all hell, and he couldn’t help but wonder how a lady like this would respond to being nibbled. But why the hell was he thinking about nibbling a complete stranger?

  Before his frown could fully form, he realized what it was. The blast. He was always pumped up after a good explosion. Pumped up and horny as hell. Prissy Jane probably wouldn’t react well to that at all.

  His cell rang, cutting off the chuckle rising in his throat.

  She looked surprised when he murmured, “Pardon me,” and stepped out the door. Surprised because he was polite? Because of the tattoo, maybe? Chase was smiling when he answered the phone, though his insurance agent’s talk of rising liability rates sobered him up pretty quickly.

  Chase paced back and forth across the doorway for a few minutes, arguing his case, but it was no use. The agent swore it was an across-the-board increase and nothing to do with Extreme Excavation’s records. “Our goddamn safety record is spotless,” he insisted one last time, glancing through the glass to be sure the secretary hadn’t overheard him and covered her ears.

  Her eyes were on him. She was watching, but she wasn’t scowling. Jane the secretary was staring at his chest.

  Chase froze and watched her as his agent babbled in his ear. When her gaze finally rose to his, she blinked rapidly before snapping her eyes back to the computer screen.

  Well.

  He turned his back on her and wrapped things up with his agent, then glanced quickly over his shoulder to try to catch her again. No such luck. The woman was fully focused on her work.

  When he tucked the phone back into his pocket, Chase realized that there was a smear of gray dust across the front of his dark blue T-shirt. Maybe that’s what she’d been looking at. “Shit,” he muttered, strangely disappointed that she hadn’t been indulging in a fantasy of getting dirty with a blue-collar worker.

  Shrugging, he headed back inside just as Quinn Jennings emerged from his office.

  “Hey, Chase,” the architect said, hand outstretched.

  Chase shook hi
s hand and took the folder Quinn offered. “Thanks, man.”

  “Sorry I forgot to leave it with Jane. Next time you’d better call her.”

  “That’s just what she said.” Chase dared a look at her, but Jane ignored the conversation.

  “Well, apparently I’m trainable after all,” Quinn said with a laugh. “Keep it as long as you need.”

  “Shouldn’t be more than a few days.”

  A hand popped into his view and snatched the file from his fingers. “I’ll take that,” Jane said. “I’ll need to make a copy before it leaves this office.”

  “Um…understood,” Chase answered the back of her head. She was already at the copier.

  While Quinn excused himself to head out to a site, Chase checked out Jane’s ass, but her straight gray skirt didn’t offer much of a view. She was tall, and either curvy or a little chubby, but Chase was a man, and a little softness on a woman didn’t scare him at all.

  “Here you are, Mr. Chase.”

  He blinked and took the file. “It’s just Chase,” he repeated, though he was beginning to suspect she was quite clear on the matter and simply didn’t approve.

  “Have a good day,” she said in answer.

  Unwilling to be so obviously dismissed, Chase opened the file and flipped through a few of the papers. “Your boss is good at what he does.”

  “He is.”

  He looked over a couple more drawings of the mountain home, then cut his eyes toward Jane. She didn’t notice. She was too busy staring at him again. This time it was his arm that had caught her attention, either his biceps or the ink stretched across it. Somehow he suspected it was the black bands of his tattoo.

  His heart thumped in excitement. Maybe Miss Prim and Professional wanted to take a little walk on the wild side. Luckily, Chase was in just the mood to accommodate her curiosity.

  “Jane?” he said softly, startling her enough that she jumped.

  A blush warmed her cheeks as she turned back to the computer. “Is there something more I can help you with?” Despite her pink face, her voice was perfectly cool.

  “Yes, actually.” He closed the file and approached her desk. “How about dinner tonight?”

  Although she froze, Jane didn’t look up. “What about dinner tonight?”

  Ah, of course. This woman would require something a bit more formal. Fine. He’d play along. “Jane Morgan, would you do me the honor of accompanying me to dinner tonight?” Hell, he even gave her a little bow to top it off.

  Jane was unmoved. Literally. Her fingers hovered above the keyboard again. “What?”

  “Would you like to go to dinner?”

  Her hands finally dropped, banging against the keyboard. “No, I would not.”

  Chase wasn’t exactly surprised, but he felt oddly heavy with disappointment, all the same. “Are you sure?”

  She licked her lips again and tossed a brief look his way. “Thank you, but I’m sure.”

  Damn, her lips were downright sultry now, flushed pink and glistening with moisture. Chase cocked his head. Yeah, her lips were sexy as hell. “Well, if you’re sure,” he said, stalling.

  “I am.” Jane took a deep breath, put her shoulders back and began to type.

  “Right,” he muttered. “Have a good day, then.” And there was nothing Chase could do but leave.

  THE OFFICE DOOR eased closed with a little hiss. Jane kept typing gibberish. She waited, counting to twenty, before she slid her hands off the keyboard and dared a glance at the glass door. The man’s truck was turning out of the lot. She was alone.

  Letting out a deep breath, Jane slumped in her chair. “Oh, crud.”

  What had just happened?

  Despite the scene over lunch with Greg and her mother’s phone call, Jane’s day had been proceeding at its normal professional pace. A rush of calls after lunch from contractors driving back to work sites. The quiet buzz of a well-run workplace for a few more hours. That disastrous lunch hour had hardly put a hitch in her stride.

  And then he’d walked in.

  The sight of him filling the doorway had shocked the life out of her. He wasn’t big in a body-builder kind of way, but he was tall. Probably six foot three or four, with a wide, solid frame that took up more space in a room than it should. His brown hair was short, nearly a buzz cut, but so thick it looked soft to the touch.

  Jane shivered at the thought.

  Three solid hours of freedom and she was already thinking about an inappropriate man. She shouldn’t have broken it off with Greg. Greg was educated, ambitious and mannered. He wasn’t big and tattooed. He didn’t drive a dented, dusty truck. He didn’t work for an hourly wage at a dead-end job and wear steel-toed boots and dirty T-shirts that clung to his muscles while he labored.

  Her skin tingled and Jane muttered, “Oh, crud” again. This Chase guy was exactly the type of man she didn’t need in her life. The kind of man who made her skin tingle, not to mention other less visible parts of her. No, he was not the kind of man she needed, but he was the kind she wanted. Raw and primal and big.

  “I will not be my mother,” she insisted to the computer screen. “I will not be my mother.” The computer stared her down. “Screw you,” she snapped, then glanced around guiltily. She did not use undignified language.

  And she did not date men whose biceps were ringed with thick bands of stark black ink like some sort of brutal, ancient warrior.

  Jane rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck. “I won’t be my mother,” she murmured one last time. “And I won’t be that girl again.” Then she erased the mess she’d made of her Excel spreadsheet and forcibly turned her mind back to work.

  CHAPTER TWO

  JANE’S MUSCLES WERE liquid with exhaustion as she stepped out of her car the next morning. She’d been too anxious and distracted to follow through with her plan the night before. Instead of heading home for a movie, she’d called up her trainer and spent an hour working the heavy bag at his private gym. Then she’d eaten a whole pizza, watched TV until midnight and overslept.

  Jane unlocked the office door and rushed inside to drop into her chair. Fifteen minutes late. She was spiraling.

  One night on her own and Jane Morgan was sinking low, her facade crumbling like mountains of melting snow in the parking lot.

  It didn’t matter that she took care to dress professionally and maintained a manner more prickly than a librarian. It didn’t matter that she refused to show even a hint of friendliness to the dirty contractors and groping developers and sexist engineers, or that she made very, very sure to date only appropriate men…. She hadn’t changed at all.

  Jane was still attracted to the same kind of guy she’d dated in high school: tattooed, rough and ready to ride.

  “Crap,” she groaned. She’d had a very sexual dream about Chase the night before. And just that dream had gotten her off in a way that Greg hadn’t even approached.

  Though, she reasoned to herself, he didn’t seem exactly like the kind of guy she’d once run around with. And he wasn’t exactly the type of man her mother had favored for years.

  Despite the fact that his jeans had been creased with age and dingy with ancient dirt stains, he’d smelled of laundry detergent. His hair was cut short and neat, belying the dark curves of a tattoo that curled straight up the back of his neck and disappeared into his hairline. And most important, he couldn’t possibly be an ex-con. Extreme Excavations specialized in blasting. Even if Chase was low on the totem pole, permits for high explosives weren’t handed out to companies that employed criminals.

  So, no, he wasn’t exactly like the guys from her past.

  Jane snapped from her thoughtful daze and scowled at her reflection in the black computer screen. “Nice standards there, Jane Morgan. Clean underwear and no felony record.” Her reflection glared at her, stern and disapproving. Her neck was straight. Her shoulders rigid. Her nostrils flared with outrage. Until she suddenly slumped in defeat. “I’m a fraud.”

  Fraud she might be, but
she was damn good at maintaining the illusion. When a car door slammed in the parking lot, Jane snapped straight, banged on the keyboard to bring her computer out of sleep mode and jumped right into the report she’d been working on the day before.

  The door opened and she expected to look up and see Mr. Jennings walking in. What she didn’t expect was the man who’d visited her dreams the night before.

  But she was cool Jane now, the impenetrable fraud, so she merely raised an eyebrow. “Good morning, Mr. Chase.”

  “Hello, Miss Jane,” he countered.

  She almost laughed at his joke, and what a disaster that would have been. If he knew she found him charming, he might ask her out again. She didn’t allow her expression to budge. “What can I help you with?”

  He held out the folder he’d tucked under his arm. “See? Safe and sound. I’m the soul of responsibility.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she murmured, trying to hide the way he was wreaking havoc on her concentration. His sleeve had inched up, revealing more of the tribal tattoo on his left arm. “Thank you.”

  “So…” he said.

  She jerked her eyes up from his arm.

  “Have you thought any more about it?”

  “About what?”

  “Going out to dinner with me?”

  “No,” she answered as if it were the honest truth. Actually, it was. Dinner hadn’t entered into her thoughts even once.

  “Come on.” He smiled at her, his wide mouth curving into a very handsome grin. His dark blue eyes sparkled. “Just dinner.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re not my type.” The bald-faced lie fell smoothly from her tongue.

  “You sure?” He glanced toward his arm, and Jane felt her pulse leap.