The Real Deal

by Lucy Monroe

“Maybe I care.” He slammed the trunk shut with an excess of force and grimly finished picking up her things. “Maybe I don’t want to see you hurt by this, but I don’t have any choice about it because what you want isn’t best for Brant Computers. You just think it is.”

  She didn’t know what to say. He made it sound like what happened to her really mattered to him and she knew that wasn’t possible. She was nothing to him but an irritant. A blip on the radar of his life and just as temporary.

  Without another word, he turned and headed for the house, leaving her to follow or not. She followed.

  He went directly to her former bedroom and deposited her things on the end of her bed, then turned to face her. “I can’t promise to change my mind, but I can promise that if you leave I won’t have a chance to.”

  There was no compromise in his expression. If she stayed, there was a slight chance of success. If she left, the merger was dead. It was blackmail. Plain and simple. Effective too. He’d chosen to hold the lure of the one thing she valued in her life besides her friendship with Jillian. Her career.

  She didn’t have a clue why Simon wanted her to stay. She couldn’t believe it was because he really wanted to consider her arguments in favor of Extant’s proposal. But what if she was wrong? Even if she wasn’t, the longer she held Daniel off from going after the other cousins’ support, the better. She refused to be responsible for igniting a family war.

  The arguments chased themselves in her head until she was dizzy. She felt torn between the familiar hell of staying with Simon and wanting him when he didn’t want her, and the unfamiliar hell of knowing she had let herself and her company down professionally.

  What real choice did she have? She’d survived marriage to Lance. She could withstand a few more days in Simon’s home.

  “I’ll stay.”

  Simon watched Amanda meander along the shoreline from the lab room window. She’d changed from her starchy suit to a cotton shorty top and matching Capri pants. She’d even pulled her magnificent hair back into a ponytail, letting it loose from that neat bun she constantly wore. She looked incredible, not at all like the buttoned-up woman he’d come to know so well in such a short time.

  A timer went off, reminding him he was supposed to be working, but then so was she. She’d told him she had a couple of hours of online work to do before lunch after once again refusing any sort of breakfast. That bothered him, but he’d won a major concession and had sensed he wouldn’t win another one.

  He’d come up to his lab to try to gain some perspective. He had several puzzles that needed solving in his two major projects and that should have been enough to take his mind into a realm populated by circuit wires and computer code instead of people. It hadn’t been.

  For the first time in his memory, he could not dredge up enough interest in his projects to focus on them. He was too busy thinking about Amanda. Forcing her to stay had to be one of the least logical things he’d ever done. There were several very good reasons for letting her leave and never seeing her again. Reasons he had been convinced were paramount until that morning when he walked into the kitchen and she hadn’t been there.

  None of those sound arguments stacked up against the reality of her being gone. He’d expected to see her eating at the table and when he hadn’t, the light had gone out of his morning. When Jacob told him that Amanda had left without saying goodbye, cold winds had blown across Simon’s soul—winds that had been silent since her arrival at his home.

  He hated that cold and the shadows that accompanied it. She filled the empty places and pushed the shadows away.

  That’s why he had kidnapped her from the island’s one small grocery store, why he had blackmailed her into staying. It didn’t have anything to do with the merger, no matter what he had told her to get her to stay. He wasn’t being fair to her. He knew it. He had no intention of changing his mind about the merger. It was the wrong move for a family run company and given enough time, Eric was bound to see that as well, but Simon had still used the carrot of his possible change of heart to lure Amanda into staying.

  Because as of this morning when he’d faced a day without Amanda in it, and the prospect of endless more to follow, he had become as determined to keep her as he was to reject the merger.

  “I thought you needed to take care of some e-mail.”

  Simon watched with fascination as Amanda jumped and whirled at the sound of his voice. She acted like a jackrabbit startled by a fox.

  She stepped backward, away from him. “I didn’t hear you come up.”

  “You must have been thinking pretty hard.”

  The twist of her lips could be called a smile, but there was something not quite right about it. She said, “Or you walk as quiet as a panther.”

  He shrugged at that. “I walk the way I walk.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip, which looked like it had already had a fair amount of that treatment. It was red and slightly swollen, all of the lipstick eaten off of it. Finally, she sighed. “You’re so sure of who you are.”

  “Are you trying to tell me you’re not?” She was easily as focused on her career as he was on his projects.

  She looked away toward the water, her expression pensive. “I suppose I am when it comes to my job.”

  “But not when it comes to being a woman,” he guessed, remembering his initial impression of her.

  Her laugh was almost brittle. “No, not when it comes to being a woman, but then I’m much better at being a junior executive than I am at being female.” The last words came out in such a low voice he had to strain to hear them.

  “You don’t think you’re any good at being female?” he asked for confirmation because he found the idea so laughable. If she were any better at it, he’d need a straitjacket to keep his hands off her.

  She whirled to face him, her dark brown eyes shooting sparks like a metal cup in the microwave. “Stop it. I know what I am. And while we’re at it, you can quit making those stupid comments about my supposed beauty. I know what I look like, all right? I don’t need you patronizing me with false flattery or your sarcastic little jokes about wanting to have sex with me.” She sucked in air, drawing his attention to the charms she was so certain she did not have.

  “We’ve got a business relationship. That’s all. I don’t need you to pretend like you notice me as a woman when you don’t. Heaven knows I’m used to it.”

  “Used to what?” The conversation was not falling into any sort of logical pattern he could recognize.

  “Used to being seen as my job rather than myself.” She closed her eyes and seemed to battle for control before opening them again. “It’s not important. I don’t need you to see me as a woman. I’m here to do a job, nothing else.”

  He had never said otherwise. He might have thought it, but he hadn’t said it. “Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”

  Unexpectedly, her eyes filled with tears, their brown depths awash with pain as well as wetness and he felt like a total bastard for having hurt her. He hadn’t meant to. All he wanted was to understand what was going on inside her mind right now. He wanted to know why she had left without a word to him, why she had been so adamant about not coming back.

  “I need to go.” She turned back toward the house.

  He could no more let her dismiss him right now than he had been able to leave her in the grocery store and his hand shot out to grab her shoulder. “Wait. I don’t understand, baby. I didn’t mean to hurt you with that question.”

  “Don’t call me baby,” she said in a choked voice without turning to face him.

  He hadn’t realized he had. It fit her though. So tiny. So vulnerable in ways others probably wouldn’t notice. “It suits you.”

  She shook her head, her long hair swinging against her petite back.

  Taking her other shoulder in his free hand, he started pulling her back toward him. He didn’t know what he planned. To comfort her, maybe, but as soon as her body was flush with his the idea of com
fort took on a very intimate connotation.

  He wrapped his arms around her front, locking them right under her breasts and nuzzled her shell-pink ear. He couldn’t seem to help himself. Touching her seemed both natural and right.

  She was in pain and he wanted to make it better. “I don’t want you to hurt, Amanda. Tell me what I can do to make it go away.”

  She’d gone completely still in his arms. He wasn’t sure she was even breathing.

  “Amanda?”

  “You don’t want me any more than he did.” The words were filled with so much pain, he winced.

  He ignored her ludicrous assertion that he didn’t want her. If she couldn’t feel the erection growing against her back, he wasn’t going to point it out to her and scare her half to death.

  But the other part of what she said intrigued him. “Who didn’t want you?”

  “Lance.”

  “Your ex-husband?” he guessed.

  She nodded, causing her ear to brush against his lips, making them tingle. She gave a convulsive shudder.

  “Are you crying?” He didn’t know what to do with a crying woman, but somehow he couldn’t just leave Amanda to her misery, whatever the cause.

  “No.” The broken syllable gave lie to her word, but he didn’t tax her with it.

  “Tell me about Lance,” he said instead.

  “I told you.” She sounded belligerent. “He didn’t want me.”

  Chapter 11

  “But he was your husband.”

  “Yes.”

  For some reason hearing her affirm it made his gut tighten uncomfortably. He hated the thought of any other man having claim to this woman.

  She exhaled on a broken sigh. “And he did everything in his power to mold me into someone he could desire. It didn’t work.”

  What kind of eunuch idiot would want to change her? She was sexy, beautiful and perfect just as she was. “What? Was he gay?”

  Her laugh was so far from humorous, it hurt to hear it. “No. He just couldn’t force himself to make love with such an inadequate woman.”

  “You believed that bullshit? That you were inadequate as a woman?” He knew he sounded angry.

  He was. Furious, in fact. If Lance were within kicking distance, he’d be bruised and bloody right now. While the image gave him some satisfaction, he knew it wouldn’t do anything to help the misery he sensed in Amanda right now. He didn’t know what would.

  She tore out of his arms and whirled on him, her expression feral. “Yes, I believed him! Why shouldn’t I? You don’t want me either! You made that obvious.”

  “When have I made that obvious?” He’d told her he wanted to have sex with her. Did she think he made a habit of lying?

  “Oh, please! Like you don’t know.”

  Her sarcastic words were the last straw and he stormed forward. She backed up, but he caught her with no real effort. They’d have to work on her fighting technique when an adversary had her cornered.

  He grabbed her wrist, careful not to bruise her pale flesh, but with a grip she wouldn’t be able to get out of easily, and pulled her forward. In a crude act that shocked him even while he was doing it, he placed her small hand against the much larger, irrefutable proof that she was wrong.

  “Feel that? I don’t walk around with a lead pipe in my jeans, so what do you think that tells you about how much I want you?” He let go of her wrist prepared to take a slap in the face for what he’d done. Or worse.

  She didn’t slap him, or kick him, or even scream at him. She didn’t jerk her hand away either. Instead she pressed her open palm against his erection and stroked its length. His knees almost buckled.

  Her tear drenched gaze lifted to his, her expression filled with wonder. “You meant it.”

  He couldn’t make his voice work, not with her hand still pressed against his sex. So, he nodded, but still could not comprehend why she acted so shocked by his arousal.

  Her fingers convulsed, squeezing him and his eyes slid shut at the pleasure of it. “If you don’t stop, I’m going to take you right here, in front of God, Jacob, and the seagulls.”

  It wasn’t the mention of God or the seagulls that did it, but when he said Jacob’s name, Amanda forced her hand away from the physical evidence of Simon’s arousal.

  She felt exultant, like she’d just landed the deal of her career. Simon wanted her and he meant it. There could be no mistaking it this time. A man could not fake an erection, or get one on command. Lance had made sure she knew that. To get hard, a man had to be aroused and Simon was. Very aroused.

  She wanted to shout hosannas.

  He pulled her against him, letting her feel the hard length of his erection against her stomach. It was an incredible heady sensation and one she had never had before, this standing fully clothed against a man in a state of obvious sexual excitement.

  His arms wrapped tightly around her. “You’re so sexy. It’s all I’ve been able to do not to lay you down in my bed and keep you there for three days straight.”

  Bliss shivered through her at the thought. “So, why haven’t you?” she asked into his chest with no thought of being coy or playing hard to get entering her mind.

  He rubbed himself against her, his hands pressing into the small of her back to increase the friction between them. “I didn’t want to cloud our relationship.”

  “You mean because of the merger?” Remembering Daniel’s crude advice for how to get Simon to agree to the proposal, she had to admit Simon had a point if that had been his concern.

  “That, and the fact your life is in Southern California and mine is here.”

  This evidence that casual sex did not interest him warmed her, but depressed her too. Because nothing could change the fact that their lives were lived in entirely different spheres.

  “There’s still the merger,” she said aloud. “We’re business associates, not lovers.” Melancholy settled over her as she said the words. Simon might want her, but not enough to overcome the issues holding them apart.

  His chin dropped against the top of her head and rested there. “Yes.”

  Her heart lost its tenuous hold on a possible positive outcome and plummeted. “I guess that means making love would be a bad thing?” she couldn’t help asking, even though she knew his answer before he gave it.

  His heart sped up at her words, thumping loudly against his chest. With her face pressed against his sternum, she could feel it as well as hear it.

  “Depends on how you define bad.” One big hand slid down to cup her bottom. “My definition of the word is changing with the speed of a sonic jet.”

  He had such a sexy voice. She bet he could talk her to an orgasm if he put his mind to it. Just the thought had her growing damp and hot between her legs. “It is?” she asked in an embarrassing croak.

  The hand on her bottom squeezed. “Oh, yeah.”

  She heard his words, but her attention had been caught by his scent. She found herself nuzzling the denim work shirt stretched across his impressive chest muscles. Lance had never smelled like this. No other man in the world had Simon’s scent. It was unique and it was intoxicating.

  Her fingers lifted of their own volition and started undoing buttons. She wanted skin.

  His arms tightened around her. “Keep that up and bad idea is going to lose all meaning for me.”

  She undid two more buttons for good measure and then kissed the bronzed chest she had just exposed. “Really?” She wanted to taste him. Almost insanely and with a complete lack of her normal sexual reticence, she flicked her tongue out and licked delicately. Salty. Warm. She licked again. Sort of spicy.

  His big body shuddered.

  For the second time that day she found herself being swept up into his arms.

  “Simon! What are you doing?”

  Had she pushed him too far? Would he make good on his threat to make love to her outside? The thought intrigued her far more than it worried her. To have the ability to push her lover beyond his normal bounds of c
ontrol was something she had never experienced.

  She’d read about it though, and it sounded like a lot of fun, if incredibly far-fetched.

  His laughter sent sensual shivers arcing through her. “I’m carrying you off to my lair to have my wicked way with you.” Suiting action to words, he started making ground-eating strides across the lawn toward the house. “To the victor go the spoils, or some such thing and I did capture you this morning.”

  “You kidnapped me!”

  He shrugged and she clung to his neck, not wanting to fall.

  “Same thing,” he said.

  “Are you saying you see yourself as some kind of conquering warrior?”

  He smiled down at her, his eyes full of sensual heat. “You make an incredibly sexy and beautiful captive.”

  A warrior? She had no problem seeing Simon in the role. He’d struck her as innately dangerous since the moment they’d met. It was only now she was coming to appreciate the true nature of the danger involved. He had the power to stir her emotions in a way no other man ever had, not her few boyfriends and not even her ex-husband.

  But her, sexy and beautiful? Now that was a lot harder for her to wrap her imagination around.

  Not so captive. Ooh . . . she liked that word. After the sexual debacle of her marriage, she was ready to indulge in a decadent fantasy. It might be the only chance she’d ever have. If she disappointed Simon in bed like she had Lance, he wasn’t going to play conquering warrior for her again.

  She shoved the depressing thought away. No matter what happened in the aftermath, for right now, Simon wanted her. So much, he was carrying her off to bed.

  “I’m too heavy to cart all the way to the house and up two flights of stairs.” It was a half-hearted protest because she found the experience so delightful, but she felt it had to be made.

  “Be quiet, captive.” His voice came out in a disconcerting predatory growl. “None of your arguments will gain you freedom.” His hold on her tightened. “You’re mine now.”

  It was just a game, but it seemed like there was an element of real warning in Simon’s voice. She dismissed the thought as fanciful. She was really getting into her role of captive.