by Leah Vale
His gaze, which had drifted to her mouth, met hers again briefly before he grunted and squared his shoulders in his seat. "What I have seen is how everyone, from those employed at the house to those at McCoy Enterprises, have accepted me so unquestioningly, with such a marked lack of surprise, that I’m inclined to believe Marcus’s indiscretions weren’t such a big secret after all."
"No, that’s not true--"
The voice of the flight attendant over the PA, welcoming them on board and beginning the safety instructions, drowned her out. It, combined with the whir of the jet engines firing up, forced Sara to hold her peace until the attendant finished.
Cooper pulled the airline’s in-flight magazine out of the seat pocket in front of him and started paging through it, blatantly ignoring everyone.
But as soon as the plane began taxiing toward the runway, Sara invaded Cooper’s space, ignoring the seductive aura around him to place her mouth near his ear so she’d be heard without having to raise her voice too much. "Do you know how I spent my teenage summers, Cooper?"
She could have sworn he shuddered, but he didn’t move away. Nor did he answer.
She chose not to think about the sexual arousal his reaction sent through her. "I spent them with my father, at McCoy Enterprises. Learning how to run a successful, upstanding business."
Her compulsion to defend what she held dear steadily increased to a roar inside her like the jet engines gaining power to propel them into the air. "My parents were older when they had me, so my grandparents had already passed away and there was no other family. My mom passed away after a heart attack, and when my father died--" Her voice cracked, mortifying her.
Hopefully, Cooper didn’t catch the sound amid the noise of takeoff. "The McCoys were there for me. Joseph took care of..." She hesitated, unwilling to reveal her father’s failings to a man apparently capable of using them for his own benefit. "Of things, so I could finish college."
"He even gave me this necklace--" She pulled back, drawing Cooper’s gaze, and lifted the small, delicate gold anchor on a fine gold chain. "When I graduated. He said he was as proud as my father would have been."
The look in Cooper’s eyes as he studied her, as he weighed the truth of her words against his beliefs about the McCoys, drew her to him as it always seemed to do and gave her hope that she could change his mind.
She placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing the rock-solid muscle beneath his dress shirt. He must have worked so hard, physically as well as mentally, to make a success of his life. So unlike Rob, who’d wanted the easy way to the top, via a relationship with her. He’d flattered her and made her aware of herself as a woman in a way no other man ever had, to the point she’d been blind to anything save the fantasy she’d always had of being so connected to someone as committed to the company as she was.
A warning blazed through her head that Cooper would use her, too, to achieve what he wanted.
She removed her hand but pressed her point. "Joseph is not the kind of man who would have ignored what was happening to your mother. And you saw Alexander’s eyes when he met you. He’s not like Marcus, either."
A flash of pain crossed Cooper’s face and she felt it as if it were her own. "Funny how it seems everyone recognized what Marcus was like. Excuse me for my inability to swallow the fact that no one was aware of what he was up to."
"But--"
"Can we just drop it. Sara? Drop everything that is McCoy? I’d rather find out more about you. Tell me."
Sara blinked again, struggling to come up with some aspect of herself not in some way related to the McCoys or their corporation.
"Don’t tell me no one has ever asked you such a thing?"
Her cheeks heating, she looked away. "Actually, no. Usually. my connection to the McCoys is my most desirable attribute." She couldn’t let Cooper know how easily she’d been romanced out of her common sense once before. She hadn’t been willing to see the signs until Rob had said it’d become clear to him he’d never rise above her in the corporation. He’d called it the Sara Barnes ceiling. Only the loss of her parents had hurt more.
Cooper made a noise. "You gotta be kidding me." He shifted toward her again and his hot gaze traveled over her from head to knee. "You have plenty of attributes that are far, far more desirable than your connection to the damn McCoys."
Sara about went up in flames. He could so thoroughly threaten her resolve with just a look. Even more so than Rob had. She reached for the air nozzle above her and opened it wide until she could feel her bangs dancing in the cool blast. She’d take off her summer-weight, short jacket, but her white silk shell beneath it suddenly seemed inadequate.
While she was far from worldly, she shouldn’t be so easy to fluster anymore. Rob and his games had gone a long way toward ending her naiveté.
Cooper was using many of Rob’s weapons--flattery, seduction, charm--though with far greater skill and impact than Rob had to make her forget what she knew about him, to ignore the hurt that flashed in his eyes.
She couldn’t. For more reasons than she cared to consider.
COOPER SHOULD HAVE BEEN in a rotten mood as they toured the most recent addition to the McCoy general retail chain.
Everything at the store was fine.
The flooring problem, which would have affected the configuration of the fixtures, had been solved before he and Sara had arrived. And from what he’d seen so far, the construction project manager and his engineer and superintendent ran a tight job site. Sara had informed him that usually a fixtures contractor would have been brought in at this stage to actually install the fixtures, but in the interest of time, they’d decided to have the construction company that had built the store do it once the fixtures arrived.
They’d done a heck of a job with everything else. Cooper had yet to spot a cut corner he could take advantage of or a weakness he could capitalize on.
But every question he fired at the general contractor earned him an admiring look or comment from Sara. He didn’t think his chest had ever felt so puffed up with good old-fashioned male pride. He hadn’t realized how lacking he’d been for female adoration.
He snorted.
Barry Simmons, the tall and slender forty-something project manager, threw him a glance and halted in front of the main store entrance. "You don’t think the fixtures will be here on time?"
Cooper’s mind instantly refocused on the conversation, noting the tinge of panic in the man’s question. Barry had clearly thought the noise Cooper had made signaled disagreement with Barry’s statement about the fixtures.
Cooper tried for an air of casual interest. "And if they’re not?"
Barry grimaced. "No way we’d be able to set them and get the merchandise inventoried and shelved in time for the scheduled grand opening."
Now, that was an opportunity. He’d already learned the importance of a timely grand opening. The initial sales for any given store were critical for offsetting the cost of construction. If the payments toward the construction loans had to continue to come from Corporate...
Sara turned from admiring the interior of the huge store. Her smile was all smug confidence. "Won’t happen. We’ve used the same company to supply the shelving and racks for years. They’re completely reliable. Besides. l checked on the status of the order just the other day. Everything is on schedule. And weather won’t create problems transporting them here this time of year."
Her green eyes sparkled in the fluorescent lighting. "Barring a late-season tornado, of course."
Cooper pulled his gaze from Sara’s seductive beauty and scanned the vast, taped-off parking lot, visible through the glass front-entrance doors, his teeth clenched. The hot, late-day sun caused the air above the newly poured and striped blacktop to shimmer.
Unless he suddenly developed the ability to control the weather like some comic-book hero, messing up the grand opening that way wouldn’t happen. So much for subtle sabotage. He loosened his tie and tilted his head back as the spurt of adren
aline dissipated and left him feeling drained. Apparently, he had no choice but to do something blatant.
Then he noticed the ceiling near the front doors and stilled. The large white acoustic tiles didn’t line up straight. The seam where they joined didn’t run entirely parallel with the wall. Already primed, his heart started racing again.
Judging by the finished quality in the rest of the building, he doubted the anomaly was cosmetic. Which could mean only one thing: either the wall was pulling away from the steel roof joists, or the joists were dropping away from the walls. Both were very, very bad things. lf the welds failed as the building suffered the stresses of time and weather...
Talk about revenge.
He brought his brows down sharply and planted his hands on his hips. More than just tons of time and money and respect could be lost. Lives could be lost. That was unacceptable to him.
He lowered his gaze and found Sara watching him curiously, her finely shaped brows raised slightly. Barry hadn’t noticed Cooper and Sara had stopped, and he was still walking toward the front doors, yammering on about how around-the-clock workers had replaced mislaid carpet with linoleum.
Cooper interrupted him. "You’ve got a problem, Barry."
The other man jerked to a stop. "What was that?"
Cooper pointed to the ceiling tiles. "See how the ceiling tiles veer off? Your welds are separating."
Both Barry and Sara looked where he indicated.
Barry said, "Holy..." and grabbed for his cell phone.
Sara gasped, "Oh, no." She turned stricken eyes to Cooper.
He raised a hand reassuringly. "It can be fixed. Pretty easily, actually. Temporary plates can be welded on to hold the connections together, then Barry’s guys can go back in and do a permanent repair, a few joists at a time, when the store is closed
for the night. You won’t have to delay the store opening."
Sara glanced at Barry who’d been saying nearly the same thing to whomever he was talking to on his cell phone before he ended the call.
Barry glared at the ceiling and ran his hand across his jaw, then met Cooper’s gaze. intense gratitude radiated from his brown eyes. "Nice save."
Cooper didn’t want his gratitude, nor did he want Sara’s admiration. "Just get it fixed properly and double-check the rest of the roofing system before the city comes to do the final inspection." He stormed past them and headed outside.
The second he left the air-conditioned store, he slammed into a wall of heat heavy with the scent of fresh tar. His frustration was just as palpable. Why was sabotage turning out to be so difficult? Because it was a rotten thing to do, that was why. But he had no choice. He had to find some way to keep this store from having a successful opening. One that wouldn’t harm anyone or anything but the McCoys’ bottom line.
His attention settled on the huge white banner with black lettering workers in a white-and-yellow cherry picker were hanging beneath the McCoy sign next to the road. As soon as they were done, anyone who drove by on the busy, four-lane street would know to come shop here on July 1. Similar signs with the same date were going up at the other new stores across the country. He absently noted that the time of day the store would be opening had inadvertently been left off the sign.
An idea bloomed. As revenge went, it would be more like a nip than a bite, but it would be infinitely better than nothing.
Sara’s laughter at something Barry said as they joined Cooper outside caught his attention. She glanced toward him and met his gaze. She wouldn’t be looking at him for long with soft understanding tinged with what he suspected to be a surprising hungry need. He was stupid to care or want to satisfy that need. Still, the knowledge that he did made him feel as if the asphalt roller nearby had parked on his chest instead of at the edge of the lot.
He had until June 30, the day before all the new stores opened, to enjoy her attempts to convince him to let go of his plan to make the McCoys pay in some way, and enjoy it he would. Especially tonight after attending the obligatory dinner with site management. He doubted if he could bear never knowing if she tasted as good as she smelled.
Because he’d pick being turned on over feeling guilty any day.
CHAPTER SIX
"Why?" Sara stopped dead under the converted Union Station’s high glass ceiling, halting their progress back to their hotel.
Maybe the wine she’d had with dinner was to blame. Or the fact that they were finally alone, having left the others still at the restaurant. Or the steady thrum of admiration that had been building for Cooper all day. But she suddenly had to know why he’d done something so against his nefarious agenda.
The suit coat he’d only worn at the Store slung over his shoulder, Cooper looked away from the spectacle of a small lake bustling with paddleboats inside what used to be the nation's busiest passenger rail terminal and met her gaze. "Why what?"
The hard lines around his mouth told Sara he knew exactly what. She searched his eyes for some hint at what drove him and elaborated. anyway. "Why did you say something? About the joists? Why did you bring them to Barry’s attention? lf that roof had failed, especially after the store was operational--"
Arm thrown wide, he invaded her space, as he was prone to do. only this time with emotional, not sexual, heat. "People would have been killed. Sara." He dropped his hand to his side and straightened away in obvious disgust. "It’s nice to know your opinion of me is so lofty that you think I could keep my mouth shut and put lives in jeopardy."
She smiled softly up at him. "Actually, my opinion of you is growing loftier by the moment."
The wine. Had to be from the wine. Barry had been so relieved to have such a potentially costly, not to mention disastrous, problem caught early he’d been in a celebratory mood and had kept ordering their glasses refilled.
That she’d felt the same softness toward Cooper before dinner didn’t mean a thing. Or so she told herself. It was the only way she’d be able to deal with her ever-growing feelings for him.
Something shifted in his eyes, though a hint of the shadow remained. He leaned close again, in the familiar way, and the din from the lake on one side and the people passing by a few yards from her on the other faded. "You know we can't have that." His voice had dropped in volume and pitch, impossibly rough and sultry at the same time.
Sara suppressed a shiver of feminine awareness. There were moments when she knew dam well he was turning on the sex appeal to unsettle her, that his flirting was entirely calculated. But there were instances like this when she felt she was seeing the real Cooper, and her attraction to him was staggering.
Not a good thing at all. She'd fallen for Rob because of her girlish fantasy of being loved by a man with the same goals as her. He’d had the same goals, all right. He’d wanted her job--the most important thing in the world to her. She couldn’t allow herself to be so vulnerable again.
Cooper’s gaze drifted down to her mouth. "l suppose I’ll have to do something naughty to restore my image of a reprobate with you."
This time she couldn’t contain her shiver. She tried to cover it by shifting her purse higher on her shoulder over her sage jacket. She needed to keep her feelings for him--heaven only knows what they were--hidden and, if at all possible, under control.
One corner of his mouth curled upward as he returned his gaze to hers, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Her heart folded inward. He held himself so separate, so set on a destructive path. Without considering the meaning of her action, she put a hand on his arm. The heat and strength permeating his white dress shirt almost made her snatch her hand back.
She squeezed, instead. "You’ve proved today what an asset you are to the company. You’re smart, experienced and have a keen eye. You’re meant to be a part of what we do, Cooper. It’s in your blood."
He straightened, distancing himself with his height. "The Real McCoy, eh?"
"Yes," she said defensively. "Why can’t you see the value in that? The gift." So much m
ore than being just a McCoy employee. As she was.
"I’d rather be a reprobate, thank you very much."
"But--"
He caught her chin with his thumb and first knuckle, the perception in his eyes shocking her into silence. He obviously knew what it was like to be on the outside looking in. "You’re starting to sound like a broken record, Sara." His tone was enough of a caress to soften the insult.
She blinked quickly to clear any visible trace of longing from her eyes. To further cover her slip, she bristled. "I’m also tired enough of men constantly interrupting me that something else is about to end up broken." Her tone left no doubt that she meant what she said.
His smile finally reached his eyes. "Duly noted." But instead of releasing her chin, he ran the rough pad of his thumb back and forth just below her lower lip. An insignificant touch that shouldn’t cause such a riot in her stomach. But it did.
