by Sara Orwig
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” she remarked drily. “Let me think about it. That’s a whole different job from what I’m doing now.” It also meant being with him at least three times longer than she would be if she refused to accept the job. Could she work that closely with him that much longer?
“If it helps make up your mind, I will triple the amount I’m paying you now.”
She gazed at him in silence, still debating what to do. If she could resist Jared’s charm, the job would be a boon for their business. And it would make her father happy—as long as she didn’t get involved with Jared.
“You’re worried about us getting involved, I know. We’re adults, and we can avoid it if that’s what you want.”
She kept her voice even, though her pulse was racing again. “Avoiding an affair is definitely what I want, and that’s the stumbling block here.”
“Seems simple to me. Just keep it all business.”
“Since when have you kept anything all business with me?” she couldn’t keep from asking, biting back a laugh, which made him smile in return.
“With only minor exceptions, I think I’ve been doing a grade-A job of sticking to business. For a few minutes I can show you the difference, and then you’ll agree with me.”
“I already know the difference, so stick to business.”
“And that’s what you want?” he asked. He sat back in his chair, one foot propped on his other knee. He looked relaxed, as if pleased with the way things were going between them. For all his carefree manner, he was paying close attention to whatever she said.
“Definitely.”
“Somehow I get the feeling—”
“Definitely, Jared,” she repeated, more slowly.
She wanted an impersonal relationship, and she wanted his business. For triple her fee, she’d take the risk.
She stuck her hand out for a shake, the consummate professional. “We have a deal, Mr. Weston. As long as you fully understand that I haven’t done this before and am out of my area of expertise.”
“I’m certain you’ll do a great job.” He shook her hand to seal the deal. “You want to go through everything here and then see my homes, or do you want to see the homes first?”
“Let’s work here today, maybe tomorrow and then go to Dallas.”
“Fine. I’ll schedule the plane on Sunday for the flight to Dallas. Now we can enjoy the morning and each other’s company while we have breakfast.”
“Just keep it cool between us, Jared,” she said lightly and he smiled in return. “One more thing. In Dallas, I’ll stay at my home.”
“But my house is in far north Dallas. After Dad died, I sold the family home,” he explained. “I didn’t want to live there.”
“I can drive back and forth for the short time we’re there.”
He shook his head. “You’ll waste about four hours per day and slow this down. Just stay at my place.”
“Very well, but when we first get there, I want to stay with Dad so I can talk to him. He gets lonesome, and I want to see how he’s doing.”
“Sure. Come when you’re ready to go to work.”
After breakfast, Jared left on business in Austin, saying something had come up and he couldn’t make it back until five, so he would see her for dinner. Relief filled her that he would not be beside her all through the day.
What was it that he had said? It would be a lot more exciting staying with him in Dallas? She scoffed. With Jared, more excitement was exactly what she didn’t need.
* * *
Jared wanted to keep Allison happy. He wanted her to finish the job because the Tylers had one of the best companies in antiques appraisals and sales. Also, the chemistry was still there between them, and he wanted to make love to her again. And she was responsive enough that he thought it would happen. Sparks flew every time they were together.
As he worked through the day, anticipation built for the evening with Allison. She surely couldn’t expect to hold him to their all-business arrangement during the evening. Seduction might send her packing before the job was over, but a few kisses should be harmless. Besides, kisses were something they both wanted.
When he arrived at the mansion after five, he didn’t see Allison, and the door to her suite was closed, so he assumed she was dressing for their evening out.
Jared showered and dressed in charcoal slacks, a gray sport coat and left the neck of his white shirt open at the throat. By ten minutes to six, he was waiting in the library where he had told her that he would be. He was early, but he wanted every possible minute of the evening with her.
He heard the click of her heels and looked up, coming to his feet while his heart lurched in his chest.
Her sleeveless red dress clung in all the right places, some soft material that on her took his breath away. Her blond hair was caught up on both sides of her head to fall loosely in back. The red high-heeled sandals emphasized her shapely legs.
“You’re stunning, Allison. I liked working with your dad, but I have to tell you, this is a perk of dealing with Tyler Antiques and Appraisals that kills your competition.”
She smiled at him. “Somewhere in there I think is a compliment that I need to say ‘thank you’ for. If my brother even had an inkling—”
“We will totally forget your brother for tonight. Sloan never has known and doesn’t need to know now,” Jared said. “Tonight doesn’t count in our business agreement to keep things professional. You’re a big girl now, and you can make your own decisions,” he said. “Shall we go?” he asked, linking her arm in his and catching a scent of her perfume, perhaps bergamot and jasmine. She was total temptation. The air all but crackled between them when they were together in a room. Inside that staid, businesslike professional was still the flirty girl he had seduced. Hot, passionate, fascinating to him, she was a continual pull on his senses.
“For a few hours tonight I’m going to see to it that you forget your brother and all the others in your life. The only person who will be in your thoughts is me,” he said, so sure he could do what he said.
“Sloan can take care of himself,” she said as she walked beside Jared. “I’m worried about guarding my heart against the daredevil playboy friend of my brother. I know your past history too well.”
“You weren’t scared before.”
“I was younger and not as wise. Besides, you were sort of ready to run when you found out who I was. That made you even more tempting.”
“So you have an ornery streak,” he said, remembering that encounter.
“I just didn’t want my brother running my life. Not then, not now. But he doesn’t interfere badly now. He has too much going on in his own life to bother with mine. I’m just looking out for me.”
“You don’t need to have a guard up with me.”
“We shouldn’t even be going out together, and you know it.”
“But we are, and we’ll have fun, and I’ll kiss you good-night, and you’ll want me to.”
“Maybe you need a little more self-confidence,” she said, and he smiled at her.
“We’ll see if I’m on target.”
“You’re not the only one with self-confidence,” she said, turning to face him as they stopped beside his car. She tapped his chest with her finger. “You won’t forget our kiss, either,” she said.
“That statement just changed how late we’ll be out. We’ll be home earlier than I first planned,” he said in a husky voice as he opened the car door for her.
“Maybe,” she said. “You might enjoy yourself dancing so much you won’t even remember the conversation we just had.” She slid into the car and looked up at him.
“Not in the next hundred years would I forget it.” He fought an urge to kiss her now. She was tossing challenges his way as much as she had that ni
ght when she had been in college. He closed her door and walked around to get into the car.
She changed the conversation to talking about items she had looked at today and which rooms they would go through tomorrow. She was quick and efficient at her job, and she would be finished faster than he had expected, a prospect that mildly disappointed him. He hated to see her go, because he suspected there would be no going out with her once she returned to her own world.
She had already made it clear that she didn’t want an affair. He was a longtime family friend of both her father and brother, so he had to back off and leave her alone. Tonight was one of those exceptions, but she was probably not as wild and reckless as she had been six years ago.
He tried to focus on what she was telling him about a lamp in the mansion, but all he could think about was their conversation and how much he wanted to kiss her.
Did she really care whether or not they kissed? Would she go beyond kisses?
He drove to a restaurant set back in a wooded expanse with ponds, fountains and lights in the tall pines. Myriad tiny crystal lights also covered the sprawling restaurant and surrounding redbud trees, giving it a festive air, while music was piped outside along the entryway. Jared handed his keys to a valet and took Allison’s arm as they entered the restaurant, his fingers closing lightly, feeling her warmth and silky skin. The contact heightened his desire. Appetite for dinner fled. All he really wanted was to pull her into his embrace.
They were seated in a secluded alcove where the soft piano music was muted. Candlelight from the center of the table played over her, reflected in the depths of her indigo eyes. How long until she would be in his arms? Could they both resist seduction?
“Let’s have a glass of wine before dinner. All right?”
“Certainly.”
After a discussion over the wine list, Jared ordered a bottle of chardonnay. As they sipped their wine, Allison knew it would be difficult keeping her mind on business when she was out with Jared, but she called upon her complete self-control. At every turn she tried to keep the conversation on the items in his mansion and the possible home in which they’d fit.
At one point Jared set down his goblet of pale wine. “You have all this in your head, don’t you? You remember everything.”
“Maybe not everything, but a lot of it. I also have it saved on my iPad, so I don’t have to solely rely on memory. I remember it because I love antiques, beautiful furniture and pieces that are also interesting. I hope to find people who really want the items you sell.”
“I guess I understand that because I remember everything I’ve brought up in the salvage business. It’s exciting to find a seventeenth-or eighteenth-century ship and bring back artifacts. They hold fascination for me.”
“It’s the same thing, Jared,” she said. “You have to wonder about the people who owned them and what kind of lives they led.”
He smiled at her. “You meant it when you said you love your job. That’s good, because your customers will feel that enthusiasm. It makes me feel you’ll do a great job for me, which, of course, I already know you will from working with your dad. But if this were my first time, I would feel in good hands.”
“Jared, you’re in really good hands.”
She couldn’t resist flirting with him for a moment.
Something flickered in the depths of his green eyes. He leaned over the table, closer to her, and his voice lowered. “Now, that’s the Allison I know and want to love,” he drawled.
“I think I started something I shouldn’t have. I’m the one who wanted to keep things impersonal, but there is just something tempting about being with you—”
“That does it, Allison. Let’s either dance or go home.”
“Definitely dance,” she said, smiling. “And I promise I will go right back to being ever-so-properly professional.”
“Properly professional after the workday is over—there’s a challenge if I ever heard one. Come on. We have a lot of dancing to catch up on.”
“Regret we didn’t dance later into the night before?”
“Not one regret of any sort about that night,” he said in a warm tone that felt like a caress playing over her skin. He stood and held out his hand.
“None for me, either,” she replied as she stood and placed her hand in his. His fingers curled around hers, and they walked to the small dance floor in the elegant restaurant.
They danced well together, and she liked being in his arms, smelling the fresh scent of his aftershave. The slow dance reminded her of the night they had spent together.
He spoke, and his breath was hot and tingly on her neck. “I still want you to watch me ride in the rodeo. I know you used to go when your brother competed.”
She moved back and nodded. “Yes, I did, but I haven’t seen one since college—over six years ago really,” she said. “I like rodeos, except when someone I care about is riding. When Sloan rode, I was always afraid he would be hurt.”
“You won’t be worrying about me the way you did about Sloan, so it’s time to see what fun a rodeo can be.”
“You don’t take no easily, do you?”
“Not if I want to hear a yes. I doubt if you do, either.”
After two more dances they returned to their table just as the waiter brought tossed green salads for each of them.
Over lobster dinners, she studied him. As she set down her crystal glass of ice water, she said, “So tell me. There must be someone in your life for Sloan to tell me you’re almost engaged. Who is the latest woman in your life? Is it still Dawn Rainsford?”
“No. That’s over.” His green eyes met hers in a steady gaze. “I am not engaged, getting engaged or planning to be engaged. That is your brother’s whimsical wish and feeble effort to discourage you and to somehow get me to back off flirting with you or taking you out.”
Allison smiled, amused by his description of Sloan’s efforts to shelter her.
“And this guy in your life—Phillip—you’re just good friends. That’s your brother at work again. He’s hell-bent on keeping us apart.”
“Maybe he has sound reasons,” she teased, making Jared’s eyebrows rise. “Phillip and I are very compatible. He owns a hotel chain, and we met because he was interested in putting antique furniture in some of his penthouses and presidential suites.”
“So no love affair with this guy?”
She shook her head. “No. We have the same interests, so we go to galleries, estate sales, the opera and concerts together, but there’s nothing serious between us. He’s company and someone to go out with, but that’s all. He would say the same, although he does propose periodically. He says it would be convenient for both of us, and we could start a family. We are both getting older.”
“Allison, aren’t you twenty-four? That’s not exactly long in the tooth.”
Laughing, she shook her head. “I’ve told him no, but he’s nice to offer.”
“He’s not the guy for you. You need someone who can match your passionate nature,” Jared stated, giving her an intense look that ignited a heated response in her and made her forget dinner. “You need something more between you than the ballet and shared business interests.”
She tore her gaze from Jared’s. “Phillip and I have a good time. Sloan has my best interests at heart.”
“I know he does, but you can take care of yourself. And he doesn’t need to tell you that I’m engaged. You’re very honest brother really loses it when it comes to watching over you.”
She shrugged. “Sloan’s just looking out for me.”
“Enough about Sloan. Tell me about the jobs you’ve had. What is the oldest item you’ve dealt with, the biggest estate?”
Aware of Jared’s constant gaze, she thought back. “The first question is more difficult to answer because I’ve dealt with so much tha
t’s old. The second is easy. Yours.” While she talked, she was aware of his undivided attention.
Noticing Jared’s appetite was as poor as hers, she wasn’t surprised when he asked her to dance again, and she readily agreed.
Slow dancing to old favorites, dancing faster to some new ones, they reminisced about growing up for what seemed like hours. Finally he took her hand. “I think it’s time we head home.”
“Definitely,” she said. His words played over her. He had made it sound as if they were going to their home, as if they were doing something ordinary that they did often.
Her heartbeat sped up, because she remembered their conversation about kisses tonight. Jared had not forgotten any more than she did. Could she say no to his seduction?
As he drove back to the mansion he had inherited, their conversation was still about general topics. She couldn’t help but wonder about Jared and his wild life, the risky things he liked to do. She might be tempted to do something wild with him, but she couldn’t get away from her years of caution.
In spite of their hot attraction, Jared wasn’t the man for her. She didn’t want a brief fling with him, because Jared could be a heartbreaker.
What was worse, he was pure temptation. She liked flirting with him, liked being with him, dancing with him. Even more, she liked his hot kisses. And he liked her business, understood it. It was the other side of his life that made a relationship with him impossible. That was all the more reason to do her job, stick to being professional and get through the mansion quickly, so she could go home and forget him.
“A penny for your thoughts,” he said.
“You wouldn’t want them even for free. There has been nothing professional about tonight. This is breaking my own rule.”
“You have rules for your life?”
“Only where you’re concerned,” she replied with a tilt of her head. “There’s something about your devil-may-care attitude that makes me toss caution aside, too. I need some rules to cover dealing with you.”
“You know that’s a challenge.”
