Once Upon a Dare

by Jennifer Bonds

  “So, equals?” she asked again, as if the hard-on-inducing kiss had been a figment of his imagination. How the hell she managed to do that, he’d never know.

  “Always.”

  She sighed and yanked the door open. “Let me work on the reassignments this morning and we can meet up after lunch to talk strategy.”

  “Works for me,” he agreed. Using his notebook to mask his hardened cock, he stepped through the open door. Their shoulders brushed as he squeezed by. He wanted to tease her, tell her the office was a “no touching zone”, but the guarded look she wore told him to bite his tongue and let the moment pass. Antagonizing her after the kiss they’d just shared wasn’t going to earn her trust…or get her back in his bed.

  …

  Cole watched as Olivia propped a small compact up on her desk and leaned down to check her makeup, completely oblivious to his presence in her doorway. She looked good to him, given the late hour, but what the hell did he know about makeup?

  It was after six, and most of the office had cleared out already, but it was no surprise she was one of the few who’d stuck around. He watched as she expertly applied a swipe of bright pink to her luscious bottom lip. By the time she’d finished, he was already starting to get ideas about how he might rub that color off. She didn’t need it anyway. She was a natural beauty. He hadn’t known many, but there was no doubt Olivia was one of them. His cock stirred at the thought of touching her silky skin and he decided that interrupting beat the hell of standing there like a voyeur, given his wayward thoughts. The last thing he needed was for her to find him lurking.

  He knocked on the door lightly to draw her attention.

  “Yes?” she said, pausing her routine for a moment. When she looked up to see him filling her doorway, surprise flashed across her face before she returned to the task at hand. When she was done with the top lip, she swept all of the makeup into her bag and turned her attention to him.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” he offered, shifting his weight and stuffing his hands in his pockets. He was used to seeing women in various stages of undress, but this? Not so much. It was weirdly…intimate.

  “What can I do for you, Cole?”

  She’d used his name, and while her tone wasn’t especially warm, it wasn’t cold either. He’d take it. If he could avoid dangerous subjects, he might just be able to pull this off. He hoped getting her out of the office might help repair the damage to their professional relationship and mend some of the bridges they’d burned without regard. Despite their undeniable chemistry, there were still some hurt feelings lingering between them, and he was determined to make things right, one way or another. Their afternoon meeting had gone all right, if you considered bickering like five-year-olds a success—which he did, given there was no bloodshed—but with the Vixen pitch on their plates, they needed to officially clear the air.

  “I thought perhaps we could grab dinner and go over the details of the Vixen pitch before tomorrow’s meeting with the rest of the team?” he offered. When the idea had originally come to him, he was surprised to realize that having dinner with her, despite all of their bickering, was still appealing. It had been a while since he’d taken a woman to dinner—for business or pleasure.

  “No need to worry,” she responded, crossing her arms. “I’m ready for the meeting.”

  “I’m sure you are, but it will give us a chance to do some top-level brainstorming,” he coaxed, hoping to persuade her. “Besides, even you need to eat.”

  “You’re right. I do need to eat,” she agreed.

  “Perfect. I know a great—”

  “Which is why I made plans,” she finished without a trace of regret. “I have a date, so unfortunately, I’m already booked this evening.”

  “A date?” he asked, unable to the keep irritation from creeping into his voice. He couldn’t believe it. Since when did Olivia go on dates? Weeknight dates, no less. It was counter to everything he knew about her. She wanted to be a partner and she was going out to dinner with some asshole the night before they kicked off the biggest pitch of her life? “Sorry, I’m just a little surprised, given the magnitude of the Vixen account.”

  “Is it a problem?” she asked, leveling her blue eyes at him. A thin smile spread across her lips and he knew he’d stepped in it again. “Last time I checked, business hours were eight to five and I was your top closer.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Like I said, I’m prepared.”

  Damn. He’d done it again. How he always managed to say the wrong thing and put her on the defensive was beyond him. Was he really such a condescending prick? He’d never had so much trouble talking to a woman in all his life. Come to think of it, he’d never had so much trouble understanding one, either.

  Deep down, he knew the Vixen pitch was just an excuse to get her to agree to dinner with him. He’d considered she might say no, was even prepared for it. He’d never considered that she might actually have other plans. Or that those plans might include another man. Not that he was jealous. Cole Bennett didn’t do jealous. Besides, he wasn’t exactly relationship material, so maybe it was best she was moving on. It would certainly simplify things around the office, assuming the sexual attraction between them fizzled out.

  Who was he kidding? It didn’t matter if another guy came sniffing around, he’d still want her. It wasn’t like they needed to be exclusive, anyway. But his desire to devour every inch of Olivia’s delicious body hadn’t faded. If anything, it had grown stronger.

  Being trapped in the same office together five days a week was going to be torture. Everything about her provided temptation, from the long lines of her neck, to the sway of her hips, and even the way she wore her hair pulled up with those black schoolteacher glasses. He’d often wondered if she had any idea she looked like every teenage boy’s fantasy. And given the fact that she suddenly seemed impervious to his charm, the whole situation was one big exercise in frustration.

  “Was there something else?” she asked, slipping into a light coat the same shade of cerulean blue as her eyes.

  He wanted to tell her that the coat brought out the color in her eyes or that she looked beautiful. He wanted to tell her to blow off her date and give him a chance to make things up to her. He even wanted to tell her to have fun and enjoy her night off. She certainly deserved it.

  Instead he said, “Don’t be late tomorrow. We’ve got a big day.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Olivia stabbed a piece of broccoli with her fork and aimlessly pushed it around the edge of her plate. The thin white dish balanced precariously on her knees. One wrong move and she’d be scrubbing soy sauce out of the couch for the rest of her life. Chinese takeout had seemed like such a good idea when she’d called in the order, but now that she was eating it, the food felt more like an oily stone settling in her belly.

  She was too keyed up to eat. What she really needed was a trip to the gym to burn off some nervous energy and exhaust her overactive brain, but that was out of the question.

  If she went to the gym, she’d have to face Chloe, and then Chloe would know she’d nearly had sex with Cole. Again. Chloe had a sense about things like that and Olivia knew there was no way she’d be able to hold out. She would ferret the truth out of her and then she’d never hear the end of it.

  Besides, admitting she’d almost had sex with Cole—again—would make the whole thing more real somehow, and she was perfectly happy basking in the state of denial. Denial was a pretty sweet gig. Denial meant a quiet night curled up in her favorite sweats with a YA romance and a bottle of wine. She hadn’t exactly lied when she’d told Cole she had plans, even if it wasn’t really a date. He didn’t need to know it had been Chloe’s latest attempt to set her up. Or that against her better judgment, she’d agreed to have a drink with Alex, one of Chloe’s friends, in a futile effort to erase the stupid dare from her memory. Or that she’d bailed on that, too, and now sat holed up in her apartment, the picture of sexual frustration.


  “It doesn’t get much better than this,” she reasoned, dumping the still-full plate on the coffee table and grabbing her Kindle. She snuggled down into the worn couch cushions, waiting for the screen to come to life. Her pulse fluttered in anticipation. There was nothing more invigorating than the promise of young love and heart-stopping first kisses.

  Olivia’s book addiction was her one truly guilty pleasure. Some women had shoes, others had jewelry. She had YA lit. Outside of work, reading was the only hobby she consistently made time to indulge. She could skip the gym, bathroom-cleaning, and even a full night’s sleep for a swoon-worthy romance. God knows she wasn’t getting it in real life.

  Well, unless you counted Cole. Which she didn’t. Besides, that wasn’t romance. It was lust. Just sex. Totally meaningless. And totally over. Definitely over. Cole was off limits in a big way. Maybe he could afford to be the playboy boss, but she couldn’t afford to be just another conquest. There was just way too much potential for disaster in that. And he was an asshat, anyway.

  Too bad she couldn’t stop thinking about him. His eyes. His smile. His hands. Oh, God. Those hands!

  “No, no, no!” she groaned. Why was her brain torturing her like this, tempting her with things she could never have? It was masochistic. She had to forget about Cole. As long as she was working for him, they had no future. At least, not one that didn’t involve giving up everything she’d worked so hard for at PBA. And she would be damned before she’d quit.

  One way or another, she was going to get that promotion. All her life, people had been telling her who she was, and what she could and couldn’t do. She hadn’t listened before, and she wasn’t about to start now. Hell, those doubters were half the reason she’d moved to the city in the first place. Their doubt fueled her determination and her drive, and she’d proven them wrong at every turn.

  She wasn’t giving that up. Not for Cole Bennett. Not for anyone. She needed to stick to the plan. It had gotten her this far, hadn’t it? She mindlessly turned the page on her e-reader. Her eyes skimmed over the words, but they didn’t sink in. After rereading the same paragraph three times, she gave up entirely. Although she’d been counting down the days until the release of the last book in the trilogy, her head wasn’t in it tonight. Stellar. Now Cole was screwing with her reading time too.

  Olivia stood and stretched. She grabbed her plate and carried it into the kitchen where she scraped the uneaten and congealed blob of food into the sink. It fell into the stainless steel basin with an unimpressive splat that turned her stomach. She rinsed the plate off and hit the switch for the garbage disposal. While it whirred the blob into oblivion, she refilled her wine glass. She flipped the disposal off and wandered back into the living room, sidestepping a box of books that she’d been meaning to unpack for…two years.

  Two years since she’d beat feet from that crappy walk-up studio in the West Village and she still wasn’t fully unpacked. She’d meant to get a bookshelf some weekend when she wasn’t working. It just hadn’t happened yet. Her gaze travelled the room, taking in the stark white walls and the cardboard boxes tucked in the corner. It was nothing special. It wasn’t even home. Not really. It was just an apartment, a place to sleep and shower when she wasn’t at the office.

  It was also depressing as hell.

  How had she let her life come to this? She sighed. Her childhood on the pageant circuit had taught her that nothing in life came without some sort of string attached. For her, the strings tended to tug on insecurities better left alone. It was so much easier to not connect in the first place. Since she’d moved to the city, she’d done everything she could to push people away, never letting them get too close. She’d been so busy protecting herself and proving her worth she’d become cold and one-dimensional, like a paper doll.

  Tears stung Olivia’s eyes. She blinked them back furiously, refusing to let them fall. The last thing she needed to do was get herself all worked up and add a pounding headache to an already craptastic day. Besides, acknowledging those tears would mean that for the first time since she’d moved to New York, she would have to admit she was lonely.

  …

  “Man, is there anything Vixen hasn’t tried in the last ten years?” Cole asked as he pushed pause on the sexy Vixen commercial blasting from his laptop.

  “No,” Olivia responded quietly, “and that’s the problem. There hasn’t been a lot of focus. McKenzie was all over the place, just throwing crap at the wall to see what stuck.”

  After subjecting himself to every commercial Vixen had ever run, he had to agree with her. He shut off the media player. One more video and he’d reach sensory overload. Whether it was the strobe lights and techno music from the catwalk or the excess of bare skin, he wasn’t sure. Either way, he was a man who knew his limits. And he’d reached them about five minutes ago.

  “Agreed.” He leaned back in his chair and clasped his fingers behind his head. “They’ve diluted the brand, which is an opportunity for us.”

  Olivia didn’t respond. He wondered exactly what she was working on. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet the last half hour or so and her silence was killing him.

  “You still with me?”

  “Huh?” she responded, oblivious to his last question. He watched as she rubbed her thumb to her fingertips. First her right hand, then her left. Then both. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “I was just saying the Vixen brand has been diluted over the years,” he remarked, studying her across the table. “That’s an opportunity for us.”

  “Uh, yeah,” she agreed, nodding slowly. She glanced briefly at the overhead light and rubbed her temple.

  “Are you okay?” He knew better than to tell a woman she didn’t look so good, but something was definitely off. “You seem…distracted?”

  “I’m fine,” she lied unconvincingly, her face twisting in pain. When she placed a hand above her eyes to shield them from the light, he knew it was time to call it quits.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered, closing his laptop and gathering the loose files from the table. “We’re done for the night. It’s getting late and we’re both tired. We’ll start fresh on Monday.”

  “Y—you go ahead,” she said, resting her head against the back of the soft leather chair and closing her eyes. “I just need a minute to finish up here.”

  Bullshit. Sensitivity to light. Throbbing temples. He knew a migraine when he saw one. He strode to the door and dimmed the lights. A tiny sigh of relief slipped from her lips, and his suspicions were confirmed.

  “Do you get migraines often?”

  “Yes. I mean, no.” Olivia moaned, squeezing her eyes shut as tight as humanly possible. “It’s none of your business.”

  He watched her struggling with the pain, feeling uncharacteristically hesitant for a moment before making his decision. He needed to help her, whether she liked it or not. She could barely open her eyes. There was no way she was getting home by herself. Stubborn woman. How long had she felt it coming on and sat there working, too proud to call it an early night?

  “What I meant to ask was, do you have anything to treat it?” he asked quietly. “A prescription, maybe?”

  “It ran out,” she murmured. “Haven’t had time to pick it up.”

  Letting instinct take over, he pulled out his phone and dialed the hotel.

  “Good evening. Thank you for calling—”

  “Hello, James,” he cut in before the concierge could finish his standard spiel. He’d know the guy’s voice anywhere. James was regularly offering his services and checking to see how his stay was going. Personal service seemed to be James’s mission in life, not that he was complaining. “This is Cole Bennett. Listen, I need a favor. Can you have my car brought over to the office immediately?”

  “Of course, Mr. Bennett. I’ll make the call myself.”

  “Thank you. I’ll meet the valet downstairs in five minutes.” Cole disconnected the call and dropped the phone back in his pocket.

  “What a
re you doing?” Olivia muttered.

  “Taking care of you.” He grabbed her laptop and stuffed it into her shoulder bag along with the tablet she’d been scribbling on. He scanned the room for any other personal belongings. “It’s what friends do.”

  “We’re not friends.”

  He gritted his teeth. They could revisit the topic of their friendship later when she was feeling better. Now certainly wasn’t the time. She was getting paler by the minute. “Fine. Then consider it protection of my investment. You’re a valuable asset, but you’re no good to me like this. Besides, there’s no way in hell I’m letting you walk out that door alone when you can’t even open your eyes.”

  “Don’t worry—”

  “Olivia,” Cole started firmly, his mouth pressed into a grim line. “I am driving you home. Please do not argue with me about this. You can walk downstairs yourself or I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you. Your choice.”

  “I’ll walk,” she declared, giving him a defiant scowl.

  He watched as she pulled herself to her feet using the edge of the table. She looked a little unsteady and weak in the knees. Maybe he should have just insisted on carrying her down to the car. It wasn’t too late.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she warned, as if reading his thoughts. He couldn’t help but grin shamelessly. He’d need to work on his poker face. “Can you grab my coat and purse from my office? I’ll meet you at the elevator.”

  He grabbed her things and they rode down to the lobby in silence. Cole ushered her past security with a nod of the head, then out the front door to his waiting car. He tipped the valet and opened the door for Olivia.

  “Nice ride,” she mumbled as he tucked her into the passenger seat of his BMW coupe and fastened the seatbelt across her lap.

  Cole jogged around the back of the car and slid into the driver’s seat next to her, careful to shut his door as gently as possible to avoid causing her any additional discomfort.