My Sexiest Mistake

by Kristin Hardy

  Ridiculous to feel guilty over it, she thought, pushing down a twinge of conscience. “That’s what you get for lying to people.”

  “That’s what you get for jumping to conclusions,” he countered. Restlessly he got up to stare out the window, then turned back to face her.

  “You could have set me straight at any time,” she said hotly. “It wouldn’t have been that hard.”

  It was Cade’s turn for a pang on conscience, but the memory of his aching shoulders was an effective antidote. “Oh yes, but it was so delightful letting you go on being confused. And while we’re at it, let’s talk about this lying thing. I believe you said you were a writer? Odd that your card says curriculum manager. What was the Copley, a little fantasy role playing?”

  Ryan flushed. “I am a writer, in my spare time. I do this to pay the bills.”

  “Not to mention your stud fees.”

  “I told you I’d never done that before.”

  His eyes taunted her. “Sure seemed to me like you knew what you were doing.”

  She couldn’t block the memory of his mouth burning into her breasts, his hands touching her everywhere. Ryan felt herself reddening. “This is not going to work, I’ll tell you right now.”

  His expression closed as the dealmaker came back into sharp focus. “That’s not an option—we’ve got a contract. We need what you know to make this project work.”

  “Fine,” Ryan snapped. “All right, then, here’s your option. You want to work together, we’ll work together. I’ve got this thing for staying employed.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “It’s going to work one way, and one way only, and that’s if we’re both professionals about it. That means we set some ground rules.”

  “We?”

  “Me. You’re the one insisting we work together. That means I get to make the rules.”

  “You know, I’m starting to wonder if you aren’t a dominatrix at heart after all.” His smile was mocking.

  “Stop it,” she snapped. “I’d never done that before in my life.”

  “Really? You did it very well, all things considered.” An edge crept into his voice. “It took me half an hour to get those knots untied.”

  “Are you going to cooperate on this or do I walk out and find a new job?”

  “By all means, Mistress Ryan, tell me the rules.”

  Ryan glared at him. “Rule one, the Copley Plaza Hotel never happened.”

  “And the Beacon Hill Hotel,” he cut in, a steely undertone in his voice.

  “Fine. We met each other for the first time today.” She stared at him as he leaned back lazily in his chair. “Rule two, no more innuendo, no more infantile games of one-upmanship. We work together like professionals and we focus on what’s best for the project. Rule three, we deal with each other no more than necessary, over the phone whenever possible.”

  Cade rose to walk along the bookshelves that lined her wall, reading titles and picking up a framed photo of her with Becka. “When was this taken?”

  “At my twenty-fifth birthday party. Stop changing the subject. Rule four—”

  “Oh, there’s a rule four, also?”

  Impatience flared in her eyes. “Rule four. Hands off. Nothing physical. It’s going to be hard enough to get things done without any hijinks going on.”

  Cade gave her a stare of amused disbelief. “Hijinks? Have you suddenly become a repressed schoolmarm overnight?”

  She flushed. “Stop it.”

  “So let’s see. Rule one, selective amnesia. Rule two, no talking. Rule three, stay away,” he ticked them off on his fingers as he spoke, walking toward her desk. “And rule four, no, uh, what was it again?” He looked to her inquiringly.

  “Hijinks,” she muttered, her face flaming.

  A corner of his mouth quirked. “Exactly.” He stepped toward her chair and Ryan raised her chin to hold his gaze. “You know, anyone hearing this would think you didn’t like me. But then, they wouldn’t have been around at the Copley, would they?” She moved to rise but he dropped his hands swiftly onto the arm rests, pinning her neatly in place and leaning in close to her. “Do you really think you can do that, put the genie back in the bottle? Do you really think it’s as easy as that?” His eyes mocked her. “You can set up all the rules you want. I think you’re going to be in for a surprise, Ms. Donnelly.”

  She could smell the scent of his skin, feel the heat radiating from his body. He brought his mouth to within a hair’s breadth of hers. The memory of his hands on her body was so vivid that she could feel them, could imagine him up against her naked, his weight atop her. Ryan licked her lips as her heart thudded. “This…this is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about,” she managed.

  “We might be working together, but you know what we’re both going to be thinking about. Because however much I’ve ticked you off and you’ve ticked me off, we were good together. And it’s going to take a whole lot more than a bunch of rules to make that go away.”

  Her lips trembled, then parted until their breath mixed. Ridiculous to let a man make her feel like this.

  Ridiculous to give up the chance of feeling it again.

  Dark and turbulent, his eyes bored into hers. Then he abruptly released her, and turned to leave. “That’s the reality, so deal with it,” he said, opening the door. “I’ll call you.”

  And left her sitting in a silent office with a bloodstream full of adrenaline.

  8

  “OKAY, LET’S SPLIT UP IN pairs and try out the scripts for dealing with the twelve types of trouble employees.” Ryan looked out across the rows of tables filling Meeting Room E in the suburban Boston Ramada Inn and forced enthusiasm into her voice. “One person plays the supervisor and one person plays the employee. We’ll practice a bit, then break for lunch.”

  Ryan wondered what they’d say if she told them that each of the twelve types of problem employees was represented in this room to some degree. Then again, there were times that she felt like she embodied a few of the types herself—the clock-watcher, the dreamer, the early retiree. Not the prima donna, though. She was always the one to pitch in and get the job done. Sighing, she stacked up her morning notes and hoped devoutly that at that very second, her editor Elaine was reading the manuscript she’d sent to her. Until she got the phone call, though, she’d better pay attention to her job.The first problem pair was easy to spot. “How’s it going here?” Ryan drifted to a stop by a pale, rabbity-looking woman named Fran, catching the look of distress in her eyes.

  Fran gulped, blinking rapidly. “Well, I’m trying to use your trouble talk script, but every time I start to talk she cuts me off.”

  The source of her distress was obvious—a formidable Type A brunette named Gloria. “I’m just trying to be the defensive employee,” Gloria threw in—defensively. “It’s what you told us to do.”

  “Okay, Fran, this is good practice for the real thing. Remember how we talked about comfort zones? This is where you move out of your comfort zone and try something different. Just trust the script. We’ve tested them in lots of situations.”

  “I just don’t think I could say those things to my trouble employee. I’m not…” she leaned forward as though confiding a secret. “I’m not very assertive. It’s hard for me to—” A boisterous whoop at the back of the room cut her off and had Ryan snapping her head around and frowning.

  Every three or four months she ran across a student who was difficult to deal with. She focused on the back of the room where the pair she’d mentally cataloged as perennial frat boys scuffled with each other. Beefy and boisterous, they’d come in together, making it very clear that they had no use for the lessons she was trying to teach. God only knew why anyone thought they were management material. They couldn’t even manage themselves.

  Ryan checked her watch and raised her voice. “Okay everyone, looks like it’s time for lunch. Let’s meet back here at one-thirty.” She stepped over to the pair as the other students began filing out. “You know, Brad,
” she said, reading the name off of the bright sticker on the ringleader’s shirt front, “when I encouraged you guys to ad-lib on the scripts, I wasn’t talking about channeling the Three Stooges.”

  Brad looked up from where he had his partner in a head-lock. “I think I’ve got the coping strategies down, Teach.” He gave a Neanderthal laugh as he released his friend.

  “Impressive moves. I can see you’ve learned a lot from watching all those Friday night wrestling shows,” she said dryly. “Now, I’d appreciate it and I’m sure the other students would appreciate it if you’d give it a rest. Not to mention Joe, here.”

  Joe scowled and rubbed his neck. “Hey, I’ll see you at lunch, man,” he said, walking out of the room.

  Ryan waited until he hit the hallway and turned back to Brad. “Cut the junior high stuff,” she said flatly.

  Brad stared down at her petulantly. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-four or twenty-five. “I don’t see what good this class is going to do us. If someone reporting to me got out of line, I’d kick butt and take names, simple as that.”

  “Which doesn’t work in 80% of cases. Not a terribly effective strategy.” She shook her head in disgust. “Why are you in this class, Brad?”

  “My boss told me to come.” His gaze dropped to focus on her clavicles. Or points further south.

  Ryan fought off an urge to cross her arms in front of her. “Gee, did it ever occur to you that maybe your attitude toward reports is the reason your boss signed you up for this program?” When he kept looking down, annoyance got the best of her. “Hey Brad? I’m up here.”

  At least he had the grace to look a little abashed. “Ah, Dad’s not even letting me manage anyone yet. He says I’m not ready.”

  “Well, whether or not you’re managing now, he’s footing the bill for this course and I’m sure he’ll expect you to come away with something.”

  “I’d like to come away with something too, like maybe your phone number.” Brad eyed her like she was a piece of meat. “What do you say we go out for a drink after this is over? We can talk about prima donnas.”

  Somehow he’d maneuvered her so she was between him and the display table of books and videos at the back of the room. How was it that creeps like him always knew the way to rattle her? She’d never dated enough to know how to deal with these kinds of unwanted passes—they just left her feeling vulnerable and powerless.

  “So how about it, Teach?” Taking her silence for consent—or surrender—he reached up to toy with the silver pendant that hung at her neck. She flinched, heart hammering with a surge of adrenaline. Behind her, the table was a solid barrier. “How about we make a trade. I’ll clean up my attitude and maybe you can show me a thing or two in private.”

  “How about you take your hand away before it gets taken off at the wrist,” a voice behind her suggested evenly. Ryan whirled to see Cade Douglas staring at Brad with an icy, implacable gaze.

  Ryan jumped. So did Brad. “Oh, uh, hey man, I was just fooling around.” He put up both hands and backed away.

  Relief warring with alarm, Ryan watched Cade’s eyes. They didn’t waver. Somehow the ice was more unsettling than anger would have been. Under the frost was a very real menace, especially since he topped Brad by about four inches.

  “I think you need to apologize to Ms. Donnelly.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Brad’s eyes skated away from hers. “I’m sorry. We’ll, uh, keep it down this afternoon. I gotta go find Joe.” He grabbed his cell phone and bolted out of the room.

  Ryan turned to watch him go. Suppressing the surge of relief she felt, she swung back to Cade, who was impeccably dressed as usual in a blue-gray double-breasted suit. “I didn’t know you specialized in intimidation. Did you moonlight as a bouncer when you were in college?”

  Cade ignored the jab. “Are you okay? You look a little shaken.”

  “I’m fine,” Ryan said, too quickly. In the aftermath of the adrenaline surge, the shakes were settling in. “I was handling it. It would have been nice if you’d left me to deal with things in my own way.” Now that relief was ebbing, she was starting to feel annoyed at his high-handedness.

  “That jackass was pawing you. And you didn’t look like you were handling it at all.” He didn’t blame the idiot for trying. Dressed in a vivid violet suit with her glossy dark hair caught up in a clip to flow down her back, she was a shiny gem in the drab hotel meeting room.

  “Touching my necklace is hardly pawing.” All the same, her skin crawled a bit at the memory. “It’s no big deal. He and his buddy were causing a problem and I was calling him on it. He was just trying to mess with me.”

  “It was out of line.” She might insist she was fine, but she’d been obviously upset by the incident. And he was surprised at just how much that bothered him.

  “It happens, Cade. I teach five or six thousand students a year. Sooner or later one of them pushes the limits of good behavior.” She moved to step past him, away from the table. Somehow, being in open space made her feel less on edge. “It doesn’t do Beckman Markham any good to have you intimidating students so they give negative feedback to their colleagues. We always have to think about referrals. Thanks to you, we’ve just lost one.” It was easier, far easier, to be irritated than to admit that she still felt shaky, and that being protected by him had felt good.

  “I can’t imagine that one was going to bring you a lot of business.”

  Ryan shook her head as though she’d been doused with cold water. “What are you doing here? Why are we having this conversation? Did you come all the way over here to terrorize my students, or was this just passing coincidence?”

  “I’d say Brad hasn’t had enough terrorizing in his past or he wouldn’t be such a pinhead.”

  “I come across his kind periodically. I can deal with them.”

  “That’s fine,” he said coolly. “I just don’t like seeing my assets rattled.”

  “Your assets?” Her voice rose on the last word.

  “Sure. We need you for this project. Like it or not, you’re part of the deal.”

  “You want to know what you can do with your deal, Douglas?” she asked ominously.

  “Careful, darlin’. Remember, Beckman Markham and eTrain have a contract.” And the two of them had personal business to settle, as well. He wasn’t about to forget about that.

  Ryan forced herself to take a breath and calm down. “All right, fine. What do you want?”

  He picked up one of the books for sale on the table and looked at the back cover. “I got sick of playing phone tag.” He glanced up at her. “Mona sent me your schedule. I had a meeting out this way, so I figured I’d drop by.”

  “So great, you’ve found me. What do you want?”

  “A couple of things. I want to talk about curriculum, but I figure it’s also a good opportunity to see what works in the classroom.”

  “Not to mention terrorize my students.”

  “Terrorizing the jackass was a bonus.”

  She refused to be amused, Ryan thought stubbornly. She was practical enough to accept the inevitable, though. “I don’t have much time, but if you want to talk over lunch, we can.”

  Cade nodded. “Good. Maybe I’ll get a chance to give the eye of terror to young Brad.” He spoke lightly, but he’d surprised himself. He didn’t often get annoyed, certainly nothing like the blinding burst of anger he’d felt when he’d walked into the room and seen the young thug with his hand on her, seen her face pale and set. There was something hidden there. Not his problem, he told himself, even as his mind worried at it. Certainly Ryan wouldn’t let him into her business. She’d be the first to tell him to take a hike. Perversely, something about that just gave him the urge to get in her way. Of course, there was also that elusive scent she wore, the one that whispered to him of black lace and sex in candlelit hotel rooms.

  The hotel restaurant was doing a brisk business in sandwiches and burgers, harried waitresses trotting back and f
orth at a brisk clip. Ryan and Cade slid into a booth. “We haven’t got a lot of time so we might as well get started,” she said quickly, impersonally, pulling out her planner. “What do you need?”

  The neckline of her cream blouse threw soft shadows on the fragile skin just above her breasts. He couldn’t keep himself from watching her mouth and remembering the feel of her hands on his body. With a mental curse, he forced his mind back to the discussion at hand. He’d stopped letting his glands run his life years ago. “We want to set up a four-stage rollout. Stage one will be basic general courses, stage two will be basic technical courses, and stages three and four will be advanced versions of each category.”

  “I can break down our offerings according to those categories,” Ryan said, making a note.

  “What can I get you two?” A blowsy blonde stood at their table with a notepad. Ryan ordered, then checked her watch as the waitress hustled away.

  “Problem?” Cade asked.

  “I just need to keep an eye on the time. I like to be in the meeting room ten or fifteen minutes before we get started in case anyone has questions for me.” She glanced at her notes, then looked up at him again. “Are you really planning to sit in on the afternoon session?”

  His slow smile was a taunt. “Why, is it going to distract you?”

  “Of course not. I just don’t want your being there to disrupt the class.”

  “I don’t know, it might actually help keep your friend in line,” Cade said reflectively, glancing over toward Brad, who was eyeing him uneasily from across the room.

  “Yes, well, I think you have him sufficiently in hand. Let’s get back to business. What are you looking for from me? You could have handled this over the phone.”

  Cade shrugged. “Like I said, it was convenient, and we need to cover this ground. The online environment’s very different from the classroom. We need to know the key elements of each class, what parts are self-explanatory and what parts you juice up in your presentation. We’ll use that to power our online teaching assistant.” He rubbed his chin. “We’ve got this little electronic blob that pops up with helpful hints during each lesson.”