by Avery Laval
Used to know, Jenna corrected him mentally. Though she hated to admit it, Grant was right. A strong McCormick presence at this party could be truly beneficial to the company’s reputation, now that he pointed it out. But this event would be full of women like Dianne Framsworth. Frenemies. Would she be able to smile her way through the hurt feelings and strained friendships? And all while keeping her temper—and her attraction—from flaring up around Grant?
Perhaps he saw the bleak look on her face, because his voice lifted, as though he was taking pity on her. “Tell you what,” he said. “Go home, put on one of those fancy dresses you must have closets full of, and I’ll have a car pick you up in two hours. We’ll be fashionably late. That will give you time for at least a little break—a glass of wine, maybe—before it’s back to business.”
Though his words were meant to comfort, they actually struck fear into her heart as a horrible realization struck her. How could she tell him she didn’t have those closets full of fancy dresses anymore? Anything she hadn’t needed in her new, more practical life had been sold, and quickly. She’d consigned every last dress, and the formal shoes, too, boxes upon boxes of beautiful French heels and handmade Italian wedges, more shoes than any reasonable twenty-something should have had in the first place. Of all the frivolous little things she’d owned, she’d kept only a few favorite pairs of shoes, the ones that made her feel so feminine and pampered that she’d been unable to part with them. But a pair of shoes alone wouldn’t get her through this party.
She rolled her lips together, thinking of her current outfit. Even with all the little accessorizing tricks she’d read in magazines, there was no turning her muted navy suit into the kind of spangly cocktail outfit that the event required. Wishing there was any other way out, Jenna tried to find the words to humble herself in front of the last person in the world she’d have know what her life had become.
“Jenna?” Grant spoke her name gently, as if he saw her distress—though logically she knew his ruthless eyes saw nothing but business opportunities, dollar bills, and market domination. His eyebrows were low, and his head tilted just slightly. “Is something wrong?”
Jenna’s head raced. Could she run to one of the pricey downtown shops, find something glamorous, and still have time to hurry home and be ready when the car picked her up without him being any wiser? No. Even if she could have made the mad dash, she’d never let herself waste so much money that way. That would be money already earmarked for bills, rent, and Justin. There had to be another way out of this.
“I just don’t think this is a good idea. I…” Jenna searched for a reasonable excuse. “There’s simply too many people I used to know. People from when my parents were alive. You don’t really want me there. It wouldn’t bode well for the company.” She stammered a little more, ready with ten more silly excuses, anything to get out of this. “And besides, you don’t want all the Dianne Framsworths of the world seeing me with you. What would they say?” Even as the words left her mouth, she heard how frail her excuses sounded.
Grant heard it, too. “I refuse to believe you’re afraid of a few catty socialites. You handled Dianne Framsworth with absolutely no problem earlier, and you’re going to have to face all the rest of them sooner or later if you want to stay in this industry.”
That was true, much as she hated to think it. “But what about how I would reflect on McCormick Jewels? With my reputation?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders dismissively. “Actually, I think it’s comforting to the old guard to have a McCormick back on the team. The company that takes care of its own, and all that.”
At that, a new wave of irritation flushed through Jenna’s veins. Grant had done nothing to take care of her—or perhaps more to the point, her brother—since her parents had died. But she bit her tongue and pictured Justin’s face in her head, smiling at her and giving her the thumbs up. “You can do it, J,” she imagined him saying, and it bolstered her. She could get through this. She had to.
Grant lowered his gaze back to his paperwork, as if she weren’t standing there anymore. “So it’s settled. I feel the stock price going up already,” he murmured, his lips curling upwards. Just the slightest smile, but it reached his eyes and made little creases at their edges to dazzling effect. As much as she resented him, as trapped as she felt, even the smallest smile on the man’s face affected her. Jenna groaned inwardly at herself. A chasm was opening inside her, between what she wanted from Grant Blakely and what she needed.
“I can’t go,” she finally said. Only honesty would settle this—and have the pleasant side effect of getting her away from this heady, dizzying spin of attraction. “This is ridiculous, and you’re the last person on earth I would like to explain this to, but I can’t go because I have nothing to wear. I’ve sold every last bit of clothing from my old life. It’s all gone. I’ve got a few suits like this one, and clothes to work out in. But nothing even remotely appropriate for a formal party. I can hardly show up in a old T-shirt and beat-up sneaks.”
She didn’t know what to expect from her revelation. Mocking, maybe? But instead, Grant’s laugh was warm. “That’s it?” He shook his head, incredulous. “The only thing keeping you from this party, full of snakes and vipers and socialites with a bounty on your head, is a wardrobe issue?” He looked over towards the picture windows and spoke more to himself than her. “You’re either courageous as hell or you’re an idiot, Jenna McCormick.”
Jenna smiled, warming to him again despite herself. “Maybe a little of both.”
“Well. In that case,” he said, and paused to think for a moment. “As much as it pains me to admit this, you’re doing good work. So far. You’ve been an asset here, and I don’t mind making investments in my best assets. If you can handle the mean girls, I can handle the clothes,” he said. “I haven’t been featured on TMZ with every clotheshorse in Las Vegas without learning where they shop. Grab your things and meet me down in the executive parking area in ten minutes. We’ll take my car.”
The moment Jenna rushed out of his office, Grant cursed himself. If it hadn’t been for Jenna McCormick, he would have spent the next hour or so poring over profit-and-loss statements for a few designs that weren’t selling the way they should. There would have been time for a quick order in from Sapphire Thai and time to don the pressed tuxedo that hung on the back of his office door at all times, and then he’d be off to the party. Now he was setting his business aside, and for what? To take the heiress shopping.
For the life of him, he wished he could understand why he was putting himself out for a woman who might actually be trying to seduce him out of what was rightfully his.
It was those lips, he decided. He could resist the glisten in her eyes when she put up a fight, the little furrow in her forehead when she tried to come up with one paltry excuse after another to get out of this event tonight.
But when those lips started to roll together, press down on each other, and at last when, in a fit of stubborn consternation, the lower one would jut out ever so slightly—that was when she had him on his knees. That lower lip cried out to be nibbled on, begged to be sucked on lightly, and then taken into a hard kiss. A kiss that would promise much more.
He shook his head fiercely enough to rattle his brain, then stripped to his shorts and pulled on a fresh shirt and his well-tailored tuxedo. It was important—vital—that he resist what he felt for Jenna, no matter how tempted he may be. He was moved, despite himself, to hear of her change in circumstances. He knew her fortunes had shifted. But that she’d had to sell everything? Drop out of her social circle entirely? That came as a complete surprise. It softened him. It made him want to know the new Jenna McCormick. To let her know him.
But long before he’d even met her, he’d learned that letting himself be vulnerable to anyone, even the people he was supposed to trust, was a recipe for disaster. To be vulnerable to her, a woman whose motives were so cloudy to him, could mean catastrophe.
He reminded himse
lf of this again and again as he drove her to the Galleria. What had been a sizzle of attraction in the cold impersonal space of his office seemed more intense in the close air of his Lexus, and they both fell silent. Grant kept his eyes straight ahead on the road and brought his thoughts back to work, and in what felt like minutes, they were in the underground parking lot of the shopping center.
Once inside the luxe, glass-roofed building pumped full of cool air and the sounds of a live pianist, he made a beeline for the shop he’d had in mind all along. After all, he knew the owner.
Rachel Colson was working in her store, acting not at all surprised to see him, and she probably wasn’t. He remembered well that nothing surprised her; she’d been unflappable when they’d been lovers. Perhaps that had been part of her appeal. Nothing he did, whether he called her or didn’t, dropped by unexpectedly or dropped off the face of the earth, seemed to ruffle her. She’d expected nothing of him, asked for nothing in return. In a way, maybe that had been the reason he’d felt it so easy to drift away permanently over time.
She welcomed him and Jenna into the store with air kisses, saying only that she’d missed seeing Jenna around the Galleria, inquiring no further into the reason for her absence. A expert in tact. Then she gave them free rein of her inventory, a showroom full of silky, slinky clothing that dripped off the hangers, plus the occasional piece of glitz.
“Well, Jenna,” Grant spoke as he watched her take it all in, again cursing whatever instinct had brought him to this place. “Do you think you can find anything in here to suit?”
Jenna looked brightly from rack to rack, running her fingers down the front of a gray silk dress that seemed to be hovering near the hanger, rather than hanging off of it. “I do indeed. As you seem to understand, Rachel has always had an amazing eye. In fact, I’ll bet you think her taste is impeccable.”
Grant let himself laugh at her insightful joke in spite of himself. “Maybe I do.” Then abruptly, he sobered, remembering himself. “In any case, get on with it. I don’t have all day.”
Jenna shook her head, smiling widely as though she hadn’t noticed his sudden shift in mood. “I won’t take but a moment. You just stand back and watch the magic happen.”
Grant narrowed his eyes at that, but sequestered himself in the corner of the store, finding a plush overstuffed chaise away from the action and wishing he hadn’t noticed the openness of her bright smile, the sparkle in her eyes when she’d teased him. While he ticked off emails on his iPhone, Jenna flitted back and forth, moving in what looked like a random pattern, somehow covering each inch of merchandise, touching each dress. Some she would take out and hold up to her chest, tilting her head in the mirror as though she could see through it to herself at the party, standing in a room full of socialites, perfectly balancing a tiny purse and a glass of champagne. At times she’d frown, put the dress in question back on the rack; other times she’d spin about a little and move the dress into the fitting room.
He didn’t know how much time passed as she assembled her collection of garments—time, he reminded himself, that would have been better spent truly focused on work—but she wasn’t in the fitting room very long before she clapped her hands together and announced, “Time for the fashion show!”
Outwardly, Grant grimaced. But the truth was, the obvious delight in her voice was infecting him. He couldn’t help it. Put her in a room full of beautiful things and she lost herself in the fun of it all. He was charmed in spite of himself, but that sweet emotion was quickly replaced by something more intense. Because at that moment, she stepped out from behind the little white curtain of the fitting room, announced “Ta-da!” and did a twirl. And she took his breath away.
Gone were the boxy jacket, the prim camisole, and the sensible skirt. In their place, a dark silvery sheath, lined with navy sequins along the low scoop neck, framed her décolletage just enough to make him want to push the dress down and see more. He looked closer, saw the sequins marching in neat rows horizontally over the entire dress, giving the impression of subtle stripes. He wanted to run his hands over it. Push it up, down, every which way to get to the woman underneath.
The waist nipped in, then relaxed and fell straight and ended above her knees in another row of navy sequins, and then it was nothing but bare legs, long and lean and ending in naked toes, and those damned pink toenails, crying out to him, like little hard candies spilled across the floor. He looked away from her, tried to shake the image, looked back, and was hit hard all over again. “Huh,” he said at last.
“You like?” she said, obviously knowing perfectly well that he did. She did another spin, like she was a girl playing dress-up. Like she didn’t have a care in the world.
“It’ll do,” he said, as gruffly as he could muster.
“It will, won’t it?” Her voice had a musical lilt to it he hadn’t heard in the office. “Well, then, perfect. We’re done and dusted. Grant, I can’t thank you enough for this.”
Grant ignored her thanks with a dismissive wave as he struggled to regain control over his thoughts. Think of why you’re here—why she’s here, he reminded himself. The thought made him look at his watch, and he was shocked to see just how much time had passed. They’d have to rush to make a respectable appearance at the reception.
Quickly, he called for Rachel and paid her for the dress, ignoring Jenna’s insistence that she’d pay him back as soon as she could—as if he cared about the money. Rachel brought out a pair of navy satin heels, slid them on her—a perfect fit on the first try—and added them to the bill with a wink. “You don’t mind, do you, Grant? They look much cuter than the office heels she had on.”
Grant shook his head slowly side to side, agreeing even if he didn’t exactly understand why shoes changed from day to night in a woman’s mind. “She looks perfect,” he said quietly, more to himself than to Rachel. Yards away, Jenna heard not a thing, too busy grinning in the mirror with that tilt of her head, turning sideways, then forward again, then to the other side.
She floated back to the car in a streak of navy and silver sparkles. When she was strapped in, he pulled out a small velvet box from his suit jacket. “Put these on, if you’d like.”
“What—” As she started to speak, he opened the box and revealed a pair of gorgeous blue-diamond earrings, a half-carat each, enough to give her ears as much sparkle as her body now flaunted. “Ohhh,” was all that came out of her mouth, more a sigh than a word. Finally, she said, “They’re beautiful. Are they the prototypes from Series 2?”
Against his better judgment, Grant smiled to himself. He couldn’t help it. “How did you know?”
“I’ve been studying the lines in development over my lunches,” she said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “Thank you. They’re absolutely gorgeous.”
“They’re prototypes, the only ones of their kind,” he said abruptly. He’d pulled them from his desk on the way out, thinking she’d be the perfect person to show off the new design at the reception. And, yes, he admitted to himself, he’d hoped they’d throw her off-kilter, make her think he was falling under the spell that was her obvious intention to cast.
He’d do anything to maintain the upper hand.
He saw on her baffled face that he had succeeded. Leaning in close, he fastened one, then the other onto her ears, feeling her hot breath on his arms as he did. Then he pushed her hair back, away from her neck, so she could see the gems in the sunshield mirror. “Well?” he asked, watching her gaze get softer, warmer. Suddenly, impatience for the party bubbled up in him. He needed the eyes of Las Vegas society upon him. Here, in the privacy of his car, there was too much temptation to just lean over and drop a stream of kisses down her neck. And then to push up the hem of the skirt, slide his hand up, up, find her panties and hook his fingers underneath…
“Thank you, Grant,” she said, interrupting his traitorous thoughts. “I am finding you quite thoughtful tonight.” Then, after a pause, she added quietly, “Maybe you’re not the
sort of boss I thought you’d be.”
No, definitely not. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Now let me see those earrings.”
“What do you think?” She turned her face to him, locked eyes for a moment, then tilted her head upward and batted her eyes like a screen siren, as if to give him the best vantage of her new earrings. He looked hard and long at that face, at the angle of her little narrow chin, the bend of her lips, the tiny space between them like a little gasp of pleasure.
“Beautiful,” he said at last, kicking himself. He hadn’t noticed the earrings at all.
5
The reception was dizzying. Jenna wasn’t even the slightest bit overdressed, her sequined sheath losing itself in a sea of beads and pearls the moment she walked through the doors of the elegantly appointed hotel ballroom. And the diamonds! Everywhere she turned, women’s necks dripped with jewelry, and though it was shallow, she knew, Jenna found some fortification in her one-of-a-kind borrowed blue diamond earrings. It was almost as if Grant had known she’d need that little boost when he’d somehow materialized them in the car.
If that was the case, it worked. The crowd had been full of whispers from the moment she and Grant walked in together, but somehow the attention hadn’t bothered her as much as she’d feared. What was frightening her now was the unmistakable chemistry that was sizzling between them—clearly in danger of catching fire.
And for a moment, didn’t she wish she could give in to that chemistry? Because though she knew he was the same man who had set her up for failure when her father and mother had died, he seemed different, too. More commanding. He wasn’t just building a business anymore—he was a full-on mogul. Beyond the jewelry company, he owned real estate holdings worth millions, majority stock in several high-flying companies, and, she’d read on The Dirty, the very suite in the Bellagio that she’d once called home. He might have been the most successful man in this room full of very successful men. And he was without question the most attractive.
