When She's Bad

by Leanne Banks

  Whoa! He inhaled and caught a draft of a scent that reminded him of the sweetest tease. So this was Lori Jean Granger in the flesh. She looked and smelled good enough to eat. He could see why those doddering old fools would be falling all over themselves. But he wasn’t a doddering old fool. Her skin looked like cream, her lips a deep pink rosebud currently set in a moue of unhappiness, her blonde hair hung just past her shoulders like a silk curtain. Her white cotton dress with tiny red dots skimmed over breasts that reminded him of ripe peaches and down over the feminine curves of her waist and hips to just above her knees. She wore red high heels, the kind of heels that could give a man wicked fantasies. They were the kind of shoes a man wanted to see a woman wear when she wore nothing else.

  Jackson pulled his brain out of its death spiral headed straight for his crotch and hardened his heart before another part of him turned hard. He met her gaze and extended his hand. “I’m Jackson James. I’ve been assigned to handle your account. Mr. Till has retired.”

  She frowned. “I didn’t realize.”

  Jackson nodded. “It was a surprise to a lot of people.” But not to the partners, since Mr. Till had royally screwed up.

  She shot him a troubled glance. “Oh, well, would you like some whiskey?”

  She looked as if she could use it. He shook his head. “I don’t drink on the job.”

  “Oh, that makes sense.” She glanced around and set the drink down on a table and turned back to him. “Mr. James, then.” She shifted the dog to the other arm and shook his hand. “I’m Lori Jean. It was kind of you to make a house call. I do need to arrange for some additional funds.”

  “We should discuss the status of your trust. You’ve talked to your attorney?” he asked.

  She gestured toward a chair. “Please have a seat. Yes, I talked with Clarence. He said something about the possibility of a more recent will.”

  “That’s right,” Jackson said, wondering if she was truly in the dark or if she was acting. It didn’t matter, he thought as he opened his briefcase and pulled out three fat files. He was about ready to turn on the light. “A more recent will has been found and your father stipulated that half of the trust will be given to you when you’re thirty and the other half when you reach fifty-five. Until then, you’ll be given a sizeable annual allowance. Unfortunately, you’re twenty-four years old and you have spent your allowance through your twenty-eighth birthday. Some adjustments will have to be made in your spending.”

  She blinked at him. “Are you sure? I probably spend too much on clothes, but most of my money goes to charitable foundations.” She lifted her shoulders and smiled. “I’m a philanthropist. Tilly always found a way to squeeze some money out of the trust for me.”

  That was why Tilly had retired. Tilly had skated a fine line of getting the firm in trouble over how much he had allowed the Granger babe to get her well-manicured fingers on.

  “Mr. Till didn’t have the information regarding the final will.”

  “So are you saying that my father left me all this money, but I can’t touch it even for a good cause?”

  “Exactly. You may live in the house and you will be taken care of, but there is a limit to the amount you are allowed to spend.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed and she absently stroked her dog. “But what if it’s for charity?”

  “There is still a limit.”

  She gave a sigh of impatience. “But this is what I do. I’m a philanthropist. I fund worthy causes.”

  “Not when you don’t have the funds.”

  “What am I supposed to do until I turn thirty?” she demanded.

  “You still have two years worth of allowance. If you budget your money—”

  “Budget!” she echoed. “My father had so much money he couldn’t spend it fast enough. I can’t spend it fast enough.”

  “You’ve made an impressive start,” Jackson muttered.

  “Budget,” she said again. “I can’t believe this.”

  “I can help you. That’s why I’m here.” It hadn’t taken long for Jackson to figure out exactly what his job was and why he had been chosen. His job was to say no to Lori Jean Granger because no one else could. His job was to teach the woman some real world restraint, and the reason he had been chosen was because his bosses knew that when it came to heiresses who spent money with the same ease most people sent water down the drain, Jackson had no heart at all.

  Lori didn’t like this accountant. She frowned, as she watched his face, all stern lines and no nonsense scowls. She wanted a different one. She wanted sweet, old Tilly back. Tilly had chastised her about her donations, but after a double shot of whiskey, he’d always found a way to loosen the purse strings.

  The attorney, Clarence, had left her several messages, but Lori had been away visiting one of her sisters and her brother in Philadelphia. Ever since Harlan died, she’d been trying to fill up the empty space inside her, but so far, nothing had worked. Being with her sister Katie and her family had helped a little, but Lori felt useless unless she was helping to fund her charities.

  She had felt useless since her horrible horseback riding accident in college several years ago. She’d nearly died and it had taken three surgeries and months of rehabilitation to put her back together again. Riding had been the passion of her life and she hadn’t ridden a horse since. First, her father had forbidden it. Now, without him, she was too frightened. Scaredy cat is what her sister Delilah would have called her and Delilah would have been right.

  Lori bit her lip and felt the beginning of an unwelcome, but familiar edgy sensation. Of her four siblings, she’d gotten lucky with the sperm donor. She’d won the lottery when it came to fathers. Her father had not only loved and adored her, he’d also been loaded. The only thing he’d requested in trade for his devotion and riches was that she leave her mother, half-sisters and half-brother behind. She’d been willing to hide her contact with her half-sisters and brother until the accident. After that, she just couldn’t hide her desire to connect with them anymore, and she feared that was what had broken Harlan’s heart.

  She’d felt guilty most of her life. Guilty for having a wealthy father. Guilty for having siblings he didn’t approve of.

  The nasty, edgy feeling built inside her so that she couldn’t sit still. “There must be some way,” she ventured. “Some creative accounting way—”

  “Creative accountants and their clients often end up in prison.”

  Lori glanced at him again. She was surprised they’d sent someone so young. He didn’t seem the least bit affected by her appearance. She wondered if he was gay. He didn’t look gay. Except for his suit, he didn’t look like an accountant either. He was tall with broad shoulders. His nose looked as if it had been broken, but he wasn’t ugly. He wasn’t handsome either. Strong jaw, she noticed. She had the unfun sense that he would be stubborn.

  “There’s got to be a way around this,” she said.

  He placed a file of papers on the coffee table. “I’m leaving you with a copy of the will and the amount of the allowance you’re due for the next six years. We can meet again tomorrow,” he said, then paused. “Provided you don’t start any new charitable foundations or go on any shopping sprees.”

  She frowned at his dry tone. “I don’t like your attitude, Mr. James. I’m not sure I want to work with you. Perhaps I should call Mr. Hollingsworth about working with someone else.”

  “Good luck,” Mr. James said in a confident tone that grated on her.

  “Why good luck?” she demanded.

  “Because everyone else said no to the job. I’m the only sap they could talk into taking you on. They’re all afraid you’ll turn them into mush and send their careers down the toilet.”

  “I’m not that difficult to work with! I’m not rude or arrogant or—”

  “No. You just come across as so sweet and helpless that you make men feel like they have to take care of you. They want to give you everything you ask for, everything you wish for.”

&
nbsp; She didn’t like the image he was painting of her. She didn’t like it at all. “I’m not helpless.”

  He cracked a half-smile that didn’t reach his piercing eyes. “Here’s your chance to prove it.”

  THE EDITOR’S DIARY

  Dear Reader,

  Whether it’s a matter of knowing when to be bad, or knowing when to trust, both of these elements can play a hand in bringing two people together. As Delilah Montague and Carly Martin will discover in our Warner Forever titles this November.

  Janet Evanovich exclaims, “When life gets tough, read a book by Leanne Banks.” Nothing could be truer than while reading Leanne Banks’s WHEN SHE’S BAD. Delilah Montague is a self-made woman who manages an exclusive spa in Houston, TX. She garners a bad girl reputation due to her supposed establishment by a married tycoon, though they were never romantically involved. Delilah uses her bad rep to keep people at a distance. She is one tough cookie who likes to be in control and live a quiet life … until a certain brainy stud moves in next door. Benjamin Huntington begins upsetting her calm existence by renovating in the middle of the night and playing opera music. But her world is about to be turned completely upside-down when a baby appears on her doorstep … and Delilah may need a little help from her handsome neighbor and Cupid!

  Going from sizzling guy-next-door to brooding alpha male, we offer TRUST ME by Melanie Craft, a wonderful new voice in contemporary romance. Veterinarian Carly Martin has a soft touch for stray animals and vulnerable men, so she is shocked when a stranger barges into her clinic one day and accuses her of being a gold digger. The stranger is Max Giordano, the illegitimate grandson of an eccentric millionaire, whose menagerie of animals is under Carly’s care. With his grandfather on his deathbed, Max has to inform Carly that she will inherit the Tremayne mansion and the animals. At first, Max is suspicious of her, only he begins to see she’s a guileless and gentle person that he is rapidly falling for. Now if he can just get Carly to trust him after getting things off to such a bad start …

  To find out more about Warner Forever, these November titles, and the authors, visit us at www.warnerforever.com.

  With warmest wishes,

  Karen Kosztolnyik, Senior Editor

  P.S. With the holidays approaching, Warner Forever presents two titles that are perfect gifts—and perfect indulgences! Lori Wilde pens a fun-filled tale about a female private eye helping her drop-dead gorgeous client dodge bullets and goons on their tail when they end up creating sparks that could ignite Las Vegas in LICENSE TO THRILL; and Edie Claire makes her mainstream romance debut in LONG TIME COMING, a captivating novel about a young woman who returns to her hometown to confront her childhood memories of her best friend’s tragic death, and falls in love with the man she held responsible.

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