Читать книгу The Rebel Tycoon's Outrageous Proposal - Abby Gaines - Страница 9

CHAPTER FOUR

HOLLY SQUIRMED in her seat. She just couldn’t get comfortable wearing casual clothes to work. No matter that everybody else in Jared’s company was dressed equally informally.

She could see right through the heavy glass tabletop in the Harding Corporation boardroom to her sister’s ultra-tight jeans. And the jeans reminded her of the appreciative and comprehensive look Jared had cast over them when she arrived at the office. At least the white cotton shirt she’d teamed with the pants was almost respectable.

But how she ached for a return to the ordered, peaceful life symbolized by her conservative wardrobe. Would she ever find her way back? She buried her head in her hands, blotting out the sight of the jeans, blotting out these surroundings she didn’t want to be in, blotting out the man she didn’t want to work for.

“Are you okay?” Impatience rather than sympathy edged Jared’s words.

She took a breath that was unfortunately shuddery. “Tell me more about these deals I’m working on.”

Jared paused a moment, presumably to see if she was about to dissolve into inconvenient tears. He stretched and clasped his hands behind his head, a movement that emphasized the lean length of his torso beneath his black knit shirt. Holly dropped her gaze back down to the papers in front of her.

“Two companies are involved,” he said. “I want to buy Wireless World and merge it with one of my subsidiaries that isn’t doing so well.”

Holly nodded, his no-nonsense tone flipping her out of her black mood and into work. It wasn’t unusual to put a highly profitable business like Wireless World together with one that was performing badly for the sake of tax benefits. In the up-and-down Seattle software industry, it happened all the time. “Any anticipated problems?” she asked, and was pleased that came out steady.

“One of the family stockholders has agreed to sell me his shares. I’ll have a big enough holding that I can make life difficult for the rest of them if they don’t sell me theirs.”

“A hostile takeover.” She couldn’t blame the owners, a well-known family from Atlanta, for their reluctance to be bought out by Jared Harding. It would be like the three little pigs opening the door to the big bad wolf.

He grinned, as if he’d read her thoughts. “They’ll come around.”

“And if they don’t?”

He blinked, and the humor was gone. “Too bad.”

Holly gritted her teeth. “What’s the other company we’re looking at?” Did she imagine his hesitation?

“EC Solutions. It’s a small software company, but it’s made some significant overseas sales.”

She leaned forward. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll make sure you get it.”

Jared had a few ideas as to how she could satisfy him—and they didn’t involve balance sheets or calculators. When Holly had turned up in those skintight jeans this morning, he’d had the first inkling that choosing to liberate the least dull clothes in her condo might have been a bad idea. And though now she’d pulled her hair back into its usual unflattering style, in his mind’s eye he saw it loose as it had been earlier. He’d realized then that what he’d taken to be no particular color was in fact a rich brown that, depending on the light, glinted red or gold.

“What do you want, Jared?” She pressed him, in the politest of tones.

He preferred women who didn’t ask any question more difficult than “Can I get you a beer?” Holly would ask so many questions, he’d be forced to start thinking about the answers.

What did he personally want from this deal?

Revenge.

“I want,” he said, “to win Wireless World without being plastered all over the newspapers as a predator and without doubts about the legality of the subsequent merger.”

He didn’t tell her what he really wanted—a deal so tight it would frustrate the hell out of anyone who wanted to outdo him. Would make them careless, ready to rush headlong into the next opportunity to beat him.

“And EC Solutions?” she asked.

“I’m not a hundred percent committed to that business.” It was a form of the truth, at least. “Start the process and see how we go. It might get too competitive. There’ll be other interested parties.” One other interested party.

“I’ll need a couple of days to familiarize myself with the companies and their accounts,” she said.

“The bulk of your time should be spent on Wireless World.” He was taking a risk getting her involved in EC Solutions at all. A necessary risk. If Holly couldn’t unravel the web he’d set up, no one could. She was the ultimate test.

“There’s one more thing,” he said.

She lifted her gray gaze from the accounts she was studying.

“This deal is confidential.”

Holly bristled. “I would never betray a client confidence.”

He waved her protest away. “I don’t mean that. I don’t want anyone here knowing what’s going on, either.”

“You don’t trust your own staff?”

“There have been a couple of leaks to the press.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Leaks that didn’t come from me,” he added. “This time.”

“I won’t gossip to your staff.”

He moved on to the difficult part. “I don’t want anyone here even knowing you’re involved.” She looked hurt, and he was annoyed to find himself reassuring her. “This has nothing to do with the FBI. It’s a matter of internal security.”

She frowned. “But I don’t have an office, and all the resources I’ll need are here.”

“Come with me. Bring your stuff.” He rose, waited the briefest possible time for her to pack up her briefcase and follow him.

They headed to the elevator. Instead of going down to the main office floors, Jared used his security card to allow access to the floor immediately above, the top floor of the building.

Holly stepped out. There were no offices here, only two numbered doors. Jared used his security card again to open Number Two and motioned her into a penthouse apartment—spacious, with fabulous views over Elliott Bay visible through floor-to-ceiling windows. Despite its luxurious furnishings, the apartment felt unlived-in.

“If anyone on my staff asks why you were in the office, I’ll tell them you were looking for work but I turned you down.” He ignored her indignant gasp. “You’ll work here.” He pointed to an office area in the corner of the living room. “This place is wired into the company network. I suggest you live here, too.”

“Why would I—?” Her voice rose.

“It’s a long commute from your friend’s place to the city. And the amount I’m paying you, I want you working day and night.”

Holly hesitated, and he tsked. “The sooner you get the job done, the sooner you get your money. Since I live right next door, it’ll be convenient for us to work together in the evenings.”

“You live here?”

“In Number One.”

Holly bit her lip. She wanted to keep as far away from Jared as she could. But it was a big job on a tight time frame. And no matter how welcoming AnnaMae had been, Holly did like her own space.

“I promise I’m a good neighbor. No loud parties, no drugs.”

“I don’t like feeling I’m a prisoner,” Holly said shortly.

“No one’s saying you can’t leave the building. If anyone sees you in the elevator, they’ll assume you’re working for one of the other firms with offices here. I just don’t want you wandering around Harding Corporation. It’s bound to trigger speculation.”

Before she could argue, her cell phone started playing “America the Beautiful.” “I’d better take this,” she said. “It might be the FBI.”

While she took the call, Jared walked over to the window that wrapped around the northwest corner of the building. Out one side he glimpsed the Space Needle, out the other the expanse of Elliott Bay. The Bainbridge Island ferry broke the surface of the blue water, and above the bay, traffic crawled across the West Seattle Bridge. Beyond the downtown office buildings and department stores stretched a clear blue sky. And beyond that, space. Cyberspace. When Jared had started his business, cyberspace had been the Wild West of the corporate world. He and others had tamed it to some extent, but its boundaries were still enticingly vague.

He imagined Holly would hate to operate in the virtual world he inhabited. She was bound by facts, realities. She thrived on—what had she said at The American The American way. Play by the rules and it’ll be okay. The woman’s cell phone played a patriotic tune, for goodness’ sake.

For Jared the American way meant freedom. Freedom to pursue vengeance to the ends of the earth.

Holly was arguing with whomever she was talking to, employing the superior tone that often sneaked into her conversations with Jared. The tone that drove a man to do things like break in to steal her underwear.

“You can’t do that,” she said. “I’m innocent, and I will prove—” She listened for another half a minute. When she spoke again, the assertiveness had disappeared from her voice.

“Just wait,” she begged. “Please don’t do this now.”

When she ended the call, she turned to Jared white and stricken.

“What is it?” he asked. All the times they’d discussed the fraud inquiry he hadn’t seen her look this shattered.

“That was the chairman of the Northwest CPA Association. They’ve revoked my membership.”

For a second Jared thought he must have misunderstood. But she didn’t say anything else, merely waited for his reaction. “That bunch of gray-haired, fat-bellied—” he grasped for a polite noun “—number-crunchers. Who gives a damn what they think? I thought someone must have died the way you—”

“This is a kind of death,” she blurted out. “You may not have much respect for my profession, but it’s…it’s my life. If I’m not acceptable to the association, I’m not going to be acceptable to any client with ethics higher than pond scum. This will be the end of me.”

Holly could have guessed Jared wasn’t the sort to offer kind reassurances. But the anger that hardened his blue eyes took her by surprise.

“Don’t you dare reduce your life to nothing more than your work,” he snarled. “Damn well pull yourself together and get on with the job you’re here to do. You can deal with those jerks at the association when this mess is over. In the meantime, stop your whining.”

Holly’s jaw dropped and she stared at him.

Jared unclenched his fists and said more calmly, “This thing with the CPA crowd won’t affect your work for me, since you won’t be the one signing off on the accounts. Now, are you going to live here or not?”

She nodded, the fight momentarily sucked out of her. She was still trying to figure out if she should feel shamed or enraged. And people said she was insensitive.

Before she could tell Jared what she thought of his people skills, the phone in her hand rang again, startling her. She read the display: Summer.

“It’s my sister.” She pinned a smile to her lips so she would sound cheery when she said, “Hi, there.”

“What’s with the fake happy voice?” Summer demanded.

So much for that idea. “Nothing,” she said.

“Holly, tell me.”

“Just a silly mistake. The FBI think I stole some money and I have to…deal with stuff.”

“That’s terrible!” Summer sounded even more shocked than Holly had been. “I’m coming back,” she said instantly.

“No.” Holly managed to inject her usual authority into the word. “I want you to stay where you are. You need that job.”

“But I want to help,” her sister protested.

“I know, and it’s sweet of you. But there’s nothing you can do. I just have to work through this. It’ll be fine.”

By the time she managed to convince Summer to stay in Portland, Jared was looking at his watch. Too bad. She wasn’t about to apologize for talking to her sister.

“I have to get to work. Let’s meet tonight and discuss progress,” he said.

Holly seized the chance to wrest back some control. “I’ll need more time to get up to speed.”

“Tomorrow morning, then.”

“Sunday night,” she said firmly. “I’ll spend the weekend thinking about your options.”

“Are you charging me your exorbitant hourly rate for the time you spend thinking?”

“It’s the most valuable time you’ll get out of me,” she said with no false modesty. “If you don’t want to pay for it, I won’t think about your deals and we’ll go ahead with whatever any other accountant would recommend.” She held the door of her apartment open. “In which case, yes, we can meet tonight and this job should be all over in a week.”

Jared didn’t budge for maybe half a minute. “Sunday, then.” He handed her the key card. “This will get you in and out. I’ll have Janine, my PA, collect your stuff from your friend’s house and drop it here.”

“I thought you said I could go out.”

“If people see you arriving with your baggage, they might guess what’s going on.”

She scowled. “If you had this all worked out, why did you take my clothes to AnnaMae’s in the first place? You could have brought them straight here.”

“I couldn’t bear to see you in that navy suit again.” He grinned, dispelling the tension of a minute earlier. “And I wanted to see your face when your underwear showed up at the window.”

“Great,” Holly said wearily. “A client with the mental age of a twelve-year-old.”

And, damn him, he threw back his head and laughed.

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK that night, Jared tapped on her door with what he considered admirable restraint. She’d had ten hours. Surely she had something to show for them, no matter what she’d said this morning. He was curious to see how she’d got on—and warmed by the thought of exchanging more of the banter that both frustrated and elated him. He was certain Holly enjoyed it as much as he did.

He knocked again, tapping his foot as he waited, but again he got no response. He frowned. She wouldn’t have gone out. She had all she needed for her work, and Janine had stocked the refrigerator. Maybe Holly was in the bathroom. He waited another minute before he struck the door with the heel of his hand.

When she still didn’t appear, an unexpected wave of terror flooded him.

She wouldn’t.

“This will be the end of me,” she’d said about the call from the CPA association. She didn’t mean it like that. Holly was strong. A survivor. But hadn’t Jared thought the same about his brother?

The roar in Jared’s head reached a crescendo and he pounded on the door. “Holly? Let me in or I’ll break this door down,” he yelled, loud enough for his words—and his fear—to penetrate the thick wood and the soundproofed walls.

Just as he was about to make good on his threat, he heard the scrape of the chain. Another second and the door opened. Holly stood there, alive and well, blinking.

“Where the hell were you?” He pushed past her into the room, where a quick glance told him nothing sinister had happened. His fear dissipated in an instant, to be replaced by a surge of adrenaline, or relief, or just plain anger. He grabbed her by the shoulders, trembling with the effort not to shake her.

Holly had no idea why Jared was so mad. But the tremor in his powerful fingers told her he was struggling not to take it out on her in some physical way.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned.

“Don’t you dare,” he said, injecting the words with cold fury, “scare me like that again.” Then he hauled her close and lowered his mouth to hers.

If this was a kiss, a small part of Holly’s brain registered, it wasn’t like any she’d had before. The rest of her brain struggled to deal with the instant response of every nerve ending to Jared’s touch. But when she realized she’d already parted her lips to the invasion of his tongue, that now her hands had wound around his neck and into his thick, dark hair, Holly dismissed her brain and instead surrendered to the incredible experience that was Jared’s kiss.

He devoured her with a hunger that should have horrified her. Instead she explored his mouth with a greed that equaled his, moved eagerly under his insistent hands, which pulled her against his hard length.

Then, as if sanity returned to both of them in the same instant, they sprang apart, Holly stumbling. Unable to meet Jared’s eyes, she busied her hands tucking in her shirt, which had made its way out of her jeans, embarrassed to find she was breathing heavily. The only consolation was that Jared looked equally discomfited, tugging at the collar of his shirt, running a hand through the hair she’d mussed.

Now Holly noticed the pallor of his face, which emphasized the darkness of his eyes. But she could see he was more than furious; he looked positively spooked. So instead of castigating him for kissing her—and in all fairness, how could she when her response had suggested she was desperate for his touch?—she said in the mildest of tones, “What do you mean, scare you?”

Jared shut his eyes. When he opened them, the anger was gone, his voice was calm. But she sensed the huge effort that it cost him. “When you didn’t answer the door I thought maybe you’d overreacted to this FBI thing and…done something stupid.”

It wasn’t like Jared to employ a euphemism when plain language was available. “You thought I’d killed myself.”

He flinched. “You were upset this morning.”

“You’re right, killing myself would be stupid.” Her acerbic tone seemed to reassure him, and he let out a breath. “I’m innocent and the investigation will prove it. So throwing myself out a penthouse window would achieve very little.”

“Only a sore head,” he agreed, sounding almost his normal self. “They don’t open and the glass is extra tough.”

She grinned at the release of tension. Jared smiled back. His relief added warmth to the smile, setting off a fluttering somewhere around Holly’s midriff.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded before his charm overcame her resistance. “I told you I didn’t want to see you before Sunday night.”

“I’m ordering Chinese takeout. Do you want some?”

“No, thanks. I’ll cook something here.” There was an awkward pause. Holly figured Jared really wanted to know how her work was going, but she’d told him she wouldn’t be ready to report back until Sunday, and she meant it.

“Why didn’t you answer the door earlier?” he asked suddenly.

“I was concentrating. It can take a while to get through to me when I’m engrossed in my work.”

Jared nodded.

“Why would you think I would kill myself? It seems…somewhat extreme.”

In an instant, his expression shuttered. “I’ll leave you to it.” He made the distance in his tone a physical reality by heading for the door he’d so recently threatened to break down. As if the sight of it had triggered his memory, he turned on his way out. “By the way,” he said carelessly, “that kiss—it won’t happen again.”