Читать книгу Affair of Pleasure - Lindsay Evans - Страница 13

Chapter 4

When Nichelle and Wolfe returned to Miami, she tried and eventually succeeded in pretending the charged afternoon in the Paris hotel never happened. And it seemed as if Wolfe had, too. He never mentioned it, never asked to talk about it.

On an early Monday morning, Nichelle sat behind her desk with Wolfe distractingly at the back of her mind. She scanned an email from Teague Simonson at Sterling Solutions. He wanted her to come in for a meeting and see if there was anything at Sterling that would “sate her appetite for bigger and better.” She hit the delete button. The only thing she wanted from Sterling was for them to leave her alone.

Someone rapped on her door.

“Come in.”

Her door opened and Wolfe walked in with Clint, their general counsel. Wolfe closed the door behind him, his eyes resting easily on her, before heading to his usual seat in her office. Nichelle looked away from him after a single flickering glance.

Nichelle moved from behind her desk to lean against the front of it. She crossed her ankles and her arms. Wolfe sat on the small sofa and kicked his feet up on the small hassock. He sipped his hot chocolate Nichelle’s secretary had left for him.

“Tell us the news, Clint,” Nichelle said.

The attorney paused in the process of swiping a finger across the face of his tablet. “Nice shoes, Nichelle.” He blinked down at her lavender Alexander McQueen pumps, a thoughtful look on his face, before going back to his tablet.

“Thank you, Clint.” She smiled at him then glanced at Wolfe. He only sipped from the large mug and gave her a speaking glance, head slightly tilted, body relaxed yet predatory in the Tom Ford suit.

“Tell me something good.” She looked at him but directed her words to Clint.

“I don’t know about good,” the lawyer said. “But I can give you some information you can work with.”

“I’ll take it,” she said.

He nodded. “You know the Quraishi proposal is sound. You did an impeccable job, as always.”

“But...?”

Clint grimaced, looking as if he’d had a bad attack of indigestion. “You might have to let this potential client go.”

Nichelle abruptly straightened. She propped her hands on her hips and planted her feet wide. “Why? This contract could bring in over five point three million dollars to the firm over the next two years alone.”

“I know the numbers, Nichelle.” Clint leveled a pleading look at Wolfe. “But I really think we might have to just give up on this one.”

Wolfe tipped his head toward Nichelle. “Whatever she decides is what we’ll do,” he said to Clint.

Over the years, Wolfe had learned to leave the business of client acquisition to her. He was the money and brawn of their operation while she was the seer and fortune builder. It was because of her that the company was as successful as it was now. Everyone knew it. Although it sometimes took other men in the company a little while to know the power structure, and they usually turned to Wolfe for most decisions, she quickly showed them who held the reins.

Clint sighed. “Quraishi is a devout Muslim and family man. You already know that. He won’t do business with Kingston because its partners—” he jerked a stubby finger at them “—the two of you, are not a married couple.”

“Excuse me?” Nichelle didn’t think she’d heard him right.

“Quraishi would think it’s improper. You’re a heterosexual couple working closely together in business, spending long hours building a company from the ground up. It’s very intimate work. He’s a traditional guy and won’t simply accept that your relationship is platonic. You see how people here at Kingston act. They just think you’ve been incredibly discreet all these years.”

Nichelle didn’t give a damn what anybody thought about her and Wolfe’s relationship. It was none of their business. She clenched her jaw. “How can we change Quraishi’s mind?”

“Aside from getting married to each other, you can’t.”

“Isn’t that a little extreme?” Wolfe’s voice rumbled with annoyance, an echo of what Nichelle was feeling.

“This is not the eighteen hundreds!” she snapped. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“I think it’s stupid, but that’s the way he runs his life and his company. There’s no morality clause when you work for him, but I hear that if he ever discovers any infidelity or improper sexual dealings among his employees, they are immediately fired.” Clint dropped his intense stare to tap out something on the tablet. “You can approach him with your proposal anyway. It’s a really good one. But know that once he finds out the two of you are unmarried and working so closely together, you won’t get past his secretary.”

Nichelle crossed her arms, her nails digging into her elbows through the thin silk blouse. She had done her research on Quraishi and reached a similar conclusion. But she’d been hoping that another perspective would prove her wrong. She wanted the Quraishi account. Badly. It was the key to the future she and Wolfe had discussed when he first brought her to Kingston Consulting. She stalked across the room to sink into the couch at Wolfe’s side.

“I want that account, Clint.”

The lawyer shrugged and gave her a helpless look. “You could always pretend to be married.”

“No,” Wolfe said immediately, an indecipherable emotion flashing across his face too fast for her to see it. “That’s unacceptable. As fun as it would be pretending to be Nichelle’s man for a week, absolutely not.” His jaw tightened, and a muscle ticked just under the skin. “I’m not going to jump through some ridiculous hoops just for a little money.”

A hint of hot chocolate marred the firm curve of his lower lip. The wet smear caught Nichelle’s eyes, making her want to stroke it away with her thumb. Or her tongue. She tore her glance away and pulled her mush brain back to the conversation.

“A little money?” Nichelle quirked a brow at Wolfe.

“Okay, a lot of money.” He flashed her an annoyed look and a smile at once.

Their eyes met and held. A fluttering awareness took wing in Nichelle’s belly.

She licked her lips. This was getting a little ridiculous. Damned near every time she looked at Wolfe now, she was ambushed by the feelings that had taken her over in the French hotel room. “Clint, could you give us a few minutes?”

“Take as long as you like. I have another meeting in about an hour.” He left and took his tablet with him.

The door barely closed behind him before Nichelle turned to Wolfe. “I want this to happen.”

“Easy, tiger.” His smile was warm and teasing, but there was a hint of seriousness there. It was obvious he wanted her to really consider what she was going after.

“I have,” she said, as if he’d spoken those words out loud.

Nichelle was competitive to a fault. She knew that and most days tried to channel it for good versus evil. This was for good. For both hers and his.

She leaned into him, a hand on his thigh. “Just say yes to this fake marriage, Wolfe. I can make Quraishi come to us. Kingston Consulting needs this. You know we do.” She felt the big thigh muscle jump under her palm, and her thoughts derailed.

Damn.

Wolfe didn’t speak. Early afternoon light tumbled through the wide windows to fall over his shaved head and the goatee framing the lush and slightly pink firmness of his mouth. In one breathless moment, Nichelle was pulled back to that hotel room in Paris. The Eiffel Tower peeking over his bare shoulder, the low hum of the air conditioner beneath the heavy thud of her pulse as she watched him and realized how easy it would be to cross the room and touch him. Then taste and allow herself to be tasted in turn. She pulled her hand from his thigh.