Читать книгу Behind The Boardroom Door: Savas' Defiant Mistress / Much More Than a Mistress / Innocent 'til Proven Otherwise - Michelle Celmer - Страница 10
ОглавлениеMAKE him an offer?
Like what?
Like what he supposed she was offering Max?
She wanted to strangle him. Or punch him. Or do whatever was necessary to wipe that knowing look off his handsome face.
Instead she went out with Max and grilled him about the man who owned her houseboat.
“You’re interested?” Max asked. “In Seb?”
“I am not ‘interested’in Sebastian Savas,” Neely said, still hot under the collar from Sebastian’s remark. She picked at the spider roll on her plate, poked it with her chopstick the way she’d like to poke Sebastian. “Not the way you think. He just annoys me.”
“Why? Are you still ticked because he thought you wanted everything pink?” Max grinned as he regarded her over his bottle of Japanese beer.
“Not ‘thought.’ Thinks! He thinks I’ll paint the houseboat pink!”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Max said easily. “He’s just giving you a hard time. Maybe he’s smitten.”
“Hardly.” Neely sniffed. “He thinks I’m sleeping with you!”
Max’s laughter was so loud and sudden that half the diners in the small restaurant turned to look at their way.
“It’s not funny!” Neely fumed. She did stab her spider roll then. And her kappa maki for good measure.
Max shrugged and lazed back in his chair, still regarding her with amusement. “You could tell him you’re not.”
“I did,” she muttered.
He didn’t say anything, just smiled and sipped his beer.
Neely glared at him. He grinned. “He has a dirty mind,” she said after a moment.
“Probably. He’s a man,” Max said. “And he thinks I’m in danger of succumbing to your charms.”
She blinked and stared. “You knew?”
Max lifted his shoulders. “He didn’t think much of me bringing you on as the living-space designer for Carmody-Blake.”
“You asked him?”
Max shook his head. “Didn’t have to. He volunteered.”
Sebastian was lucky he wasn’t her kappa maki then. She’d poked it to smithereens. “How dare he?”
“He was looking out for my welfare,” Max told him. “Thinks you’re out to get your claws into me.”
“How dare he?”
“He understands the appeal of a pretty woman.”
“He doesn’t think I’m pretty. He thinks I’m weird. And he doesn’t like what I do.”
“Maybe he wants you.”
Neely looked at Max, horrified, at the same time she remem bered that odd stab of awareness she’d felt this afternoon when she’d come into the living room and spied Sebastian up on the ladder. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said now.
“Just saying.” Max finished his beer.
“Well, don’t,” Neely retorted.
She didn’t want to think about Sebastian that way. And she cer tainly didn’t want to think about him thinking about her that way!
Not that he was, of course. It was all in Max’s head.
But the awareness wasn’t.
She felt it again later that night. She spent the evening at Max’s discussing the Blake-Carmody project. It was the work she’d have done at home anyway, but it was actually better to do it with Max. It was nearly eleven when she got home. She took Harm out for a quick walk, then went upstairs to get ready for bed at the very moment Sebastian was coming out of the bathroom. His hair was wet and he was bare-chested this time, though he was wearing his jeans, thank God.
No matter, she still felt that unwelcome sizzle of awareness. And it seemed like every time she saw him now he was wearing less. Her cheeks warmed at the thought.
He raised a brow. “Have fun?” His tone was sardonic.
“I did,” Neely said, keeping hers flat.
“But you didn’t spend the night.” The brow went even higher.
Neely, remembering the eviscerated kappa maki, wished she had a chopstick on her now. She gave him a brittle smile. “It’s a work night.”
His expression hardened. “Nice to know you have some standards.”
“Indeed I do.”
He stepped past her to go into his room. The hall was narrow and he was close enough that she felt the heat emanating from his bare flesh as he passed. The sensation was almost magnetic, drawing her toward him. Quickly Neely stepped back.
He paused, one hand on the frame, as he opened the door to his bedroom. “I’m leaving for Reno as soon as Frank and I close on the houseboat at the bank.”
“Rubbing it in?”
“Just telling you. I won’t be back until Friday.”
“Good.”
A corner of his mouth tipped. “I thought you might think that.” He paused. “If you need anything—”
“I’ll ask Max.”
His knuckles tightened on the door frame. “Of course you will. Sweet dreams, Robson.” Amazing how much disparagement a man could get into so few words.
Neely ran her tongue over her lips. “Same to you, Savas.”
His bedroom door shut with a hard click.
Not until it had, did Neely breathe again. Even so her knees still wobbled. And for the first time she wondered if maybe she should spend the week looking for another place to live.
So what if she was sleeping with Max Grosvenor?
What did he care?
Well, he didn’t, Seb assured himself as he tossed clothes into his suitcase preparatory to tomorrow’s trip to Reno. Unless it interfered with the good of the company, it made no difference at all.
All the same, he was glad he was leaving. That way he didn’t have to be around to watch.
It had been bad enough before—when he’d simply caught glimpses of Neely Robson waltzing into Max’s office during the day. He’d been annoyed when they left together sometimes in the evening. And, yeah, he’d felt downright irritated Friday when Max had come late to their meeting because he was out sailing with a woman half his age!
But it had been worse over the weekend. At least when he was in Reno, Seb wouldn’t have to watch her chatting to Max on the phone while she fed the kittens. He wouldn’t see her razor on the shelf by the shower and wonder if she’d shaved her legs before she’d gone off with Max.
And he wouldn’t have to see her run out the door and down the dock to meet him when he came to pick her up.
Not that he’d been watching…
He’d been minding his own business upstairs in his bedroom, putting some books on the shelves of the built-in bookcase, when he’d just happened to hear the front door shut and had glanced out to see her dance away down the dock, waving madly at Max who was coming to meet her.
Max hadn’t been exactly reluctant, either. The grin Seb saw on his face was one of pure joy. And when she reached him, damned if he hadn’t wrapped his arms around her in a fierce hug.
Boss and employee?
Yeah, right.
Just good friends?
Not even close.
Not that they were claiming any such thing. They weren’t claiming anything at all.
They didn’t have to, Seb thought, banging his suitcase shut.
So it was far better that he was off to Reno for the week where he could focus on what was important—his work—rather than here where he would have to watch Robson work her wiles on Max and Max be no smarter than Seb’s old man.
And that was another reason to be gone. No whining from Vangie about when their father was ever going to call. And no more endless phone calls from all the rest of the pack.
As if living with Neely Robson and watching her kiss up to Max over the weekend wasn’t bad enough, the Savas sisters’ invasion of Seattle was driving him mad.
Now instead of simply having Vangie’s phone calls to contend with, he had the triplets and Jenna, as well.
Saturday night, while Neely was out having sushi with Max, he was listening to Ariadne whine about her boyfriend she’d left back in New York. Then Alexa moaned on about the three she had left behind in Paris. And just when he’d said, “Why do you need three boyfriends?” she’d turned the phone over to Anastasia who had rattled on about her fiancé who was heading to the Trobriand Islands to do field work for six months.
He didn’t even know she had a fiancé. And all he could think was, Not another wedding.
Maybe three boyfriends was better than one serious one. He hoped the guy stayed gone five years.
The next day—while Neely was, naturally, out sailing with Max—they’d called again. Not once. Not twice. Half a dozen times or more. To ask where the blender was. Then where the vacuum was. Then where the broom was. Didn’t he have a dustpan? Did he know if the recycler would take broken glass?
“What sort of glass?” Seb had demanded. “What’d you break?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” one of them said airily. He never had any idea which. “Nothing important.”
Probably it wasn’t, he’d lied to himself. But as he couldn’t make himself believe it, he’d made sure he had time, before taking them out to dinner, to drop in and survey the damage himself.
There was clutter everywhere. But it wasn’t much worse than he’d imagined—and he never did figure out what had broken. It hadn’t been a bad evening. The food was good, his sisters had behaved well, and he would have enjoyed himself except for periodically wondering if, while he was eating salmon, Robson and Max were feasting on each other.
It had seemed all too likely when he got back to the houseboat at ten and only Harm, the rabbit and the guinea pigs were there to greet him.
Of course, she could have come home and gone to bed. Maybe she had, he’d told himself. But after an internal debate about whether he should or not, Seb decided that, as owner of the houseboat, he was allowed to check his tenant’s room. So he cracked open the door, hoping to see her soundly sleeping.
He saw an empty bed. And all the kittens escaped.
Thank God he got them all back in and the door shut. But it was after eleven and he had just been coming out of the bathroom from taking a shower when she came up the stairs.
She looked tousled and tumbled and too damn beautiful.
And his shower had not been nearly cold enough.
“Savas here.”
Ah, yes. The Voice of Authority. Clipped. Precise. Pure business. And with an unfortunate slightly rough, very masculine edge that sent a frisson right down Neely’s spine even though she was determined to be immune.
“Your boat is sinking.”
“What!”
So much for clipped precise authority.
Neely smiled. Perhaps it wasn’t the nicest way to convey the news that there was a leak in the underbelly of Sebastian’s new property, but as it could have been her houseboat, she wasn’t very inclined to play nice.
“You heard me,” she said. “There was water all over the floor this morning.”
“Robson?” The voice was barking in her ear now. She supposed she ought to have identified herself. “Is that you?”
“Who else could it possibly be?”
“One of my sisters,” he muttered. Then “What are you talking about?”
“Water water everywhere,” she said. “It means there’s a leak down under somewhere. I remember it happening once before. Frank had to call someone to come and pump something out, then get down under there and fix it. Sorry, I can’t get more technical than that. I can find out who he called, if you want,” she added helpfully. “Or maybe you have a better idea.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, long enough that she wondered if he might actually have a better idea. But then he said, “Get the guy’s name. Call him if you can and ask him to do it. I can’t get back until Friday.”
It was Wednesday evening now. He’d left on Monday, so basically she’d enjoyed a Sebastian-free week so far. It had been quite blissful.
Or it would have been if Max hadn’t taken to teasing her every day, asking her if she missed him.
“Right,” she said now briskly. “I’ll try to track Frank down. Sorry to trouble you.”
“No trouble,” he said. “It’s my responsibility. It’s my b—”
“Your boat. Yes, I know that. Okay. Bye.” She was about to hang up when he spoke again.
“Robson?”
She put the phone back against her ear. “Yes?”
“How’s Harm? Pushed anyone else in the water?”
“What?” The questions surprised her. “Um, no. But there hasn’t been anyone else here, either.”
“Good. I thought perhaps—Never mind. How’s the weather?”
“The weather?” What on earth? She was talking to Sebastian Savas about the weather? “Well, it’s raining,” she said. “As usual. Imagine that.”
He laughed. It was a low, intimate chuckling sound that sent a quick unexpected shiver of awareness down the back of her neck.
“Not here,” he said. “It’s hot in Reno.”
“I should think it would make a nice change.” She stared out the window at the rain bucketing down and tried to imagine a bit of sunshine.
“It does. But still I’ll be glad to get back.”
“So Harm can push you in the water again?”
“Not exactly.” But there was the unexpected sound of a smile in his voice.
Neely was having a hard time believing this conversation was happening. She hadn’t wanted to ring Sebastian in the first place. She’d imagined he would be abrupt, abrasive and think she was overstepping her bounds. When he was polite about the leak, that was as much as she’d hoped for. She certainly didn’t expect casual conversation.
And while it was difficult to imagine it was Sebastian on the other end of the connection, at the same time she was having no trouble seeing him—in her mind’s eye—at all.
It was evening. He was on the road. She’d been there often enough that she understood the scenario. There was no noise in the background, so he wasn’t out in one of Reno’s nightspots. He’d likely be in his hotel room, perhaps lying on his bed.
No. Don’t go there.
But even as she warned herself, a vision of the last time she’d seen Sebastian—damp-haired and bare-chested—became all too vivid, and she had to swallow hard. But before she could say a word, he spoke again.
“I don’t much like being on the road,” he said quietly.
And what was she supposed to do? Say, Too bad. Goodbye? Her mother had raised her better than that.
She said, “I don’t, either. I think it comes from moving so much when I was a kid.”
“Tell me about it,” he asked, sounding interested.
And the invitation to talk was somehow more than she could resist. She’d been trying to work ever since she got home. But she’d been restless—not to mention periodically mopping—and now she curled up on the sofa with Harm’s head in her lap and watched the rain.
“Well, I was home schooled mostly. Or should I say, commune schooled?” she corrected herself. “My mother was a hippie of sorts.”
“No joke?” He sounded surprised.
“Nothing funny about it,” Neely assured him. “My mother is definitely an independent free spirit. But she was never quite able to be an independent free spirit on her own. She needed a base, a group of people. But she didn’t like anyone telling her what to do. Mostly communes are live and let live. But they can have their idiosyncracies, and she always seemed to run up against them. And then we’d move on.”
“Just you and your mother?”
“Until I was twelve,” Neely said. “And then she met my stepdad. He was a policeman. We were living in Wisconsin at the time and he’d been sent to arrest her for selling her jewelry on the street without a business license. It’s funny, really,” she said, thinking about those days now, “they were so different. And yet they were just right for each other. They had a great marriage. It was awful when he died. But I knew good marriages exist because of theirs. I want a marriage like that someday.”
“Do you.” There was a sudden hard edge in Sebastian’s tone and his statement wasn’t a question. “Good luck.” He couldn’t have sounded less encouraging.
He was such a cynic. “You don’t believe in marriages that last?” She asked, at the same time wondering why they were discussing it at all. It certainly wasn’t the sort of conversation she ever expected to have with Sebastian Savas. But then, she’d never expected to be living with him, either!
“I wouldn’t say they can’t ever happen,” he said. “But I’d bet against it.”
“So did my mother. And then she found the right man. You won’t say that when you find the right woman.”
“There isn’t a right woman.”
“Well, maybe not yet, but—”
“Ever.”
“Oh.” She mulled that over, then said cautiously, “So…is there a right man?”
There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then he laughed. “No, Robson. I’m not gay. I’m just not getting married.”
Firm and final. The Voice of Authority was back now. This was the Sebastian Savas she knew.
“Act like that,” she said lightly, “and it won’t be a problem. No one will want to marry you.”
“Good.”
If there was ever an exit line, Neely decided, that was it.
“Right. Well, I won’t be expecting to get an invitation to your wedding anytime soon then. Thanks for warning me. I’d better go make your phone call now about the leak. And Harm wants out. Don’t you, Harm?” She patted the sleeping dog who never even opened an eye. “Bye.” And she rang off before Sebastian could say anything else.
Not that there was anything else to say.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation, even long after she’d hung up. It was as odd as it had been unexpected. But maybe he was just bored.
Still, when her cell phone rang the next evening and she saw Sebastian’s name come up on her caller ID, Neely was amazed.
“What?” she demanded, the heightened awareness she always seemed to feel around Sebastian battling with her very real desire to hang up at once.
“And a very good evening to you, too, Robson.” He sounded amused, and he’d lost the clipped tone he’d used when making his pronouncement on marriage the night before. Once again she heard the slightly sexy undertone beneath his sardonic response and she wondered if he was doing it on purpose. To bait her, perhaps?
She refused to succumb to its allure. “Good evening,” she said politely. “To what do I owe the honor of this call?”
“Aren’t we prim and proper, Robson? Wearing pink?”
“It’s none of your business what I’m wearing!” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she felt as if she’d been had. Was she always going to jump at the bait he dangled?
“What do you want?” she muttered.
She had been enjoying a quiet evening on her own and allowing herself the pretense that the houseboat was hers and hers alone, refusing to think about Sebastian Savas who had, drat his hide, invaded her dreams last night. How perverse was that?
And now here he was again.
“I want an update,” he said briskly, all business. “Did the guy come and fix the leak?”
Neely breathed easier. “Yes. Took him most of the afternoon, though. He’s sending you the bill. A hefty one, I imagine.”
“No doubt.”
He wanted to know what was done, and Neely told him as best she could. She hadn’t been there the whole time. “I had work to oversee,” she told him now. “I let him in, and I came back later to check how things were going. But I can’t give you a play-by-play. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I appreciate your bothering at all. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
She expected him to end the conversation there, but he didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t say anything. Still, he hadn’t hung up. She could hear him breathing.
There was no noise in the background of his call tonight, either. And Neely found herself with visions of Sebastian in his hotel room, lying on the bed flickering once more into her mind. She focused on a boat zipping across the lake, trying to get rid of the visions out of her head.
“Do you know where to buy little rose-colored boxes?” he asked suddenly.
Neely blinked. “What?”
“Not for me,” he said hastily. “My sister’s getting married. She’s been rattling on about these damn boxes she wants on the table at the reception. For mints or something. She keeps calling me and bugging me.”
Neely’s mind boggled. Sebastian not only had a sister, but she called him and bugged him about tiny wedding favors?
“I said, try the Internet. But she wants to see them in person,” he said wearily.
Neely almost laughed at the combination of fondness and frustration in his voice. “Oh, dear.”
“So, do you?” he demanded when she didn’t speak.
“Why on earth would I?”
“They’re rose,” he said. “That’s almost pink. As far as I’m concerned, it is pink. But Vangie insists there’s a difference.”
“Of course there’s a difference,” Neely said. “But I don’t know anyplace to get them. Some wedding place, I suppose. How many does she need?”
“Two hundred and fifty or so.”
“Yikes. When’s the wedding?”
“Three weeks.”
“And she’s just now starting to look for them?”
“No. She’s just now decided for sure that’s what she wants. Or thinks she wants. What difference does it make? How the hell long does she have to have them anyway?”
“Not long, I suppose. But…I should think she’d want things prepared.”
“Oh, she does,” Sebastian said grimly. “But she keeps changing her mind. Or having it changed for her. First they were silver. Then they were rose. Then they were silver and rose. Now they’re rose again. For simplicity’s sake,” he quoted wryly. “And God knows how many more times it will change. Since the rest of them got here, it’s four times worse.”
“Rest of whom?”
“My sisters. Not all of them, but more than enough.”
“All?” Neely said faintly. He’d mentioned one. That had been surprising enough. And now there were more? “How many sisters do you have?”
“Six.”
“Six?” She gaped, unable to imagine it.
“And three brothers.”
“Dear God.”
“At last count.”
“What!”
“My old man has a habit of getting married and having kids,” Sebastian said grimly. “It’s what he does.”
“I see.” She didn’t, and she suspected Sebastian knew that. The whole notion of ten kids in a family astonished her. And then there was the “my old man has a habit of getting married…” part.
Did his “old man” have a habit of getting divorced as well?
Was that what was behind Sebastian’s complete cynicism toward marriage? She could understand that. But somehow, even though he’d brought it up, she couldn’t see herself asking him.
Still, that alongside the nine brothers and sisters would go a long way toward explaining Sebastian’s standoffishness. When you were one of ten, you probably needed to draw pretty definite boundaries. But from where she stood, as an only child, there was a definite appeal to the sound of all those siblings.
“You’re so lucky,” she told him.
“Lucky? I don’t think so.”
“I would have given anything for a sibling or two.”
“A sibling or two wouldn’t necessarily have been bad,” he said heavily. “It’s nine of them that gets old.”
“I suppose.” But she wasn’t sure. She thought it sounded like far more fun than being dragged around from commune to commune after her mother.
“It’s why I bought the houseboat,” he told her. “They were moving in on me.”
That was why? She sat up straight on the sofa. “All of them?”
“Four of them. Four too many.” She could hear the edginess in his voice.
“Just until the wedding?”
“God, I hope so. In fact, no question. After that, they’re gone.” There was certainly no doubt in his mind about that.
“So, when they’re gone, will you sell to me?”
He laughed. “My God, you’re persistent.”
“When I want something, yes. Will you?”
“Like I said, Robson. Make me an offer I can’t refuse.”
“And what would that be?”
“You’re a smart cookie. Max is always saying so. Figure it out.”
The sight of the houseboat at the end of the dock made Seb smile.
He was always happy to get home. Like he’d told Neely on Wednesday, he didn’t like being on the road. He didn’t mind working all hours, but at the end of the day he liked his own place, his own space. Solitude. Peace and quiet. There had always been a sense of calm when he walked through his front door.
But there had never been a sense of anticipation before.
His heart had never kicked up a notch. On the contrary, it usually settled and slowed. But today, all day long while he was still in Reno going over the building specs with the contractors, in the back of his mind Seb was already on his way home.
Ordinarily he would have stopped and picked up some takeaway for dinner. But tonight he didn’t. He thought he’d wait and see if Robson was hungry. If so, they could get something together.
It wasn’t a date.
It was just a courtesy. They were sharing living space for a while. So, the way he saw it, they could share a meal.
Besides, he owed her. She’d called him about the leak. She’d arranged for the repair. She had been the one who’d had to come home and let the repairman in.
So he would buy her a meal. It was the least he could do. Simple.
But when he opened the door, she wasn’t there.
“Robson?”
Silence. Except for the dog. He was there, stretching and yawning and thumping his tail madly as Seb came in and dumped his suitcase on the floor and briefcase on the table.
The kittens were there, too, purring and meowing, noticeably bigger and even friskier than they had been on Monday. They attacked his briefcase and his shoelaces with equal enthusiasm. One scaled his trouser leg, putting tiny claw holes in the fine summer wool.
“Hey, there!” Seb lifted it off and cradled it in his hands. “Robson? You here?”
The guinea pig whistled. The rabbit didn’t even look up from crunching on its dinner. No noticeable change in them and, thank God, no more of them, either.
And no Neely anywhere.
He felt oddly deflated. Of course he had no right to expect her to be there. They hadn’t discussed dinner. It would have seemed like a date if they’d discussed it.
Well, it wasn’t a date, that was certain. It wasn’t anything because she wasn’t here.
It was only seven, though. Maybe she’d worked late. God knew he did often enough. So he took a shower and changed clothes and came back downstairs hungrier than ever.
Still no Neely.
There was however a blinking light on the desk phone. It wasn’t his phone. But he wasn’t sure it was Robson’s either. If someone had left a message for Frank, he’d have to pass it on. Seb punched the message light.
“Neel’.” It was Max’s voice. “Couldn’t reach you on your mobile. Left you a message, but thought I’d try you at your place. I’m running late. Just go on in. I’ll be there.”
Go on in?
Go on in where? His brain couldn’t help asking the question even though, in his gut, he already knew the answer. But before he could follow the thought any further, his own mobile phone rang.
He answered without even glancing at the ID. “Savas.”
“Oh, good. You’re there!” Vangie’s voice trilled in his ear. “Are you home? In Seattle, I mean?”
Seb slumped on the sofa. A kitten launched itself and landed in his lap. He winced. “Yeah. Just got back.”
“Great! We thought you’d like to come have dinner with us.” She was all bubbly and bright and eager. Seb could hear lots more bubbly bright female voices in the background. “See the progress we’ve made for the wedding!” Vangie went on. “Want to?”
No, actually he didn’t. Dealing with five of his sisters was very close to the last thing Seb wanted to do tonight.
But he said, “I’ll be there.”
Because the absolute last thing he wanted to do was sit home and think about the implications of Neely Robson having a key to Max’s house.
Neely was humming “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” when she let herself in the front door at eleven the next day.
It was beautiful—sunny and bright with not much wind. Not enough to go sailing, she’d told Max when she left his place, which was fine because she had other things to do.
“Hey, there,” she said dropping her tote bag and kneeling as she threw her arms around Harm who launched himself at her. “Did you miss me?”
“He didn’t, actually,” a harsh male voice said, “because he had me to take him out last night and this morning.”
Neely’s gaze jerked up to see Sebastian standing at the entrance to the living room. He was backlit and she couldn’t really see his features, but she had no doubt he was scowling. She gave Harm one last happy cuddle and stood up warily.
After their two phone conversations during the week, she’d dared hope they had reached some sort of friendly rapport. Obviously she was wrong.
“I didn’t neglect him,” she said firmly. “I arranged for Cody to come in last night and early this morning.
“Because you knew you were going to spend the night?” Sebastian demanded.
“Yes.”
He didn’t say anything, but she could hear his teeth grinding.
“Is there a problem? I called him this morning to make sure he’d come over and he said he did. Are you saying he didn’t?”
Sebastian opened his mouth, then shut it again abruptly. He shrugged irritably and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I never saw him.” He turned away and stalked into the living room.
Neely tossed her tote bag onto the stairs to carry up later, then followed him. “Were you here?”
He turned back to face her. “I didn’t spend the night elsewhere, if that’s what you mean?”
“Unlike me?” Neely said, capable of filling in the blank.
“Yes. Unlike you.” He bit out the words. “Was it worth it?”
“Oh, yes.” She gave him a bright smile. “It was great. We had dinner and then we went upstairs and—”
“Spare me the details,” Sebastian snapped. “How old are you?”
Neely blinked at the sudden shift in topic. “Twenty-six. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“He’s fifty-two!” The words burst from his lips. He wasn’t scowling now; he was glaring furiously.
It took Neely a second to make the leap. Then she narrowed her gaze. “You’re talking about Max, I presume?”
“Damn right, I’m talking about Max! That’s not to say he isn’t well preserved. For his age, I guess he could be considered a stud—”
“A stud?” Neely’s jaw dropped. “A stud?” She stared at him for three seconds, and then a giggle escaped her. It seemed to infuriate him.
“You know what I mean! But for God’s sake, you’ve got skills, talent. You win prizes! You don’t have to sleep with the boss to get ahead!”
She hesitated only a moment. Then she twirled a long curl around her finger as if considering the question.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I believe it’s a tried-and-true method in some companies.”
Sebastian’s jaw locked. She thought she could see steam coming out of his ears. Served him right, she thought.
“And as you say, Max is very attractive…for his age.” She giggled again, as if enjoying some private reflection.
“You’re more attracted to me than you are to Max.” He said the words flatly, yet there was a wealth of challenge in them, and he looked at her as if daring her to deny them.
She opened her mouth, then shut it again. She arched her eyebrows at him provocatively. “You think so?”
“You know you are,” he insisted. “There’s been a spark between us since day one.”
This time she opened her mouth and didn’t shut it, still trying to formulate the words. She gave a careless, dismissive shrug. “In your dreams, Savas.”
But Sebastian didn’t wait. “You want proof?” He closed the space between them so that she had to tip her head up to look at him. His mouth was bare inches away. She could see the whiskered roughness of his jaw, could feel the heat of his breath.
She swallowed. She blinked. She waited.
And the next thing she knew Sebastian’s lips came down on hers.
Neely had certainly been kissed before. She’d known her share of masculine mouths, their hard warmth, their persuasive touch. She’d opened to them, dared to taste them in turn. And she’d always been able to keep her wits about her, to think, hmm, kissing is interesting, but no big deal.
All of a sudden, right now, with Sebastian Savas’s mouth on hers, it became a very big deal indeed.
There was the hard warmth and the persuasion. But there was more—a hunger, a need, a seeking, a question looking for an answer.
And her mouth knew the answer even as it asked questions of its own.
It wasn’t just a spark, either. Though she would have had to admit, had she been capable of rational thought, that yes, she’d sensed it, too.
This was far more than a spark. It was a fire, burning hot and fast, fanned to full flame. And the deeper the kiss, the less the fire was quenched. It raged and consumed, hungry and desperate and edging toward out of control.
His arms came around her, slid up her back, drew her closer so that their bodies leaned, touched, pressed. She had never felt like this, had never wanted a kiss to go on and on. Had never kissed without caring where her next breath came from because she knew—she was sharing his.
She lifted her hands and touched his back, his shoulders, the nape of his neck. Her fingers threaded through short crisp hair, then fell to clutch his shoulders as her need spiraled, her hunger grew.
And then, abruptly, Sebastian pulled away to stare down into her eyes, his own lambent with arousal, his breathing harsh. “Does Max kiss you like that?”
Stunned, shaken and absolutely furious—as much at herself as at him, Neely could barely find the words. “No one kisses me like that!”
Sebastian smiled a satisfied feral smile. “So dear Max isn’t perfect after all? I’m not surprised. It’s what you get, trying to get it on with a man old enough to be your father.”
Neely’s heart was still slamming in her chest as she wrapped her arms across it and hoped she didn’t look as rattled as she felt. “I wasn’t trying to ‘get it on’ with Max. We were working.”
“All night?” Sebastian scoffed.
“No, but until two. And then I went to bed. Alone. In the guest room.”
“Yeah, sure. So, you’re saying you’re just friends, is that it?” Sebastian mocked her.
And Neely slowly, firmly shook her head no. “We’re not just friends.” She lifted her eyes and met Sebastian’s knowing look. “He’s my father.”
