Читать книгу Moonlight Kisses - Phyllis Bourne - Страница 12

Chapter 4

Cole walked briskly through the streets leading back to the Espresso building.

Bring it!

The taunt echoed through his head, leaving him unable to determine if the vapor emitted by his body was generated by his breath colliding with the cold or the steam venting from his ears.

Not only did the stubborn woman dismiss his perfectly reasonable argument. She’d tossed an extremely generous offer back in his face.

Who turns their nose up at that kind of money?

“Sage Matthews, that’s who,” Cole grumbled aloud, oblivious to passersby making a wide berth around the man talking to himself.

Images of big hair, shiny black boots and tempting red-slicked lips bombarded him as he yanked open the lobby door of the Espresso building.

The once-modern concrete-and-steel structure, built by his late uncle, had been a tremendous source of pride to his mother when it was erected thirty years ago. Now the eleven-story building stood half-empty, dwarfed by dozens of gleaming new towers dominating the Nashville skyline.

Cole sighed. Though they’d worked through most of their differences, the building continued to be a sticking point in his and Victor’s relationship. Cole and his sisters had agreed selling it was their best option, but his stepfather wouldn’t hear of it.

They could have easily outvoted him months ago. However, Cole thought the older man needed more time to accept the inevitable.

It was just as well, he thought. Right now he needed to focus on convincing the infuriatingly sexy Sage Matthews to give him what he wanted.

Her company.

Acknowledging both the security guard and reception desk with a nod, he strode across the lobby’s marble floor to the elevators. Fortunately, two of the three elevators in the older building were working today.

This should have been a chip shot, he thought, as the elevator whisked him up to the executive floor. He’d expected to be talking with his lawyers by now, instructing them to prepare the paperwork sealing the deal. Only there was no deal.

And nothing had gone as he’d expected.

The elevator chimed and the doors opened on the eleventh floor. Cole pushed open the door to the outer office of the executive suite. He was relieved to see Victor’s door closed. Cole wasn’t looking forward to filling his stepfather in on the details of the disastrous meeting.

Or your totally unprofessional behavior.

Cole shook his head. He’d actually asked her out on a date. It was unlike him to be so impulsive or stupid.

Then again, he’d never felt so in sync with a woman. Sage Matthews had been right about one thing, when it came to their personalities and mannerisms, it was indeed like looking in the mirror.

“Is that frown tattooed on your face or do you wear it just for me?” The gravelly ex-smoker’s voice of the secretary he shared with his stepfather broke into his thoughts.

Cole groaned inwardly, pausing at the large desk in the office bridging his and Victor’s offices.

The way his day had been going today, it figured Loretta Walker would be faithfully manning her station instead of taking a long lunch when the boss was away like the secretaries and administrative assistants he’d had in the past. Cole fixed the silver-haired sexagenarian with a glare that would have sent any other Espresso employee fleeing to the opposite side of the building.

The woman didn’t so much as flinch.

“This is my special face just for you,” he said. “I laugh like the Tickle Me Elmo doll for everyone else.”

“Lucky me. I get to spend my workdays looking at that sour mug.” She handed him a few opened envelopes from the stack of the day’s mail. “These require your attention. I’ll handle the rest.”

“You’re welcome to retire anytime,” Cole said as he sifted through them.

“No can do,” Loretta said. “I’ve got a granddaughter to get through medical school, remember?”

“Then how about a paid vacation, somewhere far, far away?”

“Vacation?” Loretta threw her head back and laughed, the raspy sound filling the office that had been her domain for nearly three decades. “I can barely take a bathroom break without everything around here falling apart. Face it, I’m both indispensable and irreplaceable.”

Despite his bluster, Cole couldn’t refute it. Loretta was also smart, paid attention to detail and took no crap whatsoever from him, or the members of his family that bore the name Gray, including the late Selina Sinclair Gray.

As a kid, he’d once asked his mother why she let an employee get away with the kind of backtalk she’d never tolerate from her children or anyone else.

She’d told him Loretta was more than just a secretary. She explained Loretta kept the office operating with clockwork precision, which gave her the freedom to focus on running Espresso.

“More importantly, Loretta calls it like she sees it, and possesses the courage to speak her mind regardless of the consequences,” his mother had said. “Everybody should have someone like her in their life.”

At the time, Cole had believed his mother the wisest person he’d ever known. All her big decisions had been good ones, right up until her last one, which still confounded him.

He forced back the hard feelings that had separated him from his family for years. His thoughts drifted back to the woman he’d met this afternoon.

Sage Matthews hadn’t had a problem speaking her mind, either.

Their short meeting had taken him through a gamut of emotions. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so intrigued, irritated or challenged, and he had to admit, totally turned on.

“Is that a tic or did you actually just crack a smile?”

“Tic,” Cole answered automatically, “brought on by a certain exasperating secretary.” Although, he knew a smile brought on by the recent memory of a certain woman in red had indeed touched his lips.

Loretta grunted. “If you’re all done twitching, mind telling me what time you want your lawyers here to hammer out the details of the Stiletto deal?”

The next grunt that sounded in the outer office came from him. His lips tightened. Any hint of a smile connected to his lunchtime encounter vanished, replaced with the last emotion his lunch companion had left him with—annoyance.

“Well?” Loretta pressed.

“There is no Stiletto deal.” Cole admitted, then quickly amended. “Yet.”

The long-time secretary’s hoarse cackle filled his ears. All she needed to complete the effect was a chalkboard to scratch her nails across. “Gave you hell, didn’t she?”

Although he’d never admit it aloud, Sage Matthews certainly had.

“Good for her, bringing you down a peg or two,” Loretta continued. Her gravelly voice trailed him into his office. “It’s about time you met your match.”

Cole closed the door firmly behind him. However, his secretary’s parting shot lingered. He couldn’t deny the similarities between them, but his match? Ms. Matthews had a long way to go before she possessed the capability to bring him down a peg.

Walking over to the window, he shoved his hands into his pants pockets. He stared blankly at the flashing billboard in the distance and plotted his next move.

* * *

“I can’t believe you walked out on Cole Sinclair.”

Sage rose from her chair, braced her palms on her desktop and leaned forward. Had Amelia lost her mind? “Did you not hear a word I just said? The man threatened to come after Stiletto.”

“Well...” Her assistant hedged, tilting her head to one side.

“Well, what?” Sage snapped. She fisted her hands on her hips waiting to hear what possible explanation the young woman could conjure up to justify the man’s insufferable behavior.

“You did tell him to ‘bring it,’” Amelia said. “And knowing you as I do, I’m sure it was more like a barked command.”

“Me?” Sage asked incredulously. Her knuckles dug deeper into her sides. “All I did was show up for a lunch meeting, which I should add, you wouldn’t give me a moment’s peace about until I agreed to go.”

Her assistant held her hands up. “Hold on, General,” she said. “I certainly didn’t mean for you to march downtown and purposely provoke him.”

Sage plopped down in her office chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “He was the one provoking me.”

“You aren’t one of the richest people in town.”

“Please, don’t mention money.” Sage rolled her eyes toward the beams and pipes stretching across the ceiling of the former factory that housed Stiletto’s headquarters as well as several other businesses. “He was tossing out dollars like a freak in a strip club.”

Amelia laughed and then stopped abruptly. She narrowed her eyes. “So exactly how much was his offer to buy Stiletto?”

“That would fall under the category of none of your business.”

“How about a ballpark figure?” The teen shrugged. “You turned him down anyway. What difference does it make?”

Sage thought it over a moment. It wasn’t as if Amelia would spread it around the office. She could be a loopy romantic, but she was as discreet as she was efficient.

“Let’s just say it was a couple of ballparks.”

“And you didn’t take the deal?”

“Of course, not. Stiletto isn’t for sale,” Sage said. “And you weren’t there. He was condescending and...” Her voice trailed off as the sound of his easy baritone came back to her. Deep, rich and melodic. It made her want him to eat dessert in bed with him, naked.

“And what?” Amelia raised a brow.

“H-he was just so smug,” Sage stammered over the words.

A slow smile spread over her assistant’s lips. “And what else?”

“O-overbearing, insufferable, overconfident...” Again, her reaction to him at lunch waylaid her train of thought, and she automatically rubbed the spot where their hands had accidentally brushed.

“Interesting.” The young woman’s eyes widened as if she’d just been told a secret, and the smile on her face morphed into a full-fledged grin. “He sounds an awful lot like someone else I know.”

“What are you grinning at?” Sage snapped. “Stop it.”

Instead, Amelia narrowed her gaze. She made a few hmm and mmm sounds as she looked her up and down.

Sage squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “What on earth is the matter with you?”

The young woman ignored the question, continuing her examination. “Cheeks flushed. Eyes glazed over. You’re practically glowing,” she said, making Sage feel as though she was in a doctor’s office instead of her own. “And notice how you were all breathless and stammering when you talked about Mr. Sinclair.”

Amelia nodded her head knowingly as if she already had the answer to her own question. “Not in a million years did I think I’d be saying this to you, but you look exactly like a smitten heroine in one of my romance novels.”

Although she was immune to them, Sage gave her assistant a laser-beam side eye. “I’m acting insulted and extremely annoyed...because I am.”

However, Sage didn’t know who she was more pissed at, the man with the bedroom voice who believed he could run her business better than she, or herself for even having considered a date with him.

“If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Sage insisted, remembering his last words to her and the excessive confidence with which he’d delivered them.

I intend to bring it all right. I just hope you can handle it.

His declaration had come off as a double entendre. She’d caught both the all-business challenge and the sensual promise. Sage only wished there was a way for her to show him he’d taunted the wrong woman and wipe the smug smile off his handsome face.

Oblivious, Amelia exhaled a dreamy sigh filled with youthful naïveté. “I think Mr. Sinclair made quite the impression on you.”

Sage’s stomach growled, reminding her she still hadn’t had lunch. “He made me so mad, I didn’t even eat...”

The words died on her lips as an idea hit her.

Not just an idea, a maneuver so outrageous it would make Cole Sinclair think twice about underestimating her again. But you couldn’t, she thought. You wouldn’t dare go through with it.

Oh, yes, I would.

Her assistant waved a hand in front of her face, and Sage blinked. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said. I was trying to tell you...” Amelia paused, then frowned. “Uh-oh. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Sage feigned cluelessness. “Whatever do you mean?”

“It looks like you just sprouted devil horns on your head. The only thing missing is the diabolical laugh.”

Her decision made, Sage slapped her palms against her desk and stood. Time to rally the troops. “I want you to add fifty additional beauty bloggers to the invitation list for our Valentine’s Day’s event,” she said. “We’re going to make it even bigger and even better.”

“Will do.”

She watched her assistant make the notation. “Then send Joe Archer from advertising into my office. I’ve got a job for him,” Sage said. “I’m about to teach Mr. Sinclair a lesson he won’t soon forget.”

Amelia shook her head. “Sounds like you’ve already made him angry. I really don’t think you should provoke him any further.”

“Never mind what you think. Just get Archer in here.”

Her assistant heaved an exaggerated sigh. “All right, I’ll do as you ordered, General. I just hope you don’t start the battle of the Nashville cosmetic companies.”

So what if she did? Sage thought. The man had made it clear he intended to bring it. She was simply firing the first salvo, because the best defense was a good offense.

Her only regret was that she wouldn’t be there to see the look on Sinclair’s face.