Читать книгу After-Hours Negotiation: Can't Get Enough / An Offer She Can't Refuse - Sarah Mayberry - Страница 12

JACK STRETCHED HIS neck to one side and resisted the urge to check his watch, knowing it would only read five minutes past the last time he’d checked. Time dragged as only time could when you were bored out of your mind and stuck in a small, enclosed space with someone who was obviously thirsting for your blood.

He didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that Claire Marsden was mentally sticking pins in his voodoo doll doppelganger right now. He’d intercepted one glance from her that was practically dripping with animosity and got the message straight off. Well, she could stew in it, for all he cared. It wasn’t his problem.

Except, he couldn’t seem to stop glancing across at her every now and then. Just now she looked sad, infinitely sad, as she contemplated the toes of her shoes. He felt a twinge of guilt about what he’d said. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so up-front. People had to have their illusions about themselves, after all. And maybe, in her universe, she was a barrel of laughs, the life and soul of the party. Maybe, in her world, with her friends, she was considered a crazy caper merchant in her conservative suits and sensible, safe car. What was it to him, anyway?

A trickle of sweat ran down his back and he became conscious of the increasing stuffiness of the elevator. Without thinking, he slipped open the buttons on his shirt and flapped the two sides to create a breeze. Across the car, Claire glanced at him and then averted her eyes as though he’d just dropped his pants and announced his intention to have group sex with her favorite aunt.

Uptight, that was what he was talking about.

Almost as though she could hear his thoughts, Claire suddenly stood and toed off her shoes. She looked taller from his position on the floor, and he had a mighty fine view as she reached for the hem of her skirt. Instinctively, she must have sensed this and she began turning toward the wall. She hesitated for a moment, an obvious battle going on inside her.

What was she up to? He wasn’t sure, but it beat the hell out of not looking at his watch for entertainment.

She glanced across at him, their eyes locking as she wrangled with her better instincts, and then he saw a muscle move in her jaw as she steeled herself. With great deliberation, she hoisted her skirt up in full view of him, reached for the waistband of her panty hose, and tugged them down. He scored a flash of black underwear—lace? He couldn’t be sure—before her skirt dropped down discreetly like the curtain at a peep show. Of their own accord, his eyes followed her hands as she rolled each leg of her panty hose down, down, down to the ground where she stepped out of them daintily. Aware he’d just been staring like a horny adolescent, he snapped his gaze away and contemplated the unmoving floor indicator instead.

He simultaneously became conscious of the fact that his heart rate had just increased and he was sweating a little more. And he almost did a visual double take on himself when he realized that another part of his anatomy hadn’t been exactly unmoved by her actions, either.

Wow, he must be really bored. This was Claire Marsden, after all, almost the antithesis of everything he considered attractive in a woman: she was brunette, he preferred blondes; she was serious, he preferred giggles; she was short, he preferred statuesque….

His list of his favorite attributes trickled to a halt as he glanced across at her and caught a flash of extremely toned, tanned thighs as she settled down on the floor.

A tan. Claire Marsden had a tan. His mind boggled. He simply couldn’t imagine her in a swimsuit. Another assessing glance at her. Nope, couldn’t do it. Her long-sleeved, high-necked, roomy blouse defied his attempts to make it disappear, and, for the life of him, he couldn’t come up with a mental image of what her body might be like. Well, apart from kind of square and boxy, like her car and her suits. Given his many years of training and expertise in imagining women naked or in their underwear, he decided this was another point in favor of his argument for boredom being the cause of any…interest his body might have displayed over the panty hose incident. Case closed.

Still, her legs were in pretty good shape… He gave himself a mental slap. What, was he in high school again? Could he perhaps think of something that did not pertain to the bare-legged woman sitting opposite him?

He was surprised how much effort it took for him to keep his gaze away from those legs and that tan. Concentrating fiercely, he imagined the next stage in restoring the antique dining table he was working on as a surprise for his mom for Christmas. It would look great in the corner of her living room, and he knew she would love it. Not that he’d be there to see her reaction. His parents were expecting him to fly home to Sydney, but he would send the table instead. He wasn’t up for the big family get-together this year. The gruff sadness of his dad, the empty place at the table, the grief in everyone’s eyes when they looked at him and saw Robbie. Jack had enough trouble with his own grief without dealing with the weight of theirs.

For starters, there’d be the inevitable kitchen-sink conversation with his mom as she washed the vegetables for dinner. It was her favorite territory for heart-to-hearts, although in a pinch she’d take whatever venue was offered. She’d fix him with her knowing blue eyes and tell him it had been three years now, and he needed to let go. But she didn’t know how it felt. None of them did. Then his dad would invite him to tour the garage to check out his latest power tool acquisitions. And in between explaining the clutch on his new hammer drill, he’d make some kind of reference to Robbie and hope that Jack would open up. But that was never going to happen. His grief was like a rock inside him, granite hard and permanent, a part of him now.

No. He wasn’t going home for Christmas this year. He’d find somewhere in the Caribbean instead, and go scuba diving and dally with bikini-clad tourists. His parents would understand. They’d have to.

Across the car, Claire shifted and cleared her throat.

“Do you think we should make contact with Ted again, see how things are going?” she asked.

He checked his watch. They’d been stuck in here for an hour now. He shrugged.

“Guess it couldn’t hurt.”

Standing, he reached for the phone, quickly becoming aware of how much warmer it was in the top half of the car.

“I’ll never bitch about air-conditioning again,” he murmured as he waited for Ted to pick up.

“What did you say?”

He glanced at her, caught by the arrested expression on her face.

“Air-conditioning. Usually I don’t like it—dries everything out. But I’m beginning to understand why it’s a necessary evil in a building this size.”

She gaped at him, surprise in every line of her body.

“That was true?” she said, something like awe in her voice.

He frowned. What on earth was she talking about?

“What?”

She seemed to suddenly realize what she’d said. She shrugged, elaborately casual, dropping her eyes to avoid meeting his. “Nothing. Is Ted not answering?”

He frowned, aware that something had just happened there. He was about to pursue it, but Ted chose that moment to pick up the phone.

“Yes, number six?”

“Ted, we were just wondering how things are going? Rescue team in action yet? Any news on when the power might be back?”

“Negative on the power situation. Not expected to be up and running until O–one hundred. Rescue team is in place, and setting up. Estimated extraction time per car—half an hour to an hour.”

Jack suppressed a smile at Ted’s military-style reporting. This was probably about as exciting as it got in Ted’s line of work.

“Right. So, when can we expect to be, uh, extracted?”

“Car six has only two occupants, and, as such, is a low priority at this stage,” Ted said evasively.

“How long, Ted?” Jack insisted.

A pause.

“Let me check on that for you. Hold on.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Because I have so many other places I can be right now,” he muttered.

“What’s he saying?” Claire asked, hope in her voice.

“Don’t get excited,” he warned her just as Ted picked up the receiver at the other end again.

“Best estimate is between three to five hours, Mr. Brook.”

“Thanks, Ted. Don’t be a stranger.”

Jack put the receiver down and turned to face Claire. She was standing now, and he saw how short she was without her high heels on. Tiny, really—she barely came up to his armpits.

“Three hours is the minimum, I’m afraid.”

He watched her closely, worried she might flip out again.

“Relax, I’m not going to freak out again,” she assured him. “In fact, this little experience may have cured me for good.”

They sank down into their opposing corners again, and he made a special effort to avoid looking at her as she settled. It didn’t stop him from imagining her thighs again, of course, but it gave him the illusion of self-control….

Silence took over again, and he replayed the small moment before Ted had picked up the phone. What had really happened then?

“Before, when I was talking about the air-conditioning, you said something,” he prompted, watching her face carefully.

She was all surprise, widening her eyes innocently as she tried to remember. Pity she sucked as an actress.

“Did I? I don’t remember,” she said.

“Right. And you never inhaled, either.”

His challenge hung between them for a moment, then she shrugged.

“Fine. You want it, you got it. When you broke up with Judy Gillespie from Accounts, she told everyone about how you made her turn off her air-conditioning when you stayed the night, even though she got heat rash if it got too warm. I didn’t believe it at the time.”

He just stared at her, his mind numbed for a moment by this revelation. She raised her eyebrows at him, obviously expecting an answer.

“Nice to know my private life is public property,” he finally managed to say.

She laughed, one of those short, sharp mocking laughs that women use to cut men off at the knees.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” he squawked. He sounded more than a little defensive, and he forced his shoulders to relax.

“Come on. You’ve dated more than half the eligible females in the building. You think they don’t talk about you, compare notes? You think they don’t warn every new woman who joins the company?”

Compare notes? For a moment he felt exposed and vulnerable, and then he reminded himself that he had nothing to be ashamed or worried about. He prided himself on the fact that no woman left his bed unsatisfied. If half the women’s magazine complaints he’d read over the years were true, he was doing okay.

“Yeah? What do they say?”

He could see his cockiness got under her skin, and he felt on firmer ground now.

“You want the truth?” she asked, daring him.

How tough could it be? Maybe a few complaints about him breaking up with some of them, but most of his office flings had been just that—two adults satisfying a mutual curiosity. He was confident he could handle a bit of woman-scorned bitterness.

“Sure. Hit me.”

Her expression should have warned him. She actually looked wary, almost as though she was afraid of what she was about to say.

“They say that you’re fun and adventurous, but as soon as anything serious develops you run scared. Also, that you’re afraid of commitment, afraid of feelings and impossible to talk to. That even though you’re good in bed, they never really felt as if you were really there with them. That—”

“Okay, thanks, I think I get the drift,” he cut in, holding up a hand to stem the tide.

A profound silence settled between them as his brain whirled round and round trying to process, adjust and justify her words.

“You did ask.”

She actually sounded guilty.

“Hey, don’t worry about me. I think I know enough about human nature to understand where those kind of comments come from.”

She didn’t say a word, but she didn’t need to. After just an hour of one-on-one with her, he was becoming finely attuned to her body language. A shift of a shoulder, the sniff of her nose, and she might as well have shouted at him.

“What? Fine, then. Where do you think those sorts of comments come from?” he demanded.

Her eyes measured him for a moment before she answered. He fought the urge to squirm.

“You think they’re just bitter because you broke up with them, don’t you? And you’re probably right, I’m sure that’s some of it. But there are plenty of them who aren’t bitter, just sad.”

He couldn’t let that slide by.

“Because I broke their hearts? Let me tell you, I am never anything but honest with women. They all know the score.”

“They’re not sad because you rejected them, Jack. They’re sad because for a man with so much potential there’s so little on offer. Katherine told me that she’d never met a man who was more afraid of his feelings in her life. She said there was no point pursuing anything with someone who was never going to let himself go.”

If she’d quoted anyone else, he would have been able to blow it off as sour grapes. But Katherine… He’d thought they’d had a real understanding. A short, hot fling, an absolute meeting of minds—two people who enjoyed each other, looking for nothing more than a bit of companionship and human comfort. No strings, no hassles.

He frowned as he remembered that she’d been the one to drift away, the one to call a halt before the usual awkward time when the relationship should move into the next stage but was never going to, thanks to his own fierce commitment to being uncommitted.

He tried to shake off the strange feeling of oppression that settled over him as he considered that Katherine’s assessment was right.

Immediately he thought of Robbie, and he hardened himself. So, maybe they were right, maybe he didn’t have anything to offer on that level. That was simply the way it was. He’d given it all to Robbie, and he didn’t have anything left to share.

His thoughts snapped back to the woman sitting opposite. He now knew why she judged him the way she did. A spark of anger sprang to life inside him. She had judged him, big-time. She’d listened to office gossip and rumor, and she’d formed her own opinions of him, and decided he was lacking. Hence all that talk about him being the action-man about the office. Hence her thinly veiled contempt for him.

Vaguely, he was aware of how quickly his temper had gone from zero to one hundred.

“And let me tell you, that air-conditioning story is bull. Judy never told me she got heat rash. I said I didn’t like the air-conditioning, sure, but she never said she’d get a rash if it wasn’t on.”

He felt small and stupid as soon as he’d said it. What was he defending himself to Claire for, anyway?

“I told you, I didn’t believe it at the time.”

Now she was being understanding. She even looked like she was regretting what she’d said to him. He didn’t like it that she suddenly seemed to have the upper hand. He was much more comfortable with their normal status quo, where he disdained her repression and she expressed her contempt for his freewheeling attitude.

“I’m surprised you haven’t got better things to do than sit around gossiping about me all day. Workload must be a bit lighter than I remember it down in Homes,” he snipped.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Spare me. You think I want to stand around and talk about the office stud all day? It’s impossible not to pick this stuff up. It’s like osmosis.”

He sat up straight, bristling.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me that, thank you,” he found himself saying stiffly.

Can you hear yourself? Now who’s uptight?

“I beg your pardon?”

Her incredulity was clear. But he’d drawn a line in the sand, and he had to stand by it.

“Office stud. I find it offensive. How would you like it if I called you the town bike?”

She surprised him by laughing out loud. “Go ahead, see if I object.”

For a moment he stared at her, taking in the transformation in her face when she laughed. She looked…nice. Approachable. Attractive.

All just a sugarcoating for her inner shrew, he reminded himself. Don’t forget that. Never forget that.

* * *

CLAIRE PLUCKED AT the neck of her heavy silk shirt, trying to get some air between it and her hot skin. Why hadn’t she picked a cotton shirt this morning? She pictured the litter of clothes all over her bedroom and declined to comment on the grounds that she already knew why: she was a pig, and she needed to do the laundry.

She spared a glance for the office stud opposite. Now that she knew he hated being called that she’d make sure to slip it into as many conversations as possible. See how he liked being pigeonholed.

His face was closed, quiet, but she could feel his vulnerability. She’d shocked him with her revelations about what his exes and flings thought of him, there was no question. She felt a vague guilt at having spilled so many beans on him. For the first time, she questioned some of the stories she’d heard about him, and some of her value judgments. So, he dated a lot. Was that so bad? And then she remembered twenty-three-year-old Fiona from Legal, her heart-shaped face blotched with tears as she explained how Jack had made an excuse for not staying the night in her bed after they’d done it. He’d ended their short romance the next day at lunchtime.

He didn’t deserve sympathy. Fiona deserved sympathy—as well as a good kick in the wazoo for letting herself be suckered in by Mr. Silvertongue.

Claire was considering trying to take a nap when movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Jack shrugging out of his shirt.

“What?” he asked defensively. “You want me to ask permission or something?”

What a jerk.

“You can take it all off for all I care,” she told him stiffly.

He raised an eyebrow, obviously doubting her. “Feel free to take off whatever you want, too,” he said idly, the glint of his eyes giving away the fact that he was mocking her.

She could feel her lips disappearing again and she forced them to behave before he noticed. He was sooooo annoying. She’d truly never met anyone else who could get her so riled so quickly.

What was it about him that got up her nose so much? She studied him through her eyelashes, trying to work it out, and found her gaze drawn to the broad expanse of hairy chest he’d just exposed. All that huntin’-shootin’-fishin’ obviously agreed with him because he was in pretty good shape, his pecs nicely defined, his stomach flat, the hint of strong abdominal muscles showing as he breathed. She knew from experience how tough it was to get lean enough to see those ab muscles, and she reassessed her notion of his sybaritic lifestyle. Okay, maybe he wasn’t out wining and dining every night. Every second night, probably. He’d need to, just to fit in all his office romances.

It was nice to see a bit of hair on a chest, she decided idly, feeling drowsy in the stuffy atmosphere. Most male triathletes made a habit of waxing their chests to gain a little less drag in the water, and it had been a while since she’d seen a nicely haired male chest. He had a good tan, too, and the hairs looked healthy and dark and springy against his brown skin. Her eyes followed the trail of hair as it narrowed over those taut abs of his until it was just a promise as it disappeared altogether beneath the waistband of his pants. She found herself staring at a point just below his waistband, wondering again about exactly how gifted Jack was supposed to be….

“Can I help you with anything?”

She started out of her daze, suddenly realizing she was staring unashamedly at his crotch. Flaming embarrassment swept up her body in a burning wave, and she was powerless to do anything about it.

She was a good blusher, she’d learned to her detriment over the years. Even her ears glowed when she was totally humiliated. Like now. She felt almost incandescent with heat and she resolutely kept her gaze away from his as she fought to control her own body.

But the more she thought about it, the more she seemed to sizzle and glow, and she tried not to think about how guilty and pathetic she must seem to him.

At last the flush seemed to dissipate, but it left her feeling unbearably hot. Her blouse felt sticky, confining and oppressive. Briefly, she flicked an envious gaze across at Jack’s bare chest, only to be caught in the knowing beam of his blue eyes.

A small residual flood of color washed her cheeks as she tore her gaze from him. He was laughing at her! Why, oh, why had she stared at him like that? Was she so hard up that the first bit of decent male action to come her way sent her into zombie-drool mode? Even if that male action was attached to the world’s most annoying personality?

She flapped her blouse ineffectually, succeeding only in moving around more hot air.

“Take it off.”

It was a dare, not a suggestion. A challenge, and the expression on his handsome, smug face told her that he knew she wouldn’t take him up on it.

Her hands were on her buttons before she could think. One button, two, three. And he just sat there, his lips quirked to one side, apparently vastly amused by everything she did. She tried to remember which bra she’d put on this morning. Not the stretched-out one with the pills and the no-nonsense, no-trim elastic. Please, not that one. She wanted so badly to peek beneath her blouse to check, but then he’d know. The man was psychic. He’d definitely know.

Four buttons, only three to go now. A patch of black bra showed in her peripheral vision. Maybe if she glanced down casually, just as though she wasn’t sure where the next button was? She risked it, sighing with relief when she saw her unexciting but presentable plain black bra. It was a simple, smooth cup style that was more about good design and elegance than frills and see-through bits, and she was damn grateful that she’d put it on this morning. More confident now, she slipped the last button loose, tugged her blouse open and began working on the buttons on her cuff.

He was still watching her, she could feel it. Trying to pay her back for gawking at him earlier, obviously. She could handle it. It was just like wearing a crop top during training, and while she wasn’t into showing off her body and flashing it around, she was quietly confident that it was in good shape.

She shrugged the damp silk from her shoulders and slid it off her arms as nonchalantly as possible. Determined to prove she was not the uptight prude he thought she was, she sighed loudly.

“You’re right, that’s much better.”

She even circled her shoulders around, as if she was warming up for a swim. His eyes were glued to her, and she was loving it.

“Yep, that’s definitely better,” she repeated, mostly just to annoy him.

Smiling sweetly at him, she spread her shirt out on the scratchy industrial carpet, then rerolled her jacket into a tighter pillow.

“I’m going to see if I can get some sleep,” she told him blithely.

He was still just sitting there, an unreadable expression on his face. Probably didn’t know what to say now that she’d proved him wrong. Typical.