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“What would get you hot enough?” she asked.
He shook his head, unwilling to reveal that her flirting with him would be enough. “Become my mistress and you’ll find out.”
“I’m trying to avoid that,” she said.
“Why? We both know it’s what you want,” he said.
She nodded. “It is. But I have my professional integrity to think about.”
“Integrity. I didn’t know that crashing a party had any high moral value.”
“I came as a plus one,” she said.
“Whose?”
“Um …”
“That’s what I thought. I admire that you’re willing to go to any lengths to get this interview,” he said.
“How can you be sure of that?” she asked.
“You are sitting here,” he pointed out. “As I was saying, I admire your guts. But I think you need to acknowledge that all of your cards are on the table and I’m holding an ace up my sleeve.”
“Are we playing for high stakes?”
“Yes, I believe we are. I don’t want you to think that my offering to make you my mistress means I don’t respect you.”
“Sure you do.”
“I definitely respect you and I want you. It’s the easiest way for us both to get what we want. It’s a business arrangement.”
“I’m not interested in that,” she said. “Perhaps if you knew what I was writing about, it would make you see there’s nothing to fear and we could try to have a normal relationship after I write the article.”
He wasn’t interested in that. He knew from his own feelings on the matter of relationships that he would never marry or settle down. And though he’d never formally had a mistress, in general the women he involved himself with knew he wasn’t in it for the long haul.
“I doubt that would work,” he said.
“Why? Because I’m not from your echelon?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. It’s just that I’m not relationship-minded. Never have been. I saw the dark side of it from my parents’ marriage, of course, but also from friends. It’s just not to my taste.”
“I’d love to quote you on that.”
“Well, you can’t.”
“Honestly, Conner. That is the type of article I want to write. I think even you can see that it’s not invasive at all.”
“I’ve already offered to let you interview me if you become my mistress.”
“What if I just ask you about the business?”
“You can do that through my marketing department.”
“But your marketing department isn’t you. I want to know why someone who’s so disdainful of relationships would try to set people up.”
“In a word?”
“If that’s all you will give me,” she said.
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. He liked that she never just gave in. “Money.”
“Money?”
“That’s right. There’s a lot of money to be made from people looking for that special someone.”
“That’s so cynical.”
He gave a wry shrug of his shoulders. “Obviously I don’t run around telling our clients that, but that’s my feeling. If the company didn’t make money I would have cut it from my portfolio a long time ago.”
She leaned forward. “I thought it was a family business.”
“That’s all you’re getting out of me until you agree to the terms.”
“What terms?”
“I will answer your questions and you will be my mistress.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“A month,” he said. “Long enough for us both to still enjoy each other.”
“You’re not listening to me,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to just bow to your wishes.”
He stood up and walked around the desk, stopping right in front of her and leaning back against it, his long legs stretched out so that his well-shod feet were on either side of her. “I won’t hold it against you when you do.”
She wanted to scream. He was frustrating and so arrogant she wanted to take him down a peg or two. She was tempted to agree to his deal and then back out of it when she got what she wanted. Could she string him along for enough time to get a story?
Could she live with herself if she did that?
She had been brought up in a family where lies—not outright lies but lies of omission—were routine. That was one of the main reasons she’d become a reporter—to expose the truth. So, no, she couldn’t lie to him or herself in hopes that she’d get a story without having to pay the price.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I have to look myself in the mirror each morning.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest, the sides of his jacket parting so she could see his dress shirt underneath it. This would be so much easier if she wasn’t tempted by him. If she didn’t want him.
But she knew that anything worth having was worth sacrificing for and she was just going to have to push on and stick to her guns. She’d meant what she said: She had to look at herself every morning and she couldn’t do that if she sold her body in exchange for an interview—even if it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
“Have you ever paid for an interview?” he asked her.
She sensed where he was going with this. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Answer the question,” he said in that forceful way of his.
“I’ll bet you were never spanked as a child,” she said.
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
“You are way too arrogant,” she replied. “Yes, I’ve paid a source for an interview.”
“Then how would this be different?”
“I get your point—I really do—but we’re talking about sex, and there has always been a stigma to paying for it or doing it in exchange for something.”
He nodded and leaned forward, putting his hands on either side of her chair so that she was now surrounded by him. His face was just inches from hers and she could see those thick dark lashes of his and the compelling blue of his gaze.
His masculine scent—clean, crisp and spicy—surrounded her. “If I asked you to hire painters to do the walls of this office in exchange for the interview, would you?”
She bit her lower lip. A part of her wanted him to talk her into this. That way she wouldn’t have to accept all the blame for the fallout—and she wasn’t about to fool herself that there wouldn’t be a fallout.
“Of course I would. But I wouldn’t just give in. Tell me something. Give me some information that is going to make it worth my while. Sweeten the pot for me,” she said.
“I want you.”
Those bald words sent a shiver down her spine and made her lean a little bit closer to him. She wanted him, too, but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was ethics and pride. She wanted him to want her enough not to make it a business deal.
She licked her lips and noticed that he tracked the movement with his eyes. His nostrils flared as he leaned in even closer and brushed his lips over hers. Just that touch of his mouth on hers sent a pulse of desire through her entire body.
She turned her head to the side. “I want you, too, but I’m not going to give in to physical desire.”
“That sounds like a challenge,” he said.
“You can try to make it one,” she said. “I need to talk about the interview. How about I agree to be your mistress after the interview is done?”
“How could I trust your word?”
She frowned at him. “I’m not known for lying.”
“Yet, the day we met you’d snuck into a party to which you weren’t invited,” he said, stepping back to lean against his desk again.
“True, but that wasn’t lying. No one asked to see my invitation.”
“Semantics. I want to know I can trust you and the only way I can be assured of that is if we are both giving up something we normally wouldn’t.”
“God, I’d hate to sit across the bargaining table from you,” she said.
He flashed a wicked smile. “I do win a lot, but mainly because I just don’t back down.”
“I stand my ground as well. How about a little friendly necking in exchange for an interview about the business and the reality TV show? I’ll forward you the article before it’s published and you can read it to see that I’m keeping my word.”
“I’m not interested in making out with you. I want the entire woman when I take you in my arms again. Nothing else is going to satisfy me.”
“Okay, we’re making progress here,” she said, crossing her legs again. “I have something you want very badly and I’m willing to negotiate with you for it. But you have to give a little ground here. What’s the bare minimum you are willing to take in exchange for an interview?”
“You bare naked on my desk for fifteen minutes and I’m allowed to do whatever I want to you,” he said.
She blushed. She should have been prepared for his brazen words, but she hadn’t been. “Um … no. That’s not happening. I don’t have the kind of body that would stand up to that much scrutiny.”
“You look very fine to me,” he said.
She shook her head. Looking good with clothing on was way different than looking good naked, something she realized again and again when she got out of the shower and caught a glimpse of her out-of-shape body.
“Maybe you won’t be happy with what you see if I got naked,” she said.
“If I’m not satisfied, you still get your interview,” he said. “But I know that I’m going to enjoy every inch of you.”
She nibbled her bottom lip.
“Come on, red, you know you want to do it. Just give in and say yes, and everything you dreamed of can be yours.”
She wasn’t too sure she believed that, but a part of her wanted to. She wanted to put her faith in this man who didn’t believe in anything, but that seemed like the surest way to broken dreams and a broken heart as well. Because she knew she couldn’t separate her heart and soul from her body.
Three
Nichole wasn’t a woman who ever veered from a path once she stepped on it. She’d decided to be a journalist and pursued it wholeheartedly. Not just in the workplace, but in her personal life. She’d made choices that kept her single and free to be the workaholic she was today.
She loved her life and didn’t regret any of her decisions. But now … she was tempted to make a big change. The kind of change she knew could potentially harm her and her career. She had to be very certain if she agreed to this arrangement with Conner that no one ever knew the details. And she had to be sure she could get her story and keep herself from falling for him.
A tall order. Not impossible exactly, but not easy, either. She just needed time to think and that was out of the question while she was with Conner.
“I can see that your method of negotiating is one of squeezing water from a stone, but I am not going to be pushed into accepting your position as the only one. I know that we can come to terms that will be suitable to both of us.”
He walked back around his desk and took his seat again. “I’ve put all my cards on the table. I’m not going to budge.”
“I don’t see why not. I’m the one with everything to lose,” she said, nibbling her lower lip. She was losing him and she didn’t want to.
“Come on, you must see that talking about my personal life in any way isn’t easy for me,” he said.
She stared at him, feeling a pang of sympathy, remembering coverage of him as a teenager, and she started to soften toward him. But then she glanced up and met his gaze with her own and realized that he was playing her.
“That’s not going to work. You’re only going to let me see the side of you that you’re comfortable with. We both know that you play your cards close to your chest.”
“I do. And that’s not going to change. Yet, you’re an anomaly. I haven’t wanted a woman as much as you in a long time, but that could be a danger in itself. I’ve made my offer and I’m not backing down. If you walk away, I’ll probably always have a wistful what-if feeling toward you, but that’s life.”
She walked over to his desk, perching on the edge of it right next to where he was seated. Though he’d been glib and tried to play her, she knew that he was vulnerable as far as his father was concerned. He didn’t want to answer any questions about the past, but she was already seeing how it had defined him.
“If I agree to keep the personal questions to a minimum and just use my own observations …”
“No.”
