“I’m betting you don’t have
any
references,” John said.
She smiled sweetly. “Which means they can’t be bad.”
“You told me you didn’t have to work when you were married. Have you ever even held a job?”
“Of course I have. It’s just been a few years.”
“How many is a few?”
“Come on, John!” Tony said. “Does it really matter? Look at that stack of filing. We can’t find crap around here. And I’m sick of answering the phone.”
“No, you’re sick of having to deal with whatever woman woke up in your bed that morning because there’s nobody here to screen your calls.”
“Uh, yeah. That, too.”
“Don’t worry. I’m on it.” Darcy grabbed a pen and a sticky note, talking as she wrote. “Tell any woman . . . who calls for Tony . . . that he moved to Guam . . . and won’t be coming . . .
back.
” She pulled the note off and stuck it to the telephone, then folded her hands on the desk and smiled up at Tony.
He flashed her a smile in return. “Now that’s what I call a steep learning curve.”
“My office,” John snapped.
With a roll of his eyes, Tony followed John into his office. They closed the door, and through the glass Darcy could see John’s face turning tense and crabby. She was an eavesdropping expert, but still she made out only about half of what they said. She heard “loose cannon” and “combative” and “nutcase,” and something that sounded like “refrain” but was probably “insane.” Then more stuff from Tony about how somebody needed to be doing the job, so why not her?
From John she heard “outa your mind, blah, blah, blah,” and then “Fine. Send her in here.”
Tony came out of John’s office. “He wants to see you.” He leaned in and whispered, “Try not to piss him off.”
Darcy went into John’s office to find him sitting behind his desk, scowling like a bulldog without a bone.
“Sit,” he said.
She did.
“I saw an article in the paper yesterday,” John said. “It appears that your husband not only skipped out on you, but he also embezzled three hundred thousand dollars from the company where he worked. Do you happen to know anything about that?”
Good heavens. Had everyone in the Dallas metroplex seen that article?
“It came as just as much of a shock to me as it did to his employer,” Darcy said. “I didn’t know anything about what my husband was up to.”
“So you never acquired any of your husband’s bad habits? I’m not fond of employees stealing from me.”
“He embezzled to cover gambling debts. Gambling makes me nervous. I’ve never even bought a lottery ticket.”
“Good. The lottery is a waste of money. Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“Do drugs?”
“Of course not.”
“Amy does most of the skip tracing around here, along with the database and accounting management. All I need is somebody to back her up. To type a little. Copy. File. Answer the phone. Keep my clients informed.”
“I didn’t see another woman working here.”
“She’s part-time. She works around her college schedule. Does that job description sound like something you could handle?”
“Of course.”
“You’ll be required to deal with all kinds of people, from the filthy rich to the scum of the earth. Think you can handle that?”
Filthy rich? Maybe there were going to be some manhunting possibilities around here after all. No, wait. He probably meant to say
ex
-filthy rich, or they wouldn’t have defaulted on their car loans. That left the scum of the earth.
Oh, joy.
“Of course,” she told John. “I’m very good with people.”
“A guy came in here the other day waving a gun around and demanding I give him his car back. What would you do if that happened?”
“What did you do?”
“Knocked the gun out of his hand, shoved him down face-first on the ground, and called the cops.”
“Well, I suppose I’d just have to sweet-talk that gun right out of his hand.”
“Good luck with that.”
She gave him a knowing smile. “Never underestimate the power of a woman.”
“Uh-huh. Recite the alphabet.”
“What?”
“And no singing.”
This man was nuts. She recited
A
to
Z,
enunciating
L, M, N,
and
O
so it didn’t sound like “elemeno.” John seemed pleased by that. Go figure.
“You have no skills,” he said. “You have no references. All you’ve ever done is irritate me. There’s no reason on earth for me to hire you. Tell me why you think I should.”
“Tony thinks you should.”
“Tony would hire a woman with a lobotomy if he thought she was hot.”
She gave him a sly smile. “But that’s never a consideration for you?”
“I have a business to run.”
“Then Tony was right?” She folded her arms on the edge of his desk and gave John a smoldering look. “You’re all business and no pleasure?”
“The number-one pleasure in my life right now is keeping this business running with as little hassle as possible.”
“What a pity,” she said, smiling seductively. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Then I won’t miss it, will I?”
“I have other qualifications, you know. The kind that don’t show up on a résumé.”
He sat back in his chair, eyeing her carefully. “Oh, really?”
Okay. She had him on the hook. She was very good at engaging in verbal foreplay without ever getting physical, and this man was going to be no exception.
“I know things have been a little shaky between us up to now,” she told him, “but I think you and I could eventually get along
very
well.”
“Oh, you do?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
When his gaze fell to her breasts, her hope soared that her lack of qualifications wasn’t going to be an issue. Then he met her eyes again. “I take it you’re offering to show me what I’m missing?”
Her heart skipped a little. He wasn’t following the script. They were supposed to be talking in circles with lots of innuendo but never getting anywhere.
She held her gaze steady. “Well. One never knows what the future might hold, does one?”
“You seem to be saying you’d be willing to have sex with me someday if I give you this job now. Is that correct?”
Darcy almost swallowed her tongue. That was what she wanted him to think, of course, but she hadn’t expected him to actually
say
it. And she certainly never expected to have to actually
do
it.
“Uh . . . as I said, all kinds of things might happen in the future.”
“Sorry. I don’t extend credit. If you owe me, you pay up now.”
Darcy felt a shot of apprehension. “Are you saying this job depends on me having sex with you?”
“What if it does?”
“Then I’d say there’s a lawsuit in there somewhere.”
“He said/she said testimony never gets a person convicted.”
“That would depend on who’s testifying.”
“Sorry, Darcy. You wouldn’t stand a chance across the aisle from me in a courtroom.”
“Oh, yeah? What makes you say that?”
“The eighteen years of experience I have testifying in court cases.”
“What?”
“I used to be a cop.”
Darcy swallowed hard. A cop?
Slowly and deliberately he rose from his chair, his size as intimidating as ever, even more so now that she knew he’d spent eighteen years armed and dangerous. He went to the window between his office and the outer office and closed the blinds. He walked to the outside window and did the same. Then he turned around.
“Stand up.”
Nervousness crept through her. “I’m quite comfortable, thank you.”
“Part of working for me is remembering who’s the boss.”
She lifted her chin, determined not to let him get to her. There was no way he was serious about this, and she was going to get a tremendous amount of joy out of watching him back down.
She uncrossed her legs and stood up, resisting the urge to fold her arms over her breasts. She forced a casual smile. “Won’t Tony wonder what’s going on?”
“No wondering involved. He’ll know.”
“So is this one of your regular hiring practices?”
“Nope. But since he’s probably got his ear to the door right now, I expect he’ll figure it out.”
He started toward her. She faced him, trying to hold her ground, but a second later he was looming over her, all wide chest and broad shoulders and hotter-than-hell expression. She automatically took a step backward. With his desk behind her, though, she was trapped. He stood so close to her that she could actually feel the heat radiating from his body, and all at once she had a flash of the kind of hot, sweaty, down-and-dirty sex she’d always fantasized about but never experienced. Instinctively she knew John Stark was the man who could deliver it.
But not here. Not now. As a matter of fact, not
ever.
In fantasies, men did as they were told. Reality was another thing entirely.
“Most men start with flowers and candlelight,” she said.
“Most women aren’t putting out to get a job.”
“Maybe we could do this another time.”
“Nope. It’s now or never.”
Don’t worry. He’s bluffing. Just hold your ground.
He touched a fingertip to her throat, then dragged it down until it reached the first button on her shirt. She closed her eyes, her breath coming faster. Such a tiny part of him was touching such a tiny part of her. So why did it feel as if her whole body was on fire?
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She opened her eyes. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You’ve already made it clear that you’re willing to give to get. If so, it’s time to start giving.”
“But surely you don’t want to do it here.”
“Surely I do.”
He circled his fingertip around the button, making his intent known, dragging the moment out so long that Darcy had a hard time maintaining what little composure she had left. Most men had insecurities a woman could capitalize on in order to control a situation, but she sensed this man hadn’t had an insecure moment since the day he was born. She felt like a gazelle cornered by a lion—a very large, very domineering lion who could take down that gazelle anytime he wanted to.
With a practiced flick of his fingertips, he opened the button.
Darcy smacked her palm against his chest and pushed him away. “You can’t be serious about this! What kind of man demands sex in return for a job?”
“I don’t remember demanding sex. But I do remember you offering it.”
“Well, I’m
not
offering! I don’t want to have anything to do with you! You can take your job and
shove it!
”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, that’s so!”
“Then you’re hired.”
Darcy froze.
What
did he say?
“Just for the record,” John said, “I’ve never done a horizontal interview, and I never will. And don’t you
ever
work for a man who would, or you’ll be up to your neck in the kind of trouble you don’t want to deal with. You’re getting a little old to be relying on sexual manipulation to get the things you want, anyway. Better dust off that brain and start using it instead.”
Darcy was flabbergasted. “Just how old do you think I am?”
“Forty.”
“I am
not
forty!”
“You’re at least within shouting distance of it.”
It must be true. She really did look forty. Was her Botox wearing off already?
Darcy felt sick. It wasn’t just Little Scotty. If John thought she actually looked her age, too . . . oh,
God.
Her body hadn’t come with a maintenance contract, and repairs weren’t going to come cheap.
And that meant she really
did
need a job.
“I’ll give you a one-week trial,” he said. “If you do the job, then the job is yours. If you screw it up, you’re out of here.” Then he mentioned a monthly salary figure that sounded like the Christmas tip Darcy had given her hairstylist. “Be here at eight on Monday morning.”
Still reeling from this turn of events, Darcy tried to get a grip. Dictatorial men had never sat well with her, and this one was as demanding as they came. She wanted to object to something. Anything. Just to let him know she wasn’t a woman who took whatever a man dished out.
She lifted her chin. “I didn’t say I was accepting your offer. Maybe I don’t like those terms.”
“Are you telling me you don’t want the job?”
Darcy gritted her teeth. She hated this.
Hated
it. “No, I want the job, but—”
“Then I’ll see you on Monday.”
John sat down behind his desk again, opened a file, and began to read, as if she weren’t even in the room, as if sex with her really had been the last thing on his mind. In the end, that bothered Darcy most of all. Just because she didn’t want a man didn’t mean she didn’t want him to want her.
At least, she was pretty sure she didn’t want him.
No.
She had to get that out of her mind. His collar was too blue and his bankbook too lightweight for her purposes. If she was ever going to get back on top again, the last thing she needed to do was lower her standards to sexy working-class Neanderthal.
She grabbed her purse and left his office. Tony was still hanging around, clearly waiting to see the outcome of their closed-door session. Right now her insides felt like mush, and she hoped her face wasn’t as flushed as it felt.
“Well?” he asked.
She mustered up her best victory smile. “I’ll see you at eight on Monday morning.”
Tony grinned. “I knew John didn’t stand a chance.”
She winked at him and left the building, wishing she felt as confident about the situation as she’d just made herself out to be.
Men were usually so easy. All she had to do was get them interested. To get them to see the possibilities for the future, even if there weren’t any, and pretty soon they were tripping all over themselves to give her what she wanted. So what was wrong with John? He’d hired her when she
refused
to have sex with him? What was the
matter
with him?
It could only mean that he had some kind of ulterior motive she hadn’t discovered yet, which meant she had to stay on her toes. She’d never met a man she couldn’t manipulate, but it was clear now that she was going to have to work overtime to stay ahead of this one.