Chapter 3
I
t hadn't been a fluke. Simon's reaction to Amanda was as devastating today as it had been in his cousin's office.
And Amanda was just as affected.
She'd thought he was going to touch her. He could see it in the dilation of the black centers in her eyes, in the way her breath had caught and held, pushing her beautiful curves into prominence. Yet she hadn't protested, hadn't moved.
She wanted him.
Perhaps as much as he wanted her.
But he couldn't let it happen. Not yet, probably not ever.
In the current situation with his family's company, she was the enemy. He wouldn't risk the possibility she might try to use sex to manipulate him into agreeing to the merger. He was almost positive she wouldn't stoop to such tactics. His instincts told him that though she tried to be all business, she wasn't barracuda material.
In fact, she seemed like a really sweet, beautiful woman almost absurdly unaware of her feminine appeal. He wanted time to see if that was true. He wanted to observe her and get to know her. She intrigued him. He wanted to understand what made her tick, what put shadows in her eyes when she said she wasn't married. He wanted to know why her voice had changed tenor when she mentioned her family.
For the first time in five years, Simon was interested in a woman's friendship. His body craved hers with feral intensity, but he wasn't going to risk her deciding he was too big or too intense, and putting up her guard against him.
His gaze flicked over her heart-shaped face. “So, do you usually watch your friend's show?”
“Every day, faithfully.”
“You keep a television in your office?”
She looked appalled at the idea. “That would hardly be professional. I record it on my Ti-Vo and watch it when I go to bed to relax me.”
“You like to watch television in bed?” He went to bed to sleep, or to make love, period.
She fiddled with her fork, her gaze not quite meeting his. “Yes.” For some reason his question had made her blush.
Maybe it had been his mentioning the word bed. He knew simply thinking the word in her proximity brought all sorts of interesting, but impossible, scenarios to his own mind.
“What part does your friend play in the show?” he asked in order to get his focus off those scenarios.
“She started off playing the long lost teenage daughter of one of the love interests on the show. They kept her on. It's a small role, but she gets to do what she has always wanted to do, act.”
“And are you doing something you love?”
“My career is very important to me.”
“But do you love it?”
“Of course. I'm well on my way to meeting all my goals.”
No doubt the intended merger with Brant Computers was a big part of that. It was unfortunate, but she would have to find some other way to pursue her ambitions. Brant Computers was going to stay a family held company as long as Simon had anything to say about it. Considering the fact he had no intention of ever selling his share of the company, that would be for his lifetime.
He searched his mind for a way to steer the direction away from her work. “A friend of mine from my university days is an actor in New York.”
They spent the remainder of lunch discussing her girlfriend's soap opera and the difference between stage acting and television.
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Following Simon into Jacob's quarters, Amanda couldn't believe she had gotten so sidetracked.
She'd spent forty-five minutes talking to Simon and after her initial sally, she had not once brought up her proposal. The only other person in her life that kept her so enthralled in conversation was Jillian. Because she was so outrageous. Simon was eccentric, not outrageous, but he was interested in everything and his mind was like a mainframe computer stored to capacity with data.
“You got an addiction to soap operas, have you?” Jacob asked as she took a seat on the sofa opposite a big screen television.
The old man's sneering got her back up. “My best friend is one of the actors in a highly acclaimed daytime drama.”
“Ho, is she now? What's her name then?”
“Jillian Sinclair.”
Jacob sat in the recliner, leaving the only seat for Simon on the couch with her. “Point her out when she comes on screen.” His tone implied he questioned her story.
She consciously refused to grit her teeth. “I will.”
Simon sat beside her rather than taking a position by the other arm of the sofa. “This should be interesting.”
She turned her head to look at him and couldn't help smiling. His expression was dubious. For a man who didn't even own a television, daytime drama probably had very doubtful appeal. She wasn't sure why he'd decided to watch it with her. Perhaps that genius brain of his, so interested in everything, wanted to taste a new experience, even a questionable one.
The show's theme music started and she forced her attention back to the television. Opening credits rolled. Jillian wasn't in the first scene, so Amanda allowed herself another peek at Simon, but he wasn't watching the television.
His gunmetal gaze was settled on her. “You don't like the woman on the screen.”
He was right. Amanda didn't particularly like the grand dame of the show, but how could he tell? “It's not my favorite story line.”
“If you two are going to talk, sir, there's no sense you staying in here to watch the show, is there?” Jacob's irascible voice interrupted them.
Simon chuckled. “We'll be quiet. It is, after all, your television.”
Silence between them did not diminish her awareness of Simon Brant. On the contrary, it heightened it. She had to be imagining that she could feel the heat of his body from six inches away, but the impression would not leave her. The side of her closest to him flushed with warmth.
It got worse when Jillian's initial scene came on screen. “That's Jillian, the redhead,” she said, pointing her friend out for Simon and Jacob.
She could have said the half-naked woman draped like a blanket over the blond hunk.
Jillian had a love interest
. No wonder she was excited. That increased her caché with the show big-time. It was, however, not a scene Amanda would have preferred to watch sitting next to the first man in years to spark sexual feelings in her.
She licked her lips as Jillian and the blond hunk kissed. It wasn't a get-to-know-you kiss, but one of supposed overwhelming passion and both actors portrayed the emotion in an amazingly realistic way.
Amanda's breathing hitched and she tried to mask her reaction with a cough, which earned her a glare from Jacob.
Simon caught her eye and winked.
She felt heat crawl up her face. He couldn't possibly know she was thinking about his lips on hers while Jillian and her lover kissed. Could he?
At the next commercial break, Simon turned to her. “Your friend is quite talented. You'd never guess watching her with that guy that they aren't really madly in lust with each other. Or are they?”
She shook her head and laughed a little. “No way. He's married with four kids and the sweetest wife. He dotes on her and she adores him, not at all your average Hollywood marriage.” Or any marriage as far as she could tell.
Simon's expression turned thoughtful. “Is Jillian married?”
Why was he asking? She knew her friend was gorgeous. Did Simon want an introduction? “No, but she's got a boyfriend.”
More like six of them. Where Amanda lived like a nun, Jillian was out to enjoy male companionship to its fullest.
Gray eyes narrowed, Simon studied her, making Amanda feel like he was looking into her soul. “I don't know. I think I'd go ballistic if my girlfriend kissed a guy like that.”
He couldn't be thinking of her when he said that, no matter what his expression indicated. She didn't engender those sorts of thoughts in men, especially gorgeous, sexy men like Simon. “It's not real.”
“How can a kiss not be real?”
Amanda wasn't very clear on that herself. Jillian had tried to explain it to her, but for Amanda it always came down to lips against lips, bodies touching bodies. Intimacy.
She shrugged. “She says acting is putting yourself in that person's perspective, so it's not really you doing the kissing.”
“And when his penis gets hard and presses against her belly, is that just the character reacting or the man?” He sounded as if he was asking a wholly clinical question.
She didn't feel in the least scientific, or qualified to answer the question in any case. Erect male flesh wasn't something she had a lot of experience with. “He probably doesn't get th-that way.”
She'd stuttered. Again. With the exception of the other day, when she'd first met Simon, she hadn't stuttered since spelling militant in her sixth grade spelling bee. She'd dropped out because she'd said too many m's.
“Come on.” Incredulity laced his voice. “He's got a beautiful body pressed against his, their tongues are doing the mating dance and did you see where she had her hand?”
Something twinged in her heart when he called Jillian beautiful. She and Amanda were complete opposites physically. “Jill says that with the lights, the people all around, and the pressure to get it right for the first take, she doesn't have any inclination to get excited.”
How had they gotten into this conversation?
Simon looked at her with an expression she couldn't begin to decipher, but which left her feeling ridiculously vulnerable and short of breath. “It wouldn't matter.”
Did he mean it wouldn't matter if he had Jillian pressed up against him?
Thankfully, the show came back on and she was saved from having to pursue the conversation further.
They had to sit through another scene without Jillian and a second commercial break, during which Jacob grilled her about Jillian's start in show business.
Then Jillian's subsequent scene came on.
It was in the bedroom and all Amanda could think was how it would feel to be in a similar situation with Simon. Which was highly unprofessional as well as dangerous to her personal well being. She'd never before had a physical reaction to watching a love scene on Jillian's show and goodness knew she'd seen enough of them. But this time, her body was reacting as if she was the one in the bed.
She could feel arrows of sensation shooting down her thighs from their apex and her nipples were pressing against her bra like when she was freezing cold. Only she wasn't cold. She was hot. So hot, she wished she could take off her blazer, but she couldn't. Not with the nipple problem.
She'd die if Simon saw the evidence of her desire, not to mention Jacob. He'd probably say something nasty about it and Jillian's show. As if the show had anything to do with it.
Her wretched imagination was to blame. And the man beside her. Eccentric geniuses had no business being sexy and ultramasculine. He should wear wire-rimmed glasses and dress in polyester pants with checked, cotton button-up shirts, not form fitting shirts and jeans that accentuated his incredible body.
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Simon's nostrils flared in primal recognition of the subtle scent coming off Amanda.
Her friend might not be affected by doing the love scene on-screen, but Amanda was affected by watching it. Her breath was coming in shallow little pants and he'd bet his newest computer that if she took off her jacket, her blouse would be inadequate for the task of hiding twin mounds topped by turgid peaks. Imagining the way they would feel against his palm was driving him crazy.
Were they pink or brown? Did she have big aureoles? Were her nipples big or little? Damn. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to see her. Neither was a wise or even possible course of action, so he sat there stewing in his desire.
And getting hard, which could be a problem if Amanda noticed, not to mention uncomfortable.
Stretching his legs out in front of him to relax the constriction around his crotch, he laid his arm along the back of the sofa. He didn't touch her, but she went as stiff as his sex was getting.
He turned his head slightly to see her face better and wanted to explode at the way she was biting her lip.
The sound of the phone ringing came as welcome relief. He jumped up before Jacob could. “I'll get it.”
Jacob eyed him speculatively while Amanda kept her gaze set on the television.
“Amanda, go ahead and finish watching the program.”
Her head came up then, her features schooled into a blank mask. “All right. Thanks. Jill said she had one last scene in the second half-hour, but it wasn't as big. I'd like to see it.”