Behind The Boardroom Door: Savas' Defiant Mistress / Much More Than a Mistress / Innocent 'til Proven Otherwise

CHAPTER FOUR

MAKE him an offer?

Like what?

Like what he supposed she was offering Max?

She wanted to strangle him. Or punch him. Or do whatever was necessary to wipe that knowing look off his handsome face.

Instead she went out with Max and grilled him about the man who owned her houseboat.

“You’re interested?” Max asked. “In Seb?”

“I am not ‘interested’in Sebastian Savas,” Neely said, still hot under the collar from Sebastian’s remark. She picked at the spider roll on her plate, poked it with her chopstick the way she’d like to poke Sebastian. “Not the way you think. He just annoys me.”

“Why? Are you still ticked because he thought you wanted everything pink?” Max grinned as he regarded her over his bottle of Japanese beer.

“Not ‘thought.’ Thinks! He thinks I’ll paint the houseboat pink!”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Max said easily. “He’s just giving you a hard time. Maybe he’s smitten.”

“Hardly.” Neely sniffed. “He thinks I’m sleeping with you!”

Max’s laughter was so loud and sudden that half the diners in the small restaurant turned to look at their way.

“It’s not funny!” Neely fumed. She did stab her spider roll then. And her kappa maki for good measure.

Max shrugged and lazed back in his chair, still regarding her with amusement. “You could tell him you’re not.”

“I did,” she muttered.

He didn’t say anything, just smiled and sipped his beer.

Neely glared at him. He grinned. “He has a dirty mind,” she said after a moment.

“Probably. He’s a man,” Max said. “And he thinks I’m in danger of succumbing to your charms.”

She blinked and stared. “You knew?”

Max lifted his shoulders. “He didn’t think much of me bringing you on as the living-space designer for Carmody-Blake.”

“You asked him?”

Max shook his head. “Didn’t have to. He volunteered.”

Sebastian was lucky he wasn’t her kappa maki then. She’d poked it to smithereens. “How dare he?”

“He was looking out for my welfare,” Max told him. “Thinks you’re out to get your claws into me.”

“How dare he?”

“He understands the appeal of a pretty woman.”

“He doesn’t think I’m pretty. He thinks I’m weird. And he doesn’t like what I do.”

“Maybe he wants you.”

Neely looked at Max, horrified, at the same time she remem bered that odd stab of awareness she’d felt this afternoon when she’d come into the living room and spied Sebastian up on the ladder. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said now.

“Just saying.” Max finished his beer.

“Well, don’t,” Neely retorted.

She didn’t want to think about Sebastian that way. And she cer tainly didn’t want to think about him thinking about her that way!

Not that he was, of course. It was all in Max’s head.

But the awareness wasn’t.

She felt it again later that night. She spent the evening at Max’s discussing the Blake-Carmody project. It was the work she’d have done at home anyway, but it was actually better to do it with Max. It was nearly eleven when she got home. She took Harm out for a quick walk, then went upstairs to get ready for bed at the very moment Sebastian was coming out of the bathroom. His hair was wet and he was bare-chested this time, though he was wearing his jeans, thank God.

No matter, she still felt that unwelcome sizzle of awareness. And it seemed like every time she saw him now he was wearing less. Her cheeks warmed at the thought.

He raised a brow. “Have fun?” His tone was sardonic.

“I did,” Neely said, keeping hers flat.

“But you didn’t spend the night.” The brow went even higher.

Neely, remembering the eviscerated kappa maki, wished she had a chopstick on her now. She gave him a brittle smile. “It’s a work night.”

His expression hardened. “Nice to know you have some standards.”

“Indeed I do.”

He stepped past her to go into his room. The hall was narrow and he was close enough that she felt the heat emanating from his bare flesh as he passed. The sensation was almost magnetic, drawing her toward him. Quickly Neely stepped back.

He paused, one hand on the frame, as he opened the door to his bedroom. “I’m leaving for Reno as soon as Frank and I close on the houseboat at the bank.”

“Rubbing it in?”

“Just telling you. I won’t be back until Friday.”

“Good.”

A corner of his mouth tipped. “I thought you might think that.” He paused. “If you need anything—”

“I’ll ask Max.”

His knuckles tightened on the door frame. “Of course you will. Sweet dreams, Robson.” Amazing how much disparagement a man could get into so few words.

Neely ran her tongue over her lips. “Same to you, Savas.”

His bedroom door shut with a hard click.

Not until it had, did Neely breathe again. Even so her knees still wobbled. And for the first time she wondered if maybe she should spend the week looking for another place to live.

So what if she was sleeping with Max Grosvenor?

What did he care?

Well, he didn’t, Seb assured himself as he tossed clothes into his suitcase preparatory to tomorrow’s trip to Reno. Unless it interfered with the good of the company, it made no difference at all.

All the same, he was glad he was leaving. That way he didn’t have to be around to watch.

It had been bad enough before—when he’d simply caught glimpses of Neely Robson waltzing into Max’s office during the day. He’d been annoyed when they left together sometimes in the evening. And, yeah, he’d felt downright irritated Friday when Max had come late to their meeting because he was out sailing with a woman half his age!

But it had been worse over the weekend. At least when he was in Reno, Seb wouldn’t have to watch her chatting to Max on the phone while she fed the kittens. He wouldn’t see her razor on the shelf by the shower and wonder if she’d shaved her legs before she’d gone off with Max.

And he wouldn’t have to see her run out the door and down the dock to meet him when he came to pick her up.

Not that he’d been watching…

He’d been minding his own business upstairs in his bedroom, putting some books on the shelves of the built-in bookcase, when he’d just happened to hear the front door shut and had glanced out to see her dance away down the dock, waving madly at Max who was coming to meet her.

Max hadn’t been exactly reluctant, either. The grin Seb saw on his face was one of pure joy. And when she reached him, damned if he hadn’t wrapped his arms around her in a fierce hug.

Boss and employee?

Yeah, right.

Just good friends?

Not even close.

Not that they were claiming any such thing. They weren’t claiming anything at all.

They didn’t have to, Seb thought, banging his suitcase shut.

So it was far better that he was off to Reno for the week where he could focus on what was important—his work—rather than here where he would have to watch Robson work her wiles on Max and Max be no smarter than Seb’s old man.

And that was another reason to be gone. No whining from Vangie about when their father was ever going to call. And no more endless phone calls from all the rest of the pack.

As if living with Neely Robson and watching her kiss up to Max over the weekend wasn’t bad enough, the Savas sisters’ invasion of Seattle was driving him mad.

Now instead of simply having Vangie’s phone calls to contend with, he had the triplets and Jenna, as well.

Saturday night, while Neely was out having sushi with Max, he was listening to Ariadne whine about her boyfriend she’d left back in New York. Then Alexa moaned on about the three she had left behind in Paris. And just when he’d said, “Why do you need three boyfriends?” she’d turned the phone over to Anastasia who had rattled on about her fiancé who was heading to the Trobriand Islands to do field work for six months.

He didn’t even know she had a fiancé. And all he could think was, Not another wedding.

Maybe three boyfriends was better than one serious one. He hoped the guy stayed gone five years.

The next day—while Neely was, naturally, out sailing with Max—they’d called again. Not once. Not twice. Half a dozen times or more. To ask where the blender was. Then where the vacuum was. Then where the broom was. Didn’t he have a dustpan? Did he know if the recycler would take broken glass?

“What sort of glass?” Seb had demanded. “What’d you break?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” one of them said airily. He never had any idea which. “Nothing important.”

Probably it wasn’t, he’d lied to himself. But as he couldn’t make himself believe it, he’d made sure he had time, before taking them out to dinner, to drop in and survey the damage himself.

There was clutter everywhere. But it wasn’t much worse than he’d imagined—and he never did figure out what had broken. It hadn’t been a bad evening. The food was good, his sisters had behaved well, and he would have enjoyed himself except for periodically wondering if, while he was eating salmon, Robson and Max were feasting on each other.

It had seemed all too likely when he got back to the houseboat at ten and only Harm, the rabbit and the guinea pigs were there to greet him.

Of course, she could have come home and gone to bed. Maybe she had, he’d told himself. But after an internal debate about whether he should or not, Seb decided that, as owner of the houseboat, he was allowed to check his tenant’s room. So he cracked open the door, hoping to see her soundly sleeping.

He saw an empty bed. And all the kittens escaped.

Thank God he got them all back in and the door shut. But it was after eleven and he had just been coming out of the bathroom from taking a shower when she came up the stairs.

She looked tousled and tumbled and too damn beautiful.

And his shower had not been nearly cold enough.

“Savas here.”

Ah, yes. The Voice of Authority. Clipped. Precise. Pure business. And with an unfortunate slightly rough, very masculine edge that sent a frisson right down Neely’s spine even though she was determined to be immune.

“Your boat is sinking.”

“What!”

So much for clipped precise authority.

Neely smiled. Perhaps it wasn’t the nicest way to convey the news that there was a leak in the underbelly of Sebastian’s new property, but as it could have been her houseboat, she wasn’t very inclined to play nice.

“You heard me,” she said. “There was water all over the floor this morning.”

“Robson?” The voice was barking in her ear now. She supposed she ought to have identified herself. “Is that you?”

“Who else could it possibly be?”

“One of my sisters,” he muttered. Then “What are you talking about?”

“Water water everywhere,” she said. “It means there’s a leak down under somewhere. I remember it happening once before. Frank had to call someone to come and pump something out, then get down under there and fix it. Sorry, I can’t get more technical than that. I can find out who he called, if you want,” she added helpfully. “Or maybe you have a better idea.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, long enough that she wondered if he might actually have a better idea. But then he said, “Get the guy’s name. Call him if you can and ask him to do it. I can’t get back until Friday.”

It was Wednesday evening now. He’d left on Monday, so basically she’d enjoyed a Sebastian-free week so far. It had been quite blissful.

Or it would have been if Max hadn’t taken to teasing her every day, asking her if she missed him.

“Right,” she said now briskly. “I’ll try to track Frank down. Sorry to trouble you.”

“No trouble,” he said. “It’s my responsibility. It’s my b—”

“Your boat. Yes, I know that. Okay. Bye.” She was about to hang up when he spoke again.

“Robson?”

She put the phone back against her ear. “Yes?”

“How’s Harm? Pushed anyone else in the water?”

“What?” The questions surprised her. “Um, no. But there hasn’t been anyone else here, either.”

“Good. I thought perhaps—Never mind. How’s the weather?”

“The weather?” What on earth? She was talking to Sebastian Savas about the weather? “Well, it’s raining,” she said. “As usual. Imagine that.”

He laughed. It was a low, intimate chuckling sound that sent a quick unexpected shiver of awareness down the back of her neck.

“Not here,” he said. “It’s hot in Reno.”

“I should think it would make a nice change.” She stared out the window at the rain bucketing down and tried to imagine a bit of sunshine.

“It does. But still I’ll be glad to get back.”

“So Harm can push you in the water again?”

“Not exactly.” But there was the unexpected sound of a smile in his voice.

Neely was having a hard time believing this conversation was happening. She hadn’t wanted to ring Sebastian in the first place. She’d imagined he would be abrupt, abrasive and think she was overstepping her bounds. When he was polite about the leak, that was as much as she’d hoped for. She certainly didn’t expect casual conversation.

And while it was difficult to imagine it was Sebastian on the other end of the connection, at the same time she was having no trouble seeing him—in her mind’s eye—at all.

It was evening. He was on the road. She’d been there often enough that she understood the scenario. There was no noise in the background, so he wasn’t out in one of Reno’s nightspots. He’d likely be in his hotel room, perhaps lying on his bed.

No. Don’t go there.

But even as she warned herself, a vision of the last time she’d seen Sebastian—damp-haired and bare-chested—became all too vivid, and she had to swallow hard. But before she could say a word, he spoke again.

“I don’t much like being on the road,” he said quietly.

And what was she supposed to do? Say, Too bad. Goodbye? Her mother had raised her better than that.

She said, “I don’t, either. I think it comes from moving so much when I was a kid.”

“Tell me about it,” he asked, sounding interested.

And the invitation to talk was somehow more than she could resist. She’d been trying to work ever since she got home. But she’d been restless—not to mention periodically mopping—and now she curled up on the sofa with Harm’s head in her lap and watched the rain.

“Well, I was home schooled mostly. Or should I say, commune schooled?” she corrected herself. “My mother was a hippie of sorts.”

“No joke?” He sounded surprised.

“Nothing funny about it,” Neely assured him. “My mother is definitely an independent free spirit. But she was never quite able to be an independent free spirit on her own. She needed a base, a group of people. But she didn’t like anyone telling her what to do. Mostly communes are live and let live. But they can have their idiosyncracies, and she always seemed to run up against them. And then we’d move on.”

“Just you and your mother?”

“Until I was twelve,” Neely said. “And then she met my stepdad. He was a policeman. We were living in Wisconsin at the time and he’d been sent to arrest her for selling her jewelry on the street without a business license. It’s funny, really,” she said, thinking about those days now, “they were so different. And yet they were just right for each other. They had a great marriage. It was awful when he died. But I knew good marriages exist because of theirs. I want a marriage like that someday.”

“Do you.” There was a sudden hard edge in Sebastian’s tone and his statement wasn’t a question. “Good luck.” He couldn’t have sounded less encouraging.

He was such a cynic. “You don’t believe in marriages that last?” She asked, at the same time wondering why they were discussing it at all. It certainly wasn’t the sort of conversation she ever expected to have with Sebastian Savas. But then, she’d never expected to be living with him, either!

“I wouldn’t say they can’t ever happen,” he said. “But I’d bet against it.”

“So did my mother. And then she found the right man. You won’t say that when you find the right woman.”

“There isn’t a right woman.”

“Well, maybe not yet, but—”

“Ever.”

“Oh.” She mulled that over, then said cautiously, “So…is there a right man?”

There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then he laughed. “No, Robson. I’m not gay. I’m just not getting married.”

Firm and final. The Voice of Authority was back now. This was the Sebastian Savas she knew.

“Act like that,” she said lightly, “and it won’t be a problem. No one will want to marry you.”

“Good.”

If there was ever an exit line, Neely decided, that was it.

“Right. Well, I won’t be expecting to get an invitation to your wedding anytime soon then. Thanks for warning me. I’d better go make your phone call now about the leak. And Harm wants out. Don’t you, Harm?” She patted the sleeping dog who never even opened an eye. “Bye.” And she rang off before Sebastian could say anything else.

Not that there was anything else to say.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation, even long after she’d hung up. It was as odd as it had been unexpected. But maybe he was just bored.

Still, when her cell phone rang the next evening and she saw Sebastian’s name come up on her caller ID, Neely was amazed.

“What?” she demanded, the heightened awareness she always seemed to feel around Sebastian battling with her very real desire to hang up at once.

“And a very good evening to you, too, Robson.” He sounded amused, and he’d lost the clipped tone he’d used when making his pronouncement on marriage the night before. Once again she heard the slightly sexy undertone beneath his sardonic response and she wondered if he was doing it on purpose. To bait her, perhaps?