How to Seduce a Billionaire

Three

“I am not going to kiss you again.”

Every time Kelly played the words over in her head, she could feel her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. And since she was incapable of putting a halt to the mental words and images, she wouldn’t be surprised if, any minute now, her head spontaneously combusted.

“So stop thinking about it,” she demanded aloud as she popped a frozen dinner in the microwave oven and slammed the door shut. Now she had four minutes with nothing to do but wait. And think. And remember. She glanced around her comfortable mini-suite with its corner kitchen nook and figured she could use the time to straighten up, but there was nothing out of place. Her room was pristine, as usual.

The Mansion had a world-class housekeeping service and even though Kelly was part of the corporate staff, the housekeepers kindly insisted on stopping by every day to clean and straighten up and make sure everything was perfectly comfortable for her.

So, lucky her, she had plenty of time to dwell on all those damning thoughts that wouldn’t stop circling through her mind.

“The fact that you practically begged your boss to kiss you,” she berated herself, “in the office, in broad daylight, wasn’t bad enough. No, you also had to dangle your panties in his face. So classy. And why couldn’t you keep that silly list of kissing candidates to yourself?”

A small sigh escaped as she slid miserably onto the stool at her kitchen counter. Reaching for the bottle of sparkling water she’d opened, she filled her glass and took a sip. And pondered her next move.

There were a few ways she could remedy the situation. One was to go in tomorrow morning and simply apologize to Brandon. She could explain, somewhat truthfully, that she’d ingested nothing but spa cuisine for ten days straight and it had left her brain incapable of clear thought.

He probably wouldn’t believe that story since everyone in the entire company knew that Kelly’s mind was a steel trap. She could recall the minor details of a telephone conference from three years ago or the specifications of a particular construction job from months back. She had the dates of every birthday, anniversary and important occasion in Brandon’s life memorized, along with phone numbers, credit card accounts and travel preferences for him and every member of his family.

There was no way he’d believe she’d suddenly lost the ability to think straight. So her only other solution was to simply move away, somewhere remote, like Duluth, leaving no forwarding address. She was fairly certain Brandon’s memory of the outlandish panty-dangling incident would fade within months, a year at the most.

“Oh, God.” She leaned her elbows on the counter and buried her face in her hands. The fact that Brandon had obligingly recommended the black thong really didn’t help matters right now.

The microwave buzzed and she removed her small dinner. She was proud of herself for continuing to eat lighter portions since leaving the spa, but she could feel a serious ice cream binge coming on.

It was because of the kiss.

She’d vowed not to think about it and had been semisuccessful, deliberately switching tracks whenever her train of thought veered too close to the memory of Brandon’s touch, the feel of his mouth on hers. But now, just for a moment or two, she let herself go and thought about it.

She’d never experienced anything like it. It was just one kiss, but she’d felt more passion and excitement in those few seconds than she’d known in the entire two years and seven months she’d dated Roger.

Now, she closed her eyes and gave in to temptation, reliving the exquisite pressure of Brandon’s hands, the warm smoothness of his mouth…

After a moment, her eyes flashed open and she stared down at her rapidly cooling dinner. She’d completely lost her appetite. For dinner, anyway.

“You need to snap out of it, right now,” she reprimanded herself. Brandon Duke was her employer. Her job was important to her. She couldn’t afford to get dreamy-eyed and moony about the man who signed her paychecks. Especially not that man.

Once upon a time, Kelly had envisioned a fairy-tale romance and a happily-ever-after with Roger. He had been her handsome prince and she’d considered herself the luckiest girl in the world. But her prince had turned out to be a frog, and not very charming at all. He’d made promises he never intended to keep and had busted her dream of love and marriage flat. The breakup had not been pretty and Kelly had to admit she hadn’t handled it well.

Before she met Roger, she had been upbeat and open to every possibility. She knew she was smart and reasonably attractive, knew she wanted to fall in love, get married and have children some day. But after Roger dumped her so cruelly, she’d felt broken, cynical, awkward and unsure of herself, especially around men. She had lost her confidence and she couldn’t think about dating for a long time after the breakup.

Ironically, working in the office with Brandon had been the best antidote for her fears and insecurities. He’d made it clear early on that he considered her an indispensible member of his team. He relied on her intelligence and organizational skills to help him run his projects.

Her self-confidence blossomed and grew until she finally decided she was ready to start dating again. She still wanted to fall in love, get married and raise a family some day. And the only way to achieve that goal was to find the right man.

Being her organized self, she began by calling on her friends and coworkers. Then she’d compiled a list of online dating services as well as a number of local organizations she could join and activities in which she could participate in hopes of meeting eligible men.

She was convinced that she was ready to hit the dating scene—until the day she saw Roger’s name on the hotel’s upcoming conference list. Her throat tightened and her stomach churned. She couldn’t catch her breath. The old insecurities rushed back with a vengeance. That’s when she realized she would never be able to love another man until she came to terms with Roger and the damage she’d allowed him to inflict on her life.

If that meant confrontation, then so be it. The only problem with confronting Roger was that his ego was so overblown, he might get defensive and lash out at her. She wasn’t sure she could endure another unpleasant war of words with him. But how else could she get around his ego? she wondered. And in that moment, Kelly had devised her life-saving plan.

If she could somehow lure Roger back, then reject him, it would help her recapture some of her old optimism and enjoyment of life. She would be free to move forward and love again. In other words, she would get her mojo back.

She also knew for a fact that Roger wouldn’t be hurt by her rejection. Thank goodness, because Kelly could never hurt him on purpose, no matter how unkind he’d been to her. No, the fact was, Roger’s ego was much too healthy to allow himself to be wounded by a woman. He would brush off the insult as easily as he would a speck of lint on one of his impeccably tailored suits.

As far as Kelly was concerned, Roger could make up any story he wanted to about why she’d refused him. The point was, she would be healed and ready to live again, to open her heart to the possibility of finding love and happiness. Right now, that was all that mattered.

The makeover would certainly help her cause. Kissing lessons couldn’t hurt, either, especially from a master of the art. And that brought her back to her current predicament.

“Brandon,” she said aloud, moving her fork around on her plate.

The problem was, she wasn’t sure she had the experience to lure Roger in after just one kiss from Brandon, even though it had been a potent one, for sure. That’s why, on the one hand, she wished she could continue learning the secrets of kissing from Brandon. On the other hand, she knew better. He was her boss! How many times did she have to remind herself? And worse than that—if anything could be worse—was that Brandon could jeopardize her plans for Roger’s payback. After all, if Brandon continued to help her with her kissing, it might lead to something more. Kissing often did.

It was useless to deny that she was susceptible. All she had to do was think back to a few hours earlier when Brandon had kissed her. If he’d wanted to take things further, she would’ve gone right along with him. That’s how good his kiss had been.

“Okay, fine, the man can kiss.” She tossed her fork on the plate and stood, too antsy to eat.

Even if he kissed her again and it led to something more, she would never be so stupid as to fall for Brandon Duke.

She strode around the room, picking up her jacket and hanging it in the small closet, then sorting through her clothes for tomorrow’s outfit.

Yes, she’d laughed at his ground rules earlier that day, but now that she’d kissed him, was she still willing to guarantee that she could remain resistant to his charms?

“Yes,” she said firmly, and shoved the closet door shut. She wasn’t a complete dummy. She knew Brandon’s reputation with women, knew his habit of dating one woman for a brief period of time, then moving on to the next. It would be insane for any woman to expect Brandon Duke to reciprocate her tender feelings. So why would Kelly ever fall for him? She simply wouldn’t.

Brandon wasn’t the “settle down and get married” kind of guy Kelly wanted to meet and fall in love with. He didn’t fit in with her life plan at all.

“And that makes him perfect for this plan,” she said, as comprehension dawned. Since she would never fall for him, Brandon Duke was the perfect man to teach her how to kiss!

Now, if she could just convince him to continue helping her. After all, look how much she’d learned with just one try. Her eyes were now opened to the fact that Roger had been the problem all along. It was obvious now. He had never kissed her the way Brandon had kissed her. She would’ve remembered.

“Oh yes,” she said with another sigh as she forced herself to take another bite of her dinner. She would’ve remembered a kiss like that.

So how could she convince her boss to let her practice her kissing with him some more? Roger would be here next week so it wasn’t as if he would be forced to keep kissing her forever. It would only be for a few days. She needed to make it clear that lessons in romance and seduction would be all she needed. The more skilled she became at romance and seduction, the better her chances would be of putting Roger in his place.

Brandon could appreciate that, right?

Still, it was a dilemma. Brandon was her boss. If she was smart—and she was—she’d just forget about Brandon and use her own best instincts to attract Roger.

What instincts? she wondered, and grimaced. When it came to romance, she had none!

As she took another bite of chicken and rice, she realized there had to be a website somewhere with instructions she could follow. There was a website for everything else, so why not seduction?

Oh, but it would be so much better to learn from a real live expert. And Brandon was indeed an expert. She couldn’t help thinking that if mere kissing had given her this much perspective into her problems with Roger, then having sex with Brandon would be absolutely revelatory.

“What?” She jumped off her chair and wrapped her arms around herself. Where had that thought come from?

“You stop thinking about that right now,” she admonished herself as she grabbed her plate and glass and carried them to the sink. “You’ll just embarrass yourself.” Again.

But now that she’d thought it, she couldn’t get the image out of her mind. What in the world would happen if she and Brandon ever had sex?

“Oh, no,” she said, gasping. What if they had sex and she found out she really was bad at it? How could she face Brandon at work? She would have to quit.

But wait. What if she was really good at it? Would he think she’d been lying about her lack of experience? Would he assume she’d been having sex all along, with every guy in town? How could she face him at work? She would have to quit.

And oh, dear Lord. What if Brandon was no good at sex? Would she have to lie and tell him it was wonderful? He was her boss, after all. She couldn’t exactly tell him he was a loser in bed. She would have to quit.

She moaned and took another sip of water.

“Okay, that’s it,” she said, as she tapped her fingers on the counter anxiously. “Just forget the whole thing.”

This whole kissing thing was too much to think about. She had to figure out some other way to deal with Roger. She would explain to Brandon tomorrow that she’d been wrong. He would have to forgive her. And she was certain that he would. After all, before today, she’d never done anything to cause her employer the least bit of consternation. Tomorrow, after she explained to Brandon that her brief lapse into lunacy was over, everything would be fine. They’d go back to normal. She would assure Brandon that he would never have to worry about inappropriate behavior from her again.

And a year from now, she would look back and be able to laugh over this momentary ripple in her otherwise unblemished record.

The doorbell chimed and she jumped.

Checking her wristwatch, she wondered if it might be Housekeeping at the door. She’d asked them not to stop by with those yummy evening chocolates anymore. But tonight, maybe she’d take one. Anything to provide a diversion from her disconcerting thoughts. She ran to open the door and her resolutions of a moment ago flitted away.

“Brandon,” she whispered.

“We need to talk.”

Brandon stared at Kelly and could no longer remember why he’d thought it would be a good idea to come by her room.

After a long run around the hotel grounds after work, then another brief conference call with his brothers to finalize arrangements for their family’s arrival to attend the resort’s grand opening, followed by a quick taste of the chef’s latest creations for the harvest festival menu, Brandon had retired to his suite to watch Dallas eviscerate Denver on TV. But he hadn’t been able to concentrate on the football game, and that was a first.

He blamed it on Kelly.

The fact was, he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Not in a sexual way, he hastened to tell himself, despite the vivid memory of her warm mouth and sweet tongue and an explicit picture of exactly what he’d like to do with. but he wasn’t going to go there. No way. Not with Kelly. Not in this lifetime.

In the first place, she worked for him. How big a fool would he be if he jeopardized his working relationship with the best assistant he’d ever had? And even if he was willing to overlook that little fact, Kelly just wasn’t his type. She wasn’t sophisticated and worldly like the women he usually dated. She wasn’t the kind of woman Brandon would ever think of calling on the spur of the moment for a night on the town, followed by a rousing round of sex, followed by no commitment to call again.

No, Kelly was more like the girl next door, the one who was meant to find a nice guy and get married. As far as Brandon was concerned, she might as well have worn a banner that said Hands Off. And he would be wise to heed that invisible warning.

He’d had some pretty awful role models early in his childhood, before Sally Duke adopted him. He’d seen all the ways people could hurt each other in the name of love and marriage, so he wasn’t about to go that route. With that in mind, he had decided not to touch Kelly again.

But she’d looked so pensive and uncertain when he’d left the office earlier this evening. He’d never seen Kelly less than one hundred percent confident in herself and her abilities, so this change in attitude worried him.

And then there was that kiss. Which he wasn’t going to think about again, damn it.

So why was he standing here at her door, holding a bottle of wine? Oh, yeah.

“We need to talk,” he repeated. He’d used the same stupid line in the office much earlier today. It sounded somehow lamer now, even if it was the truth. When she stepped aside, he strolled into her mini-suite. “I hope I’m not interrupting your dinner.”

“No, I’m finished,” she said, and rushed to dispose of the remnants.

He held out the bottle of wine, a Duke Vineyards pinot noir. “Will you have a glass of this if I open it?”

She stared at the bottle, then up at him. “Sure. I’ll find an opener.”

He could tell she was nervous as she rattled around in one of the kitchen drawers. And why shouldn’t she be? It wasn’t every day a woman kissed her employer. And it wasn’t every night that said employer showed up at her hotel room carrying a bottle of wine. He just hoped she wouldn’t get the wrong idea. All he wanted to do was clear the air so their working relationship could go back to being as exceptional as it had been before the kiss. It was a simple problem and it wouldn’t take him long to explain his feelings, but he had to admit that a quick glass of wine would probably help them both relax.

“Here you go,” she said, and handed him a corkscrew.

“Glasses?”

“Oh.” She swallowed anxiously. “Right.”

As he worked to remove the cork, he took a moment to study his longtime assistant—and wondered how he’d ever thought he’d be able to relax in her hotel room.

She wore cutoff shorts and a T-shirt, an outfit that a jury of his peers would consider thoroughly appropriate for spending a balmy night alone in her room. But as she reached for the wineglasses on the second shelf of the cupboard, he watched her T-shirt inch up to reveal the leanness of her stomach. On her tiptoes now, her shorts stretched just enough to show the soft, pale skin above her tan line where the curve of her bottom met her perfectly toned thighs.

“Here you go,” she said, placing two glasses on the counter.

Brandon let go of the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Thanks.” He took his time pouring wine into the glasses and handed her one. “Kelly, I—”

“Look, Brandon—”

“Sorry. What were you going to say?”

She blinked, then said in a rush, “No, you go first.”

“Fine. I just think—”

“Okay, I’ll go first.” She glanced briefly toward the ceiling as if she were looking for guidance from above. Brandon watched her chest move up and down as she inhaled, then exhaled. She was clearly edgy. She picked up her wineglass and took a gulp, paced a few steps back and forth across the small kitchen, then stopped and met his gaze, her face a mask of regret.

“I want to apologize for the way I behaved today,” she said. “I don’t know what got into me. I’ve been going crazy ever since I learned that Roger would be coming here and I guess I… I lost my head. I’m mortified about what happened. I just hope you’ll accept my apology and trust that it’ll never happen again.”

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