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She got on the elevator and was surprised to find she was on her own on the ride up. When she got to the correct floor, she exited and saw the large logo for Macafee International. When she entered the office, the receptionist took her name and directed her to have a seat in the guest lounge, which she did.
She was offered coffee but she declined. She wasn’t here for beverages. She was here for Conner Macafee.
“Ms. Reynolds, please follow me,” the receptionist said after a couple minutes.
She was led down a long hallway to an office with Conner’s name on the door. It was open and she stepped inside. The first thing she noticed was the size of the office. It was huge, with a wall of windows that overlooked the city. She stood there for a minute with the sun casting a shadow over Conner so she couldn’t see his reaction to her.
She walked into the room and found he’d stepped around his desk to offer her his hand.
“Morning, Ms. Reynolds.”
“I think we’ve moved beyond formalities at this point, Conner. Please call me Nichole.”
He shook his head. “Bold as ever.”
“Did you really think I would have changed overnight?” she asked. “Maybe you aren’t as savvy as I gave you credit for being.”
He laughed, and the sound made her want to smile. He was fun. If they’d met under different circumstances … maybe. Maybe, what? she asked herself. They would never have met if her friend Gail Little hadn’t decided to go to a matchmaker, which had ultimately led to the TV show.
Gail had decided to give matchmaking a try after she’d struggled to find a guy she wanted to really date. As the owner of a PR firm she was busy and didn’t have time. When she’d told Willow and Nichole about the service, Willow had jumped on the idea of filming Gail’s experiences for her next TV show.
“I’m sure I’ll still surprise you,” he said.
She was sure of that, as well. “So have you decided to give in to me and just do the interview? Think how refreshing it will be to get it out of the way.”
“Please have a seat,” Conner said. “I think you must be getting light-headed if you believe that an interview would be refreshing for me.”
She walked to the leather armchair placed in front of his desk and sat down. She leaned back and crossed her legs while he watched her. She shifted on the chair and let the hem of her dress ride a little farther up her thighs to see his reaction.
His pupils dilated and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. Now she knew that she hadn’t imagined the attraction between them last night. It had been so strong and so potent she was almost afraid that she’d been dreaming.
“Have you thought more about being my mistress?” he asked.
“I thought I made it clear that I wouldn’t do that … I was hoping you’d have come to your senses,” she said.
“There is nothing wrong with any of my senses … I’m a man who goes after what he wants, Nichole, and I always get it.”
“You’ve met your match,” she said. “I never lose.”
“Never?”
Not unless she counted her rather nasty childhood, but Nichole never did. That was the past and she’d been too young to know how to deal with it.
“Not in recent memory,” she said. “I’m sure we can come up with something—”
“I already have. I want you. You want me. We both have something the other desires. Now it simply comes down to figuring out how far each of us is willing to go to get it.”
She knew he was serious. She could see it in his eyes. “I’m willing to keep the kiss-to-question ratio.”
He shook his head. “I’m not. I can’t believe you’d be satisfied with that scenario. I’m not the kind of man who multitasks that way. When I have you in my arms I guarantee that you won’t be thinking of questions.”
A warm shiver slid down her spine. She wanted to be in his arms and she knew it would take very little for him to do what he’d said. She could just give up on the interview and have an affair with him. It would be like lightning hitting dry ground, striking hot, causing a fire to burn out of control until it was put out.
Then he’d go his way and she’d be left alone. She leaned back in the chair, uncrossing and recrossing her legs because she knew it would distract him and give her time to think. But the extra time didn’t make her path any clearer. She wanted more than an affair.
She could find white-hot sex if she wanted it, but this interview was once in a lifetime. And she doubted that Conner would want her if she just gave in. She was going to make him chase her.
“I don’t think so, Conner,” she said. “You seem like a very competent man and I am more than confident that if you put your mind to it you could answer my questions easily … unless you’re afraid of what you might reveal if your guard is down.”
She saw that her comment hit its mark as he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Where before he’d been leaning forward to engage her, now it was as if a barrier had come down between them. Here was the Conner Macafee she’d expected to find.
He didn’t like that she’d already found a chink in his armor. He knew the only way to handle Nichole was to show her the door and get on with his life. But he wasn’t used to losing and didn’t intend to start now. She wanted him and she wanted her interview and he thought it was about time she learned that Conner Macafee didn’t back down.
He was going to have her and she was going to acquiesce to his demands. No other solution would satisfy him.
“I have no weaknesses, Nichole, but you are welcome to keep looking for them.”
She shrugged delicately and uncrossed her legs again. His eyes immediately tracked the movement. He liked the bit of thigh he kept glimpsing with each shift she made in the chair. He sensed that she was doing it to distract him and probably to turn him on, but he didn’t mind.
He liked that feeling of being on the edge of control. It made him work harder to keep his focus and not let her win this round.
Or any round. He didn’t like losing and he hated that she was using her innate femininity as a weapon. He knew she was aware of it—well, at least suspected she knew how much she affected him. Duh, right? He’d offered to make her his mistress. She knew he wanted her.
“Everyone has weaknesses, Conner, and I’ve already figured out one of yours,” she said.
“And that would be?”
“You like to be in charge, and if someone threatens that control you don’t like it,” she said.
He shrugged. “That’s not an unusual reaction.”
“No, it’s not. But you know that I have something you want and I’m not going to give it up easily,” she said.
“I’m very glad. I don’t like things that are easily attained.”
She smiled at him then and he knew that she was savoring the sparring as much as he was. In another world he would have enjoyed knowing her as a woman, not just as a sex partner.
“Good. So here’s my thought. We start with my questions—”
“Not happening, honey. No matter how many times you cross and uncross your legs, you aren’t going to get me hot enough to agree to that.”
“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.”
“Conner, you have to give a little.”
“I already have,” he said, reaching over to put his hand on her thigh.
He rubbed one long finger over the inside of her thigh, tracing a pattern that made sensations flow up her leg to the very core of her. She wanted this man. And all the justification she was trying desperately to find wasn’t going to make a bit of difference. She simply wanted to stay. And that was the bottom line.
She could tell herself that she was after the story of a lifetime, but she knew her motivation was rooted in something much more primal.
“I am not going to write something that is scandal-ridden or sensationalized. I think that a lot of people are struggling with finding a mate in today’s society, and I’d really like your take on that.”
His hand skimmed down her thigh to her knee. She’d had no idea that it could be that sensitive. His touch was warm and brought her an intense awareness each time he moved his hand over her. She stood up and stepped away from him.
“I don’t know that you are going to answer any of my questions.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Tell me something, give me a preview of what kind of story I’ll be getting so I know I’m not just giving in to your will at my own peril.”
He arched one eyebrow at her. “Your peril? That sounds very Victorian and just a tad melodramatic.”
“Dang, I was going for more than a tad,” she said with a grin. “But seriously …”
“Seriously,” he said. “I decided to keep the matchmaking company for two reasons. The first is because it makes me a lot of money. And that’s really the only reason that counts. You can’t be a businessman in this economy and not give serious consideration to something that is keeping you solvent.”
“I agree,” she said. This was the kind of information she wanted. He was talking about matchmaking as if it were a widget being made in a factory, and to him it was. “What was your second reason?”
He leaned back in his leather chair and steepled his fingers over his chest. “I want to use it as a vetting tool for my friends. One of my cousins was the target of a gold digger and I hated what she did to him. I didn’t want to see anyone else in that situation. Given my own past with my father and the secrets that people keep in relationships, I think having a firm like Matchmakers, Inc. involved in setting up dates is the safest way for people to meet.”
She had gotten more from him than she had expected. “That is so cynical. A lot of people meet without doing a background check or having their likes and dislikes tallied and are actually happy with each other.”
“I’m willing to bet that they aren’t in my socioeconomic bracket. And I’m not saying that to be snooty. There is a different set of variables when you are talking about old money and family fortunes.”
“Tell me more about that,” she said.
“I’m afraid that’s where your sneak peek ends,” he said. “If you want any more material for your story, then you’re going to have to agree to be my mistress.”
She swallowed hard. He had given her just enough to make her want to ask more questions. Her instincts had been right in pursuing him. Conner had the potential to be a career-changing interview.
“What does being your mistress involve?” she asked.
Conner had barely given her any insights that he hadn’t shared with friends over the years and was relieved to see that it was enough for her. He understood what she wanted from him and he knew that there were lines he’d always been afraid to cross. Lines that he didn’t want to chance letting her know existed because Nichole had proven this morning in his office that she was more than equal to him.
She was willing to sacrifice to get the story and he knew that being in his bed wasn’t exactly a hardship. But he also knew that because he’d pushed her into this position he was asking her to do something that was hard for her.
“Being my mistress will involve a lot of pleasure,” he said.
She flushed. “I’m not asking for a rundown on what kind of sexual pleasures you will be pursuing with me. I mean, from a logistical standpoint, I have no idea what makes a woman a mistress.”
He had no idea, either. He’d never had a mistress before, though his friend, Alexander Montrose, did all the time. Alexander believed that money was at the root of all relationships and the only way to manage relationships was to make them business deals.
“You will move into my penthouse apartment here in the city and be available to me whenever I want you.”
“I have my own place and a job.”
“For the duration of our arrangement I’d want you to live with me. As you know, I’m the busy CEO of a huge multinational conglomerate, so even though I said you’d be available whenever I want you, we’re not talking every hour of the day. Though I think I would want to have you to myself for the first twenty-four hours so I can sate the hunger that has been riding me since I first laid eyes on you.”