send him to this woman, like a rowdy child in need of a paddling?
He got up out of his chair and paced Jane’s office a couple of times. She just watched him out of those brown eyes, schooled carefully to be dispassionate. But he could sense her judgment, and it wounded his pride.
“Ms. O’Toole, it’s very clear to me that you think I’m a swine.”
The lashes fluttered over those baby browns and she bit her lip. “No, of course not.”
He snorted, walked back to the chair he’d been sitting in and pounded the back of it with his fist. “Come off it. You think I’m a pig.”
She raised a brow. “Your choice of words, not mine.”
Dom bared his teeth at her. “And you’re right. I am angry. But not for the reasons you think. However, I’m too irate to discuss all of this with you at the moment, so I’m going to put an end to our session.” He turned on his heel, walked to the door and opened it.
Jane sat in her chair and made a couple of notes. Then she got up and followed him to where he was standing gazing down at the catalogue she’d tossed on the sofa by the door. He was unable to look away from the tiny silk G-strings available in hot-pink or midnight-black, the ones with the—
He heard the click as she clutched at her necklace. Turned to see the red flash into her cheeks once again. He raised a brow, knowing that he shouldn’t voice the words even as he said them. “It’s always best…not to dangle pearls before swine, Ms. O’Toole.”
JANE REACHED HER LIMIT WITH this comment. She banished the blush from her cheeks and removed her hand from her necklace. “No one dangled anything in front of you, Mr. Sayers. You rooted out the mud all by yourself. And it’s clear to me that you’re trying to knock me off balance so that I’ll let you run away.”
He froze. The faint devilry and arrogance that had risen with his mocking eyebrows disappeared, and his lips flattened. “Run away?”
She nodded and continued on the offensive. “As fast as you can get your snout out the door.” It was the only way to get him back into her office and address the issues at hand.
Sayers’s shoulders seemed to grow wider and a definite glint shone in his eye. “I don’t run from anything, Jane O’Toole. Not sociopathic bosses and not smug little psych majors with an ambition to fix what ain’t broke. Understand?”
Oh, but I will fix you, Mr. Attitude. You just don’t know it yet. All men need to be fixed! “Yes, Dominic Sayers, I believe I do. Now, since we’ve established that you’re not running away, let’s step back into my office—shall we?” Ha! I’ve got you now.
His eyes narrowed. He couldn’t walk out the door and still retain any self-respect. And he knew it. She restrained a smile. Was it her imagination or did every faint pinstripe on the man’s suit indicate a bullet trajectory—all of them aimed right at her?
Jane smiled at his back as he stalked once again toward her office. Hostility and annoyance buzzed around them like a thousand angry horseflies.
She dropped into her chair and made a couple more notes. This made her look official and professional and gave her a moment to think. Continue on the offensive, she told herself. Just take the bull by the horns. Maybe that way he’ll smash some excellent psychological china….
“So, Mr. Sayers. How long have you entertained hostile thoughts toward women? Does this date back to your childhood?”
He fixed her with an extremely black, dangerous stare—and then he began to curse. She ignored the actual words and just let him vent. But in the meantime she couldn’t help but admire the way he filled out his suit, the jump of the muscles in his stern jaw as he got pithy with her and the truly miraculous bone structure of his face. The man had cheekbones that would make a sculptor weep.
When he finally stopped with an insult to her profession, she said graciously, “I’m so glad we’ve had this time together,” and opened her appointment book. “I’d like to visit you at the office on Monday, all right? Nine-ish, shall we say?”
Sayers appeared to choke on that breath he was taking. “Lady, are you out of your mind?”
“No, I’m certainly not. Let’s identify what just happened here. Since you were too proud to walk out that door, when I asked you a question you resented, you exhibited enough hostility that you hoped I’d be horrified and back out of working with you. I’m not going to do that. Of course, again it’s your choice. You can retreat from the battlefield and refuse to work with me.” She watched him carefully for a moment. “But then I’ll have to log that in my evaluation. And if what you say about the, uh, sociopathic Ms. DuBose is true, then won’t you just be playing into her hands?”
2
BY THE TIME DOMINIC SAYERS left her office, Jane was smug in the knowledge that she’d won the round. Oh, yes indeed—he was down for the count, with her high heel firmly planted between his handsome shoulder blades. It was a darn good feeling—but she couldn’t help questioning how long it would last. Dominic would be armed and dangerous next time they met. She had to prepare herself. And she had to get him to talk to her.
Besides being angry, who was this man? She didn’t have many clues. And if she couldn’t figure out who he was, how was she going to figure out how to fix him?
She stared at the obnoxious, broad, dark back of Sayers as he walked to his hunter-green Jaguar and unlocked it. The guy didn’t saunter exactly. He just walked casually, with confidence radiating off what she had to admit were exceptionally nice shoulders. She wondered fleetingly what he looked like in a snug T-shirt before her gaze dropped to his backside, which was so fine that she could watch it like a television. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if strange women pinched it on the street….
That’s when he caught her, acknowledging her stare with one of his own.
Annoyed at herself, she turned on her heel, only to have her gaze fall on the glossy Vicky’s Secret catalogue that had launched some of the trouble between them. Because there was trouble between them, no doubt about it—layers of disturbance that had to do not only with a battle of wits but also with an underlying resistance to each other. Jane didn’t like this one bit. Because the flip side of resistance was…attraction.
How could she be attracted to a foul-mouthed self-professed swine? Well, truth to tell, he was more of a grizzly bear.
Jane had always loved a good fight. And she usually won—just as she had today. But she was attracted to Sayers, God help her.
Ugh. There it was, lying out in the open for her to deal with. But how?
She snatched the offending lingerie catalogue off the sofa and stuffed it into the nearest circular file.
The planet was littered with Vicky’s Secret catalogues. Bombarded with bras, plastered with panties. She was so used to seeing them, modeled by half-naked nymphets, that she hadn’t thought to hide the damned catalogue in the depths of the cleaning closet.
And out of all the possible selections in such a catalogue, Mr. Sayers had to have caught her looking at that one. Jane clutched the pearls at her neck and let her fingers slide along the smooth orbs, trying not to imagine how they might feel slithering into dark, sensual crevices. She shifted from one foot to the other, feeling
