in salary I mentioned earlier.”
“I’m sure the contract is fine.”
He nodded. “Still, you may want to have your attorney look it over anyway.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“It’s your call,” he told her.
“Yes, it is.”
Jack wasn’t sure why, but her agreeable demeanor seemed off. “There’s also a purchase agreement for your stock, if you should change your mind about selling it. My previous offer of—”
“I won’t change my mind.”
Something was off, Jack told himself again. Instinct, some unexplained ability that told him if a venture would be a hit or a flop, kicked in now. The woman was up to something. He felt it in his gut, felt it in his bones. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re just itching to throw those contracts in my face?”
She picked up the contracts, fingered them. Looking directly at him, she smiled and said, “Because I am.”
There was a confidence in her smile, a spark in her green eyes that he found intriguing. Intriguing and sexy as hell. “I admire your honesty. But you might want to think twice before you do that.”
“Why? Because it would be an unwise career move on my part?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
“You’d probably be right—if you were my boss and had the authority to fire me,” she began. Obviously too edgy to sit, she stood and paced behind her desk. She paused, turned and looked at him. “But you don’t.”
“The last time I checked, owning eighty percent of the stock in a company constitutes the controlling interest, which does make me your boss and gives me the authority to pretty much do whatever I damn well please.”
“That would be true—if you owned the stock. But you don’t own it. At least not yet,” she informed him triumphantly.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, that’s so. You see, that note that you so cleverly got the bank to sell you gives me thirty days to cure the default on my mother’s loan. Once I do that, my mother keeps her stock in the Contessa and your deal, Mr. Hawke, is null and void.”
So that was her plan. Jack would have laughed were it not for the fact that this stunt of hers would cost him both time and money with delays. He didn’t intend to allow her to cost him either—not without a price. “You think you can go out and find fifteen million dollars like that?” he asked with a snap of his fingers.
“I didn’t say it would be easy.”
“Try next to impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” she fired back at him.
“Trying to block my purchase of this hotel is,” he assured her. Standing, he walked around to her side of the desk, a deliberate move on his part to intimidate her. Instead he found himself far too aware of her, of the way the office light caught the copper in her hair, the way her black silk blouse curved over her breasts, the way the scent she wore reminded him of exotic islands and sex. Desire hit him like a one-two punch. He wanted her. Maybe part of him wanted her because she belonged to his stepbrother. But another part of him wanted her because he sensed a fire in her and he wanted to be the one to ignite it.
“Why? Because you’re so rich and powerful?”
“Yes.” Leaning closer, he lowered his voice and said, “And because I never lose.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
Jack didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “And you think that you’ll be the one to beat me?”
“I don’t think I can beat you, Hawke. I know I can.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”
“I am,” she insisted.
Before he could quell the impulse, he countered, “Sure enough to wager on the outcome?”
“You mean a bet?”
“That’s right. You say you can stop me from taking over the hotel. I say you can’t. Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?”
“I am, if you are,” she told him.
“Oh, I am. I most definitely am.”
She was insane to have dared the man the way she had, Laura admitted. But blast him, he had been so smug, so sure of himself. The fact that he had been standing so close to her hadn’t helped, either. She had hoped those moments of heightened awareness between them in her office a few nights ago had been a fluke, that stress and thoughts of spending the Thanksgiving holiday without any of her family had caused her sexual chemistry radar to go askew. But if it had, then her radar still wasn’t working because she’d felt those same ripples of awareness when he’d entered the room, that same quickening of her pulse each time he drew closer.
“So what are the stakes?”
“The stakes?” she repeated, doing her best to shake off his effect on her nervous system.
“Yes. You know, the prize that you’re going to fork over to me when you lose our bet and I foreclose on the Contessa.”
Laura sobered at his cocky remark. Taking a step back, she said, “You mean the prize that you’re going to fork over to me when I beat you at your own game.”
His lips twitched. “So what are the stakes?”
“Dinner,” she suggested. “The loser pays for a seven-course meal at the restaurant of the winner’s choice.”
“Dinner?” he scoffed. “That’s your idea of a bet?”
“What do you expect me to offer? My car? My condo?” she tossed back at him, and suddenly felt queasy at the thought of losing either.
“I don’t have any use for a three-year-old BMW and you don’t have enough equity in your condo to make it worth my trouble.”
Anger bulldozed right over any misgivings she’d had about challenging the man as she realized he had had her investigated. Temper driving her, she put her hands on her hips and looked him square in the eyes. “And just what are you going to give up when you lose and I win?”
“I have a Jaguar that you’d look good in,” he said with a smile that lit up his eyes and made his face go from handsome to dangerously sexy.
“Far be it from me to take away your little toy and force you to be driven around in a limo.”
“And I’d hate to have to see you hoof it to work in those high heels or be forced to sleep on the couch in your office,” he countered.
He didn’t think she could do it, Laura realized. He honestly didn’t believe she could outmaneuver
