lump of self-blame still burned black and hot within him. He had had to take that smoldering coal in hand, shape and harden it with an implacable grip, and pull himself into the future upon it.
Since then, nothing happened without his will or permission. He was ruled by sound judgment, not his libido or his temper. Certainly not his personal desires. Yet anger had got the better of him yesterday. She had. And emotion was threatening to take him over again today, especially when she muttered, “No. You shouldn’t have.”
The utter gall of her was mind-blowing.
She clattered the cookie sheet and spatula into the sink. Her ponytail was coming loose, allowing strands of rich mink and subtle caramel with tiny streaks of ash to fall around her face. It gave her a delicate air that he had to consciously remind himself was a mirage. That vestige of grief in her expression might be real, but the flicker of helplessness was not. Fagans landed on their feet.
“Look,” he said, more on edge than he liked. “Helping my grandmother was a nice gesture, but I’m not giving you back that job, if that’s what you were after.”
She lifted her head. “It was a coincidence!” She dropped some cookies into a brown paper bag and offered it to him. “Here. Tell her I’m glad she’s feeling better.” Her hand tremored.
He ignored the offering. “She wants you to come for dinner.”
“I have plans.” A blatant lie. She set the bag on the counter between them.
“I’m not letting you hold this over me. Or skirt around me. Put on a dress and let’s get it over with.”
“I’ve packed all my dresses.”
“Is that your way of asking me to buy you a new one?” He had played that game a lot and couldn’t decide if it grated that she was trying it. Under the right circumstances, he enjoyed spoiling a woman. Cami’s heart-shaped ass in a narrow skirt with a slit that showed off her legs—
“No,” she said flatly, yanking him back from a fantasy that shouldn’t even be happening. A pang of something seemed to torture her brow. Insulted? Please.
“What do you want, then? Because clearly you’re holding out for something.” He had to remember that.
“And you’re clearly paranoid. Actually, you know what I want?” Her hand slapped the edge of the sink. “I want you to admit you’ve been receiving my payments.”
“What payments?”
“Are you that rich you don’t even notice?” She shoved out of the kitchen and whisked by him to the rickety looking desk, then pulled up short as she started to open a drawer. She slammed it shut again. “I forgot. It’s not here. His name is, like, Bernardo something. It’s Italian.”
“What is?”
“The letter! The one that proves I’ve been paying you back.” She frowned with distraction, biting at her bottom lip in a way that drew his thoughts to doing the same. “My brother has the file, though. He took it last fall.”
“Convenient.”
“God, you’re arrogant.”
He shrugged, having heard that before. Recovering his belief in himself had been the hardest part of all. His ego had taken a direct hit after misjudging her father. He’d questioned himself, his instincts and his intelligence, which almost crippled him as he faced the Herculean task of recovery. In the end, he had no choice but to trust his gut above anyone else and get on with the work. He would have been dead in the water otherwise.
He refused to go back to self-doubts. He faced everything head-on and dealt with it as expediently as possible. “Let’s get past the games. I know you have a hidden agenda. Speak frankly.”
“I don’t! I’m exactly what I look like. I applied for a job for which I am fully qualified. You came along with your sword of retaliation and cut me off at the knees. Then I was nice to a little old lady who happens to be your grandmother. Now I have to move and get back on my feet. Again.”
Her hand flung out with exasperation as she spoke. She smelled like the cinnamon and vanilla she’d been baking with, sweet and homespun. All smoke and mirrors.
“How was I supposed to know you would buy the Tabor when I interviewed six months ago? I’m not trying to pull a fast one on you. You’re the one out to get me.” She managed to sound quite persecuted.
He shook his head, amazed. “You look like you’re telling the truth, but so did your father. It’s quite a family talent, I have to say.” Then, because he was so damned tempted to reach out and touch her, he neutralized that secret weapon of hers. He gave her luscious figure a scathing once-over and said, “Of course, he didn’t work the additional diversions you employ.”
Her jaw dropped open with affront, but her gaze took a skitter around the room. She blushed, seeming disconcerted. Caught out, even. “I’m not—You showed up here unannounced! As if I’d throw myself at you.”
“No?” He was needling her, determined to maintain the upper hand, but that tiny word seemed to flick a switch.
She flung back her hair to glare at him. “You’re the last man on earth I’d want anything to do with!”
She faltered as she said it and tried to give him a scathing once-over, but her lashes quivered. He could tell by the way they moved that her gaze traversed his torso and down to the muscles in his abdomen. His stomach tightened with the rest of him. In those charged seconds, he grew so hot, his clothes should have incinerated off his body.
When she brought her gaze back in a flash of defiance, there was a glow of speculation in their depths. The light shifted, or, more accurately, the fog of animosity in her eyes dissolved into a mist of desire.
The air shimmered, hot and oppressive between them. All an act, he reminded himself, but, What the hell. He ought to get something.
* * *
“If you want to talk about compensation, I’m listening.” He suddenly seemed really close. His voice was like whiskey-soaked velvet.
“What?” She took a step back, reeling from the way her body was betraying her. She was trying to rebuff him, but everything about him overwhelmed her senses.
She came up against the wall and he flattened his hands on either side of her head, not touching her, but caging her. She set her hands on his chest, alarmed then intrigued by the layers of heat and strength that pressed into her fingertips. He was pure vitality, enticing her hands to splay and move in a small stroke of curiosity that quickly edged toward greed.
How did he disarm her so quickly? How had they even wound up like this? She could feel his sharp nipples stabbing into the heels of her palms and it pleased her. Excited her. She wanted to run her hands over his chest and onto his lower back, exploring everywhere.
She had to quell a whimper of helplessness. This desire was terrifying and exhilarating at once. Deadly, yet impossible to ignore.
His pupils swallowed all the color in his eyes, drawing her into the darkest unknown.
“What are you offering?” His arousal was so tangible in his voice, it felt like a caress
