maneuvering.
Rather than respond directly to her jab, he turned the conversation in the direction he wanted it to go. “I thought you’d be happy about an expensive order.” He glanced around at their surroundings. “I understand you could use some help.”
Now that he had her on the hook, he could afford to drive his point home.
Tamara hesitated. “What makes you think so?”
“I have my sources.”
She scowled suddenly. “Have you been talking to my father?” She held up a hand, as if to stop him. “No, wait. Don’t bother answering that question.”
“For the record, it was through my own digging. But what I didn’t find out on my own, your friend Tom was happy to volunteer.”
She ignored the reference to Tom and braced one hand on her hip, her eyes narrowing. “You had me investigated?”
He let his lips quirk up on one side. “I like to know who I’m doing business with. Avoids nasty surprises.”
“So I should be flattered?” she demanded, looking outraged. “Is it a compliment that I merited the same full-blown investigation you might accord to a prospective business partner?”
“In or out of bed,” he added to get a rise out of her.
Her face flushed with color. “I see.” She gave him a sweeping look. “And I suppose none of your … girlfriends were infuriated by having to pass muster? Was the privilege of sleeping with you just too great a prize?”
He gave her a slow grin designed to incense. “No complaints yet.”
“Oh!”
For a moment, she looked as if she was speechless with outrage, fishing around for the right words for a proverbial clobbering.
Finally, she bit out, “I suppose that’s why you’re here today—to order a trinket for one of the lucky winners?”
He cocked his head to the side, and then raised his hand to slowly brush a tendril back from her face.
She stilled.
“You could characterize it that way,” he said in a deep voice that held just a hint of laughter.
She brushed his hand aside. “Fine,” she huffed, her voice nonetheless holding a hint of breathlessness. “It’s not my business why my clients come to me—or how.”
“Not too discriminating to do business with the devil?” he baited her.
She gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Let’s step over to my desk to discuss what you’re looking for.” She paused, and then added emphatically, almost warningly, “In a necklace and earrings coordinate set, of course.”
He gave a low laugh as he followed her.
This sale was costing her, but she was gritting her teeth and bearing it since she needed the money. Pink Teddy Designs meant a great deal to her, and he planned to exploit the attachment to his every advantage.
Shamelessly … ruthlessly … unrepentantly.
Because if there was one thing he knew, Sawyer acknowledged as he admired Tamara’s backside and shapely legs, it was that Kincaid News was worth the effort … and so was Tamara. And certainly, it would be no hardship to bed Tamara along the way to getting what he wanted.
At her desk—which was actually the large, glass-topped table he’d seen earlier—he sat in a bar-height chair at a right angle to her.
“So describe to me what you’re looking for.” She set aside some metal boxes so they sat out of her way, and added belatedly, “In earrings and a necklace.”
“In earrings and a necklace, of course,” he murmured, echoing her words.
In fact, he’d love to describe what he was looking for—in and out of bed.
The truth was, he acknowledged to himself with some degree of surprise, if he’d ever let himself really look over the years, he’d have said Tamara wasn’t too far off the mark from what he usually looked for in a woman, though he’d never dated a redhead.
She had inherited her mother’s model looks and figure. She had generous breasts and hips, but still managed to look willowy and statuesque. And she had amazing bone structure. Her lips were full, balanced by an aquiline nose and delicately arched brows over crystalline green eyes. She was good enough to grace the cover of any glamour magazine, if she chose. That she didn’t choose said a lot about her.
Physically, she fit his type. But he’d always envisioned someone who embraced his aristocratic heritage as his bride.
Tamara pulled a white paper pad in front of her, and then reached for a pencil. “Describe to me what you’re looking for. If the design isn’t to your liking, we can always play around with it. Computerized design technology is an amazing thing these days, but I prefer to start with an old-fashioned sketch.”
He cocked his head and regarded her. “Something unique. Something that will have people take a second look.”
“That’s a wide universe,” she replied archly, her pencil hovering.
He shrugged. “Let your imagination run wild.”
She gave him another narrow-eyed look, as if she was thinking of hitting him over the head, or wondering at his audacity—the equivalent of asking the wife to pick out a gift for the mistress.
“I’m thinking of a choker,” she said sweetly.
He laughed softly, and she put down her pencil and reached for a three-ring binder.
“Here,” she said. “These might give you some ideas. They’re some computerized drawings I’ve done.”
“Great,” he said, taking the binder from her.
While he paged through her drawings, she occupied herself with arranging objects on her desk and pointedly ignoring his study of her designs.
Finally, he set the binder on the table with deliberate casualness. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook too easily. He knew what he wanted, and he wasn’t going to stop until he got it.
“These are good, but I need more,” he said.
She looked nonplussed. “More?”
“Yes. It would be better if you modeled some of your designs for me.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in, but then her eyes flared, and their gazes clashed.
He shrugged, a smile playing at his lips. “Call it a singular lack of imagination.”
He watched as she seemed to grit her teeth. How much was she willing to do for a lucrative commission?
He could practically see the wheels turning in her head. How far would she go to indulge his whims?
“Which
