edges. A dark lock had fallen across his forehead. His hands had braced either side of the frame, his large, muscular body filling the empty space.
For one exciting minute there, she thought she’d spotted a flicker of the hunter in his blue eyes as his gaze rooted her in her chair. A tingle, starting in her belly, had spread throughout her body. Her nipples had hardened and rubbed against her sweater.
You’re a femme fatale, she’d repeated in her mind.
You’re an idiot, she’d corrected after he’d slammed the door. No, he hadn’t slammed. Wagner would never gather enough emotion to feel the need to slam anything.
But she did.
She grabbed a pen and slammed her desk drawer shut. Then she reached for the notepad she’d hidden under the large, multiline telephone console on her desk. Wagner would never search for anything there. Not that snooping around on her desk was an activity he’d do, but sometimes he did try to make himself useful in the front office. She shuddered as she remembered the disastrous results and the paper cuts from his last attempt. She hadn’t been able to find her letter opener for weeks.
Opening the pad, she clicked the pen. With long, hard strokes, she put several dark lines through her notes.
1 Wear sweater. Banned from the closet.
2 Sigh. Never again.
3 Arch your back. Don’t strain yourself.
Her upper lip curled as she crossed through her last note. She’d printed it in all caps and had even starred the sucker. YOU’RE A FEMME FATALE.
After tossing the list aside, she removed her headset. This telephone call required holding the receiver. With quick fingers, she dialed her best friend, Katie Sloan’s, number. Katie answered on the second ring.
“I give up,” Annabelle told her.
“Already? It’s not even ten-thirty? Did you wear the sweater?”
Annabelle glanced at Wagner’s doorway and rounded her shoulders. Now she felt ridiculous in the clingy thing. “Yeah, I wore it.”
“Hmm, that should have gotten some reaction.”
She yanked the sweater higher on her shoulders— the plunging neckline was a little too…plunging. “This sweater’s not even made from materials known in the natural world.”
“Did you remember your mantra?”
You’re a femme fatale.
“Yeah, I tried it. The mantra stinks.” Annabelle clicked the pen again and obliterated the mantra with a few more ink swipes.
“Did you arch your back?”
“He thought I had a backache, for crying out loud. He’s probably looking up the name of a good chiropractor in his Rolodex right now.”
Silence greeted her from the other end of the telephone line. Annabelle suppressed a groan. Katie was rarely silent. It meant trouble. Annabelle in trouble. Since meeting in the second grade, Katie had been devising “brilliant” ideas that usually backfired with Annabelle getting the blame. In school it was detention, last year it was a weeklong rash from a sunless tanner. On her face.
“I just had a brilliant idea. It’s time to bring out the big guns,” Katie finally said. “Is there some way you can lock him in the supply closet with you?”
“He’d spend the whole time devising a way to buy out the door company and take over the management.”
“I’m not so sure it would work. That was the old Wagner Achrom.”
“True.” Annabelle sat a little straighter in the chair and eyed the doorknob. That lock appeared pretty flimsy, a good safety net if she— “No, forget it. Former corporate raider or not, he’d figure a way out. Besides, I did everything but recline naked on my desk.”
“Now, that has possibilities.”
A quivering in the small of her back propelled her forward in her chair. “Out of the question.” If she didn’t stop this line of thought right now, Katie would have her convinced greeting Wagner wearing nothing but high heels and a tie, à la Pretty Woman, was a fabulous idea.
Annabelle pushed her glasses down lower on her nose and rubbed her eyes. “There has to be another way for him to finally notice me.”
“You ever heard the phrase ‘You’re pumping a dry well’?” Katie asked.
“Of course I’ve heard it. We’re in Oklahoma.”
“Well, you should have paid attention to it ’cause, sister, the well’s done gone dry. And I’m not sure it had much juice to begin with.”
Annabelle swiveled her chair toward Wagner’s door. No molding, no scrollwork. Just hard wood. Like Wagner. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Well, of course I’m right. Although sometimes I still think there may be something there. Remember how he was about your car?”
“He was probably only worried that his daily agenda wouldn’t be typed and sitting on his desk.”
“Now, girlfriend, you did that to yourself. It’s one thing making a man dependent on you. It’s quite another when you rig the outcome without making damn sure he knows he can’t live without you.”
She glanced at his closed door. “You’re right. I’ve created a monster.”
“Men.” Katie didn’t need to say another word. That one said it all. “Okay, I’ve got it,” she said.
Annabelle’s stomach muscles clenched in apprehension. No telling what this “brilliant” idea would involve. Probably her walking a tightrope from her desk to the copy machine in nothing but a thong and a smile.
But still, her curiosity had her wondering. “What?”
“A great new plan for this afternoon. Write this down—Nothing is more seductive than food.”
“What?”
“Actually, this is brilliant. A picnic. I can see it now. The birds and bees doing their thing. His head in your lap as you feed him grapes. That’s a very sexy food, by the way.”
“May I remind you we’re in the middle of December?” Annabelle glanced outside the large glass window lining the waiting area. “The sun may be shining right now, but how long is that going to last?”
“All right. All right. Then have it on the office floor. In fact, I like that idea better. He has that nice, long leather couch in there, too. See what we can do when we brainstorm together?”
Annabelle glanced from the black leather couches in the small waiting area to the chrome and steel of her desk and file cabinet. The office of Achrom Enterprises was designed to evoke confidence and professionalism. Not picnics. Certainly no grapes. “That would be inappropriate in the office. Besides, he’s not the picnic type. For that matter, neither am I.”
Katie
