she might like you better. I don’t know about you rich boys, but for us common men, when we hit puberty we got the lesson that girls like it when you’re nice to them.”
Tristan shook his head. “I’ll try to remember that when I’m stuck with the she-devil in Vegas.”
Drake blinked at him. Then blinked again. “You’re going to Vegas with her?”
“Yeah, to do recon for Bliss.”
A low roar of laughter spilled out of Drake. “Oh, man, this is going to be good.”
“Yeah, good for you. One of us is going to need a lawyer after we declare war on each other. It’s going to get crazy.”
“Maybe you try being nice to her.” Drake winked as he stood. “Might even throw her off her game. She’s been on the Bliss account before. She’s going to fight you hard for this one. You’ll need every advantage you can get.”
The one thing Drake didn’t know about Synthia was that she always fought to win, Bliss account or not. “Yeah, I’ll give it some thought.”
Tristan’s desk phone rang as his friend meandered out of his office. He answered with a brusque “Dawson.”
There was a brief pause and the hairs on the back of his neck stood. “Tristan, it’s your father.”
His stomach pitched. As if he couldn’t recognize the old man’s voice. “Dad...everything okay?” How long had it been since they’d seen each other? Six months maybe? Since his sister Tawny’s last birthday. And even then, they’d avoided each other and said as little as possible.
The old man cleared his throat. “Yes, everything is fine. I’m calling about Taylor’s congratulatory dinner for his promotion. It’s this weekend.”
Hell. Yet another reason to be a disappointment. “Sorry, Dad. Can’t make it. I’ll be out of town.”
“This is important, Tristan. Your brother just became a vice president. You can put off whatever vacation plans you have.”
Tristan gritted his teeth. “It’s for work, Dad.”
His father harrumphed. “Work? That place you go every day hardly qualifies as work.”
And there it was. It had taken less than a minute for his father to tell him that he wasn’t living up to his potential. “If this conversation is veering toward you telling me to come back and help run Dawson Incorporated, then we don’t have anything else to talk about. I have no desire to be an investment banker.”
“Why do you insist on being so stubborn? This is your legacy.”
“I would rather have something I earned. You taught me that all that money comes with strings I’d rather not have attached, so if this is you asking nicely, then I’m going to have to politely decline.”
“You are so irritatingly stubborn and childish. All I asked was that you heed my advice, and you walked away from this family.”
The knot of anger increased even as it grew tighter. “Is that how you remember it? I remember it differently.” When he’d told his father he didn’t want to work at the investment firm, the old man threatened to cut him off.
“Don’t act like a child. I can pull you home whenever I want. Do you really think that you’re insulated in your little job? If I want, I can come in and buy that place. You will have to learn eventually that I am in control. I can fight to get control of your trust fund.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Dad. We’re done.” Tristan hung up with a soft click of the phone. It didn’t matter how much his father got to him. The old man wasn’t his puppet master. He’d fought hard for his independence and he was going to keep it. And that meant landing this account. Even his father couldn’t ignore the prestige of the position. All he had to do was beat Syn for it.
* * *
“That man is a pain where the sun don’t shine. He’s insufferable and a jackass.”
“Don’t forget smoking hot, because let’s face it. He is.”
Synthia scowled at her best friend, Olivia Banks. She and Liv had been friends since they started at the company as interns over five years ago. Synthia could always count on her friend to give it to her straight. “Try to keep up, Liv. We hate him, remember?”
Liv put up her hands and laughed. “Oh, honey, I remember. He is our sworn enemy and we have to make him suffer. But that doesn’t preclude us noticing the assets on hand.” She waggled her eyebrows.
Syn rolled her eyes and plopped into her chair. “I swear, you’re almost as bad as he is.”
Liv clapped a hand to her chest. “Now, I take offense at that. I might ogle and appreciate, but I don’t use my...” She paused and reconsidered. “Okay, so maybe I’ve used my gifts for evil before, but Tristan Dawson takes it to a whole new level.”
Synthia bit back a chuckle. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
Liv grinned. “Funny, I’ve been told that before.”
Synthia let the tension roll out of her shoulders. “I swear, you should have seen his smug face. With his magnetic smile and his focused attention, Bella didn’t stand a chance. She was all fluttering eyelashes and breathy voice by the time Tristan freaking Dawson was done with her. She’d been Dawsoned.” Liv had coined the phrase when he started at the company two years ago to describe how most of the women in the company reacted when Tristan graced them with a smile. Except Syn.
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
Synthia raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’ve got a plan?”
“Because. This is you we’re talking about, so rolling over and playing dead is not in your nature. You’re too stubborn and good.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Liv, but I’m a little worried about this one.”
Liv frowned. “Why?”
“Because of Tristan. You know they’re sending us to Vegas. I just know he’s going to use this opportunity to his advantage. I’m getting the impression from Bella Bliss that she’s more interested in what Tristan can provide her in the bedroom than what I can provide her for the hotel.”
“Then why don’t you fight fire with fire?”
Syn frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Hear me out. Tristan is already using his charm to his advantage. Your best traits are your brain and your tenacity, which you have in spades, but you have an ace in the hole.”
Syn laughed. “Oh, really? What’s this ace? Do I have a magic wand that will make Bella pay attention to the facts and figures when I present?”
“You can call it a magic wand, I’ll just call it your banging bod.”
Syn raised her eyebrows. “Um, I don’t think Bella’s into chicks, Liv.”
Liv
