Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series) (11 page)

He’d made that mistake once a long time ago with Trudy while he was at Wharton earning his MBA. Since then, he’ made sure never to let a woman believe she was the only female in his life.

As he scraped the wine-flavored chicken onto their plates, Hannah’s gaze swept the luxurious executive suite. “Considering
all your
grandfather has done for you, I’d think you’d feel obligated to give him an heir.”

“I do. In fact, I’d love to have a couple of kids, but not at the price I’d have to pay.” It wasn’t as if he’d asked for the 24-karat gold baby rattle he’d received the day he was born.

“Edward thinks if you got married the board would have less of a problem with you becoming chairman.”

“I’m sure they would. But no job is worth selling out on happiness.” And, even if he wasn’t all that happy, he refused to leave himself open to being hurt again. “Enough about me. Since you’re trying so hard to sell me on marriage, what happened between you and your fiancé?”

“The amoeba cheated on me.”

“Amoeba?” He laughed, nearly choking on his food.

“Yup. Kevin is so low I won’t compare him to more than a single-celled organism.”

“We’re not, by any chance, a little
bitter
, are we?”

“With good reason. I didn’t want to be like my mother, so I waited for a man who wanted to marry me. After only eight months, the bastard apparently got tired of me and cheated with my roommate.” She drained her wine glass. “Who, by the way, ranks one step below mold and
fungus.
”

She’d only slept with
one
guy
in her entire life?

It shouldn’t surprise him. Hannah was the type who would take sex seriously. Her lack of experience was something his libido would’ve been better off not knowing about.

He refilled her wine goblet and threw her a facetious grin. “
Nahhh
, you’re not bitter. Didn’t you tell me you wouldn’t malign your past employ—
”

“I’m not speaking of Kevin as my boss. The night I caught him, he’d asked me to stay late at the office to notarize a client’s signature while he left early to get his car’s oil changed—or so I thought. Fortunately, the client called and rescheduled, and I found Kevin doing the horizontal mambo with my roommate, Gina. Otherwise, I might’ve actually married him.”

Jordan stopped eating and studied the angry flush in her cheeks. “So which of his crimes was worse, Hannah—cheating on you or making you feel like a fool for caring about him?”

She peered into his face. “So you understand how I felt?”

Regrettably, he did. But Marcy hadn’t just betrayed him. She’d also humiliated him and stolen his self-respect.

In his attempt to force the resentment from his tone, his voice rasped. “It’s hard enough being hurt by someone you care for. But realizing how gullible you were to love and trust them is the worst.” And being on the rebound probably made her that much more vulnerable and susceptible to the attention Edward lavished on her. “I’m sorry I brought the subject up.”

“It’s okay.” She lifted her wine goblet to take a sip. “Truthfully, I think I was more in love with the idea of getting married and having a family than I was with Kevin.”

Jordan tapped the edge of her crystal glass with his, making it ping. “Well, here’s to you meeting the man of your dreams.”

Maybe then she’d stop looking at him as if he were a giant chocolate bar....
with nuts
.

They finished their meal in companionable silence, and afterward, he washed their dishes while Hannah set up the presentation. When it was ready, he dimmed the conference room lights to make the screen easier to see and sank into the leather chair next to her.

The setting sun outside the window cast a rosy glow on her face that matched her pink gauzy top and skirt. He breathed in her sweet fragrance and closed his eyes. Flowers and strawberries. That’s why her scent reminded him of summer.

He forced his gaze to the screen and was entranced. The presentation began like a movie with the Calder company logo zooming onto the screen while the corporate jingle used in their ads played softly in the background. Pictures of employees—from the research laboratories and manufacturing right down to the foodservice and custodial staff—flew in from the screen’s edge and then disappeared again.

Never had he seen such a creative presentation.

“Where’d you get all the pictures?”

“I took them on my digital camera.”

“They’re fantastic.”

Not only did the colors and fonts set the perfect tone for the second fiscal quarter, the captions and photos held his attention and complimented the report without distracting from it. In fact, the presentation was better than the previous year’s annual stockholder’s report.

“You have a lot of talent. How did you find the time to do all this? It must’ve taken hours.”

“I’ve been coming in early all week. Well, except for today. I overslept, which was why I was a little late this morning.”

And then he’d accused her of trying to make him look bad. “Now I feel like a total bastard. I’m sorry about the way I reacted earlier.”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened to those figures. I can’t—”

“Forget it. I have.”

He studied every frame and practiced the script he’d written to accompany each one. After discussing a few minor changes in the timing of his delivery, he breathed a long sigh. The sun had finished setting, leaving the light from the screen as their only illumination.

“It’s incredible. The only problem is now the board is going to expect flying pie charts every time, instead of the boring, static presentations they’re used to seeing.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Her thick lashes dipped shyly, brushing her cheeks. She glanced back up, and the dim light sparkled in her gray eyes, making them shimmer like two pools of mercury he could easily drown in. As her lips parted, his tongue grew restless. After the incident in his gym, he should’ve cancelled working late.

He tore his gaze away and sprang to his feet. “Well, I guess I’d better let you go home.”

He followed Hannah into her office where she logged off her computer and locked the filing cabinets. Picking up her large tote bag, she smiled. “Thanks for dinner—
and lunch
.”

“No. Thank you. Now I’ll be able to relax on my boat this weekend.” As she opened the door, he remembered she’d arrived fifteen minutes late that morning and
might be parked
out in the boonies. “Wait a minute.” He grabbed her hand, stopping her. “Where’s your car?”

“In lot B, why?”

“Wait for me. I don’t want you walking that far alone in the dark.” On a Friday night before a holiday weekend, the parking lots were bound to be deserted.

“Afraid the boogeyman might get me, and there won’t be any cookies next week?”

“Something
like
that.” He smiled and discreetly tugged on his inseam. Then again, with the way he felt right now, she might be safer with the boogeyman.

~*~

Hannah waited by Jordan’s door while he retrieved his suit jacket and grabbed the leftover cookies she’d emptied into a plastic bag earlier so she could refill the tin that weekend.

After he locked the office doors, she pressed the down button in the hall. When the elevator doors slid open, Jordan stepped aside and allowed her to precede him.

“You know, I’ve always wondered how this whole ladies-first custom got started.” She stabbed the button for the lobby. “I’m thinking those gallant knights of long ago must’ve been pretty shrewd dudes.”

“Why’s that?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Well, if there were a rotten plank in the drawbridge, who would’ve ended up in the moat?”

“Ahhh, I think I see your point. If the elevator hadn’t been here when the doors opened, you would’ve gotten the shaft.”

Ohhh—but if it was
his
shaft....She mentally cringed. She had to get her mind out of the gutter.

“Maybe the tradition came from the concept of getting women and children off a sinking ship first,” he suggested.

“Hmmm, let me see.” Hannah turned her palms up and hefted two imaginary objects as if weighing them. “Stay on a hundred foot vessel that might not sink if it were carrying less cargo—or climb into a tiny rowboat and bounce around on twenty-foot waves.” She
pursed
her lips. “I don’t know. It makes me wonder if those women and children might have been considered excess ballast.”

Grinning, Jordan cut her off and stepped from the elevator before her. “There, does that make you happy?”

She laughed, scurried across the lobby’s marble floor, and through the exit ahead of him.

“You know,” he said, running to catch up with her outside, “ever since you became an official Calder employee, you’ve developed quite a wicked sense of humor.”

It had nothing to do with her probation period ending. She couldn’t believe how relaxed she’d grown with him in the last two weeks. She’d met with Diana three times and had been listening to her hypnosis CD twice a day. Each time, Hannah felt more and more confident and self-assured—and more aware than ever of how deficient her love life was.

Over and over the recording droned on until it had become a mantra. ‘
You’re attractive and intelligent. You deserve to turn your dreams into reality. Decide what you want and take the initiative.
’

She shivered as an unusually cool breeze raised goose bumps on her bare arms. “It’s gotten pretty chilly.”

He shrugged out of his hand-tailored jacket and hung it around her shoulders. “I’ll drive you to your car.”

While she snuggled into the warm silky lining of his suit and reveled in his scent, he pointed his keyless entry remote toward the sleek silver Lamborghini parked in the space reserved for the CEO. “The gull-wing doors can be a little tricky if you’re not used to them,” he told her, opening the hatch-like door for her.

She settled into the leather bucket seat and her mouth gaped at the luxury sports car’s comfort. “Wow, this is amazing.”

“A gift from Edward three years ago for my thirty-fifth birthday,” Jordan told her, sliding behind the steering wheel.

“If he really wants great-grandchildren, it wasn’t very smart to give you a car with no back seat.”

Jordan’s double take and salacious grin said he’d read some sexual innuendo into her comment.

“For a baby’s car seat,” she clarified.

“Ooops.” He winced and stuck the key in the ignition. The powerful engine roared to life. “I have the limo in either case. I think he liked the fact the Lamborghini goes from zero to sixty in under 3.7 seconds.”

“Ahhh.” She smiled. “Even white-haired boys must have their toys.”

“Absolutely. Any big plans for the holiday?” he asked as a flash of lightening lit up the horizon.

“No. I’ll probably just take my grandma shopping. I know it’s odd in this day and age, but she doesn’t drive.”

Hannah also had another appointment with Diana in the morning.

“My grandmother had a license, but she never drove, either. She had Robert to cart her around.”

“I don’t think my grandpa wanted Gram to be too independent. In her younger days, she was as beautiful as Candace. I think he was always afraid some man would steal Gram.”

“Candace?”

While Jordan steered the sports car into the adjacent lot where her eleven-year-old Ford Escort sat alone, she told him about her infamous mother.

His jaw hung slack for a second. “Your mom is Candy Oliver?”

“I know, I know. I’m nothing like her.”

“That’s not why I’m surprised.” He gestured toward her rust-speckled car. “I just thought, having a supermodel mother, you’d be doing a little better financially.”

She silently thanked him for referring to her mother as a supermodel rather than a centerfold. “Right. She goes through money as fast as other people go through toilet paper. I think when she dropped out of high school to have me she must’ve missed the class on sharing with others.”

“Then I’m glad I gave you that big raise.”

“And I appreciate it. I was getting pretty low on two-ply. I’m really happy I’ll be able to send my grandma on that cruise in August. She’s done so much for me.”

He stared at her for several heartbeats. “It sounds as if the generosity gene skipped a generation in your family.”

Hannah searched for the handle, but he jumped out, dashed around the sports car, and opened her door before she could. She left his suit jacket draped over the passenger seat. While he closed the car door, she rooted in her tote for her keys. “Thank you.”

The dim lighting in the parking lot emphasized his five-o’clock shadow, and his snowy dress shirt and teeth appeared fluorescent each time the approaching storm lit up the sky. He shifted his feet several times and took her key ring to unlock her car door.

“There you go.” He handed the keys back and treated her to one of his sexiest smiles, complete with dimples. As she tossed her tote bag and keys onto the vehicle’s front seat, her heart beat so fast and hard it sounded like the drum section of a marching band in her head.

Or was that thunder?

He stared into her eyes, and the throbbing void in her belly screamed the message from her hypnosis tape like a song she couldn’t get out of her head, ‘
You deserve to turn your dreams into reality. Decide what you want and take the initiative
.’

Him. She wanted Jordan Edward Calder.

His gaze bored into hers, and the dozens of erotic dreams he’d starred in played in her head. Hannah reacted on autopilot, feeling as if she were outside herself, watching someone else stand on tiptoe and slide her arms around his neck. Of their own volition, her traitorous hands pulled his head down. As she pressed her lips up to his, she held her breath, waiting for him to shove her away.

Yet he didn’t.

Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and slanted his mouth over hers. With a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat, he deepened their kiss. Breast to chest, her nipples puckered against his hot body, and she shivered—although, not from the breeze.

Heaven help her, what was she doing? She was going to get herself fired. Not to mention, Jordan had made it crystal clear he had no interest whatsoever in a permanent relationship with any woman.