Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series) (18 page)

Ruth sank into one of the two chairs in the tiny kitchen and snorted. “You could’ve fooled me. What about all those gifts? And how many times has he treated you to lunch? Now he’s taking you to New York City
shopping
.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. Her grandmother made the word shopping sound downright depraved. She filled each of their glasses with orange juice. “He’s just a sweet old man who’s doing his grandson a favor.”

“More like a dirty old lecher, if you ask me. And isn’t he the one who talked Jordan into hiring you? Hmmm?”

“And he’s also the one who was nice enough to lend us his man Friday and limo for the evening when we went to the concert.”

“Exactly.” Ruth wagged her finger. “Edward Calder wants something from you. Men don’t do things like that without expecting something in return.”

It was a good thing Hannah hadn’t mentioned the extravagant cruise Jordan was intent on sending them on. Ruth would have the two of them engaged and expecting their first child before she finished her eggs.

“Why do you have to be so darn suspicious? Every man in the world isn’t out to seduce me. I’ll be thirty years old on Sunday, for crying out loud. I’d be thrilled if a few of them would try to get fresh with me.”

“Maybe if I’d been a bit more suspicious in the past, your mother wouldn’t have gotten pregnant at fifteen.”

“And you wouldn’t ever have had me to love you.” Hannah wrapped her arms around her grandmother’s neck and kissed her cheek. “Gram,
it’s
ancient history. Let it go.”

Diana was right. It wasn’t just disparaging remarks about Hannah’s figure that had made her so self-conscious about her appearance. Her entire life, her grandmother had been warning Hannah about men and discouraging her from wearing anything even slightly provocative.

Don’t tuck your shirt in, honey, it makes you look top-heavy.

Button your blouse up, love, you’re hanging out of it.

If you wear longer skirts, sweetie, you’ll
seem
taller.

You’re so pretty you don’t need make-up.

Why hadn’t Hannah ever seen it before? All those loving suggestions, veiled in endearments, had been an insidious form of brainwashing.

“Seeing as Jordan asked you out, maybe your mother is right about him being sweet on you.”

“For the tenth time, tonight isn’t a real date. I’m just filling in for someone who cancelled at the last minute.”

As Hannah sank down at the table, the doorbell peeled through the apartment. Glancing at her watch, she dashed to the front hall. It was only seven-thirty. She swung the door open. “Oh, Edward, I’m sorry. I’m not ready to go yet.”

He held up a bag from the bagel shop and a container of cream cheese. “I didn’t expect you to be. I brought breakfast.”

She stepped back to let him in and grabbed a folding chair from the closet. This was just great. Her grandmother wasn’t always the most tactful of women. Hannah led Edward back to her sunny yellow kitchen and introduced them to each other.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ruth.” He bent at the waist in an old-fashioned bow.

Laughter bubbled in Hannah’s chest when her grandmother’s mouth hung open. Ruth studied Edward, and then glanced at Hannah. “How old did you say your boss was?”

She hadn’t given much consideration to the age difference between Jordan and his grandfather. But now that she thought about it, Edward did seem awfully young to have a thirty-eight year-old grandson. He looked more like Jordan’s dad.

Edward shook Ruth’s extended hand. “I married my wife when I was only eighteen. Then our irresponsible son impregnated Jordan’s mother the summer after he graduated high school.”

That placed Edward somewhere in his early to mid-seventies.

“Then you and I have something in common, Mr. Calder.” Ruth smoothed her collar-length salt and pepper hair. “I have a daughter who’s just as irresponsible.”

Hannah breathed a sigh of relief and poured Edward a cup of coffee. Apparently, his good looks had dazzled Ruth enough that she found it impossible to be ungracious to him. “Please, call me Edward.” He opened the folding chair and sat at the table.

“Well, regardless of whether you’re younger than I expected,” Ruth said, “you’re still too old to be sniffing around my granddaughter.”

Ouch
. So much for her grandmother’s good manners. “Gram, that was uncalled for.”

Edward patted Hannah’s hand. “It’s okay. I understand your grandma’s concern.”

“It’s not possible for you to know how I feel.” Ruth stood and pulled a plate from the cupboard. “Not unless you have a granddaughter who has some slick septuagenarian trying to turn her head with all his money.” Ruth sliced one of the bagels Edward brought and inclined her head toward him. “Butter or cream cheese?”

“Cream cheese, please.” He smiled, watching her smear the topping on a bagel. “No, I don’t. But I’ve always wished I had a granddaughter. Hannah is exactly the kind of young woman I imagine she would’ve been.” He winked at Hannah. “Maybe it would put your grandma’s mind at ease if she came with us and chaperoned our trip. How about it, Ruth?”

Hannah pursed her lips to stifle her giggle. Her grandmother had isolated herself ever since she’d lost Hannah’s grandfather two years ago.

Ruth blushed like a
schoolgirl
and covered her pink cheeks with her hands. “Oh, I can’t possibly go.”

“Why, Gram? Got a hot date to plant flowers or play solitaire?”

“Really, Ruth, I’d love for you come along. I don’t know a thing about buying
ladies’
dresses. I’m sure Hannah could use a woman’s advice.”

Or so one would think. Except after realizing how Ruth’s biases had affected Hannah in her lifetime, her grandmother’s wardrobe recommendations were the very last ones Hannah wanted to hear.

~*~

Oh
my gosh
. Hannah stared at her full-length reflection in the mirror and smoothed her palms over her hips. The eight pounds she’d lost had really made a difference. Tall women with long torsos like her mother and grandmother could gain or lose ten pounds and it barely showed. On Hannah, just a few could push her up or down a whole size.

She’d tried on at least a dozen cocktail dresses at the exclusive
haut couture
boutique Edward had taken them to, and she’d run into the same problem she always had. If the dress fit on top, it was too big in the hips and waist. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to have any major alterations made.

Finally, the
saleswoman
suggested a strapless dress in a silvery-white satin that had some Lycra woven into the fabric, making it stretch. The shirred seams kept the figure-hugging dress from looking as if it
had been spray-painted
on her body.

The salesclerk tipped her head and studied the fit. “It’s perfect.”

Perfectly obscene. The hem ended at mid-thigh, and the strapless, push-up
demi
-bra the clerk had given Hannah made her boobs look as if they might tumble right out of the
ruched
bodice that simply emphasized the disparity between her breasts and tiny waist.

“Your figure was made for a strapless dress. Most women’s middles look way too thick in them.”

“You don’t think I look like an overstuffed streetwalker?”

“No way. You look very classy. No woman sees herself objectively.” The
saleswoman
held a magazine over the top of the mirror so Hannah could only see herself from the neck down.

She studied the dress and her lush figure as if she were analyzing a stranger and smiled. The salesclerk was right. Hannah looked extremely sexy but, at the same time, sophisticated.

“The men won’t be able to keep their eyes off you.”

That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

Diana’s words from the night before flitted through Hannah’s head.
Your body is beautiful and sexy. You have no reason to feel guilty about men desiring you. You can feel proud of your body and revel in their admiration. There’s nothing immoral about being physically attractive to the opposite sex.

“How much is it?”

“
Unh-uh
.” The clerk held her hands up as if she
were being robbed
. “The gentleman told me not to let you see any of the price tags.”

Turning from side to side in the mirror, Hannah chewed on her lip.

“Go for it. You look fantastic. If you don’t believe me, ask your grandfather.”

“He’s not—” She snapped her mouth shut. It was probably better to let the woman believe what she’d assumed. Hannah crept out of the dressing room to the sitting area where Edward and her grandmother were sipping cappuccinos. “What do you think?”

His eyes widened and a pleased smile curled his mouth.

Ruth frowned. “Don’t you think that’s a little revealing, sweetie? And it’s so short. Something longer would make you look taller.”

“
No
,” Edward pronounced. “She looks wonderful. We’ll get her extra high heels if you think she seems too short.”

“But I saw
a lovely
sky blue chiffon over there that would—”

“I have a better idea, Ruth. Why don’t
you
go try on that dress and come with me to the dance tonight?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” Edward instructed the clerk to get the dress Ruth had admired in her size.

As her sputtering grandmother was
bustled
into the dressing room by the salesclerk, it was all Hannah could do to keep from laughing.

Ruth glanced back at them, gasping. “Oh, no, Hannah. I can see your panties through that dress.”

The clerk patted Ruth’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll throw in a thong to match her bra. We have a style that’s so scanty, you’ll swear she’s wearing nothing at all underneath.”

Great. Hannah rolled her eyes. She’d always dreamed of flossing the crack of her behind.

oaf  n
. A person regarded as stupid or clumsy.

FACT: Even the most sensitive man will occasionally behave like a clueless, inconsiderate oaf.

He was late, damn it.

Jordan strode into the hotel’s ballroom and scanned the crowd, searching for Hannah. He’d become so spoiled by her efficiency he’d forgotten what a three-ring circus the office was without her.

At ten o’clock that morning, Callie and eight of his VP’s assistants had shown up with a birthday cake for Hannah, who hadn’t been there to blow out her candles.

She should’ve told him it was her birthday that weekend.

His guilt over sending her shopping and hence spoiling the surprise party left him feeling obliged to waste part of his precious morning playing host to her disappointed friends.

The only thing that saved the day was Wendy Carson from Regulatory offered to work through her lunch hour to help him catch up. It was sweet, considering he’d turned down Wendy’s application to replace Renee. But, hell, today
was proof he’d done
the right thing. He couldn’t do his job if his assistant called out every other week.

He finally spotted his grandfather dancing cheek-to-cheek with an attractive matron. When Edward pulled the woman closer and whispered something in her ear that made her blush, Jordan smiled.

Had he been wrong about his grandfather’s intentions all this time? If Edward was really interested in a romantic relationship with Hannah, wouldn’t he be dancing with
her
? Or had the old fox actually been trying to orchestrate something between Jordan and his assistant?

Relief swelled in his chest. If Edward hadn’t been courting Hannah, that meant she was fair game. Jordan didn’t have to beat himself up anymore over fantasizing about her—except for the minor fact that she worked for him. At any rate, he wasn’t guilty of coveting his grandfather’s woman.

Jordan watched Edward dip the
lady
he was dancing with and then draw her even closer. It was good to see the old
guy
finally remember he was a man. It had been twenty-two years since Jordan’s grandmother died and just as long since his grandfather had shown any romantic interest in women. It seemed almost as if Edward’s heart had been asleep all that time.

So, where had Rip Van Romeo stashed Hannah?

Jordan swept his gaze around the perimeter of the room and zeroed in on Bryce waiting at the bar with a shapely blonde and several upper management guys from the various divisions of Calder, as well as a few of their competitors. Edward had apparently bullied them all into buying the over-priced tickets for the charity auction.

Bryce handed the woman a drink, and as he led her away from the bar, her dress clung to her wiggling backside like a sheet of shrink-wrap. The entire group of men trailed behind Blondie like a swarm of drones buzzing after the queen bee. The blatant lust on their faces screamed their collective intent, ‘
Screw her....Screw her....Screw her
’ as clearly as if they were actually shouting the mantra.

He couldn’t blame them. Bryce’s date had a set of headlights that would make Hugh Hefner drop his teeth. Leave it to his pal to snag the hottest woman there.

Jordan pulled himself up short. He was supposed to be looking for his assistant.

After spending several minutes searching the crowd for the top of her fawn-colored head, he finally gave up and wandered across the ballroom toward Bryce and his bimbo. Maybe he’d seen Hannah.

“Hey, buddy.” Bryce slapped him on the back. “It’s about time you got here. The guys and I have been entertaining your date for you.”

Jordan stared down into the
blonde’s
huge silvery eyes, and his stomach did a somersault. “
Hannah
?”

She’d had her thick matronly braid snipped up to her chin in a windblown style and streaked with golden highlights that made her naturally light brown hair look almost blonde. A soft feathery bang brushed her brow and wisps of flaxen tendrils curled around her face, framing her features and making her huge gray eyes look even bigger than usual.

And her legs. Who would’ve dreamed such a tiny woman could have such long, incredible legs? His groin tightened at the mental image of her limbs wrapped around him.