ProvokeMe (27 page)

Spencer sucked in a breath and braced his elbows against the
edge of the table.
So much for control.
His was just about annihilated.
“Well,
I can’t say that, because I don’t know if your baby was mine.
But I sure as
hell grieved as if it was.
So if you think throwing the word
baby
around
will garner you any sympathy with me, you’re more of a fool than I ever gave
you credit for.”

“And you’re stupid, period, if you think you can just
dismiss what was between us out of pride.”

“It’s not pride.” Not
only
pride.
“We were together a
lifetime ago.
Do you really think any of this is even relevant anymore?”

“Yes, I do.” She reached across the table to grip his wrist,
the soft skin of her palm disarmingly warm and somehow so familiar.
“Give me
one night, Spencer.
I just need to know if there’s anything still there.”

A year ago, he wouldn’t even have questioned what he had to
do.
Walking away from the store wasn’t an option.
He’d made some stupid
choices, granted, but he still had this hand to play out and he wasn’t ready to
fold.
Pride didn’t have a place in business, not when you were bargaining for
everything that mattered.

Not everything.
Not anymore.

“So you’re blackmailing me,” he said flatly.

“I prefer to see it as encouraging you to listen to reason
about what’s best for both of us.” As if she sensed a change in him, her voice
became more entreating.
“If we’re not what we were before, then all agreements
stand.
You’ll be the RM of the Virginia stores as planned and I’ll work under
you.
One night.
That’s all.”

Turning his head away, he forced the images out of his mind.
Of kissing Kelly, of holding her.
No.
He wouldn’t think of her or his
betrayal.
Promises had never been made, but it didn’t matter.
Doing this might
cost him the brightest part of his life but this was the most expeditious
solution to his problem.
Most sensible.
And hell, Kelly would be better off
without him.

It wasn’t just about his role in the store.
Actually, for
once his position wasn’t first on his agenda.
No, right now he cared a hell of
a lot more about Kelly—and finding a way to keep her in his life—than he did
about fighting for something he’d clearly never really had.

But there were no guarantees.
If he threw away this chance
to hold on to the store, he might not be able to keep her in his life anyway.
He wasn’t long-term relationship material and they both knew it.
And if he
walked, Diana would disregard his hiring decisions and the people he cared
about would lose.
Marcia wouldn’t move into his job.
Kelly wouldn’t move into
Marcia’s position.
Regardless of their importance in his life, they’d earned
those advancements.

He had to see this through.
All the way.
If he suffered, too
bad.
He’d made his bed.
He’d fucking sleep in it.

“It’s never all, not with you,” he said, his internal war
making his tone brittle.

“I’m telling you it will be, Spencer.
You have my word.”

This didn’t mean anything.
It was just business.
Maybe he
could work things so he could keep both Kelly
and
his job.
If he played
his cards right, this would never have to touch her.
Or them.

And maybe delusions were all he had left.

“You’ll sign papers this time.” He might as well write a
pact in blood with the devil, with his body as the price.
“There will be no
wiggle room.
No do-overs.”

Diana nodded, her features glowing in the flickering votive
candle that sat between them on the table.
“Whatever you wish.
Just give me
tonight.”

* * * * *

“First time you’ve called in sick in three years.
Guess
my brother wore you out last night.
Nice perk fucking the boss, huh?”

“God.”

Even twelve hours later, remembering Marcia’s taunt made
Kelly’s hackles rise.
She glanced around the romance section, wondering how
she’d managed to work with that stupid comment whirling around in her head.

And if there was another reason besides the nearly finished
reorganization she’d come back to work this late—such as waiting for Spencer to
return from his business dinner—well, that was only because she needed to talk
to him about Marcia’s very valid observation.

She glanced down at her outfit and fought a smile.
After.

He’d dropped her off at home on his way to his late dinner.
Since she’d already put in a full eight hours, he’d assumed she was done for
the day.

Assumptions rarely worked out the way people thought.

Putting together tonight’s outfit had taken some work.
She’d
had to borrow Alana’s skirt.
As her friend was a bit shorter and curvier than
Kelly, creative cinching of the waist had been required.
Their height
difference had actually turned out to be a good thing, because the hem barely
skimmed midthigh.
Combined with her tight white blouse and red lace see-through
bra—and pigtails, of course, because she knew he liked those too—she looked
like a Catholic schoolgirl gone
very
wrong.
All part of her plan to send
her boss off on his trip in a way he wouldn’t forget.

After she’d gotten ready, she’d stopped by the comedy club
to hang out with Nicky and Alana for a while.
Poor Nicky had ended up as the de
facto bouncer when one too many guys tried to touch her ass.
But Kelly had
loved every minute.

She’d spent a lot of years as the girl no one noticed.
Even
better?
She now knew Spencer would probably go cardiac the minute he saw her.
Or so she hoped.

Luckily she had the last few tweaks to the romance redesign
to play around with while she waited for him.
She still wasn’t happy with the
arrangement of the endcaps and she had new books to shelve.
Mindless duties
were just what she needed tonight.

She knew he planned on returning to the store to finish his
last few remaining tasks and she’d figured he’d be gone a couple hours, tops.
But now that it had been almost four since his dinner had begun, she was
starting to worry.

Unlike him, she had no problem acknowledging it either.

What kind of business dinner went way past midnight?
Was
there more going on here than she realized?

“Shocker,” she muttered.

Maybe he’d gone home?
He’d been keeping a brutal schedule
lately.
But he’d mentioned earlier that he still needed to accomplish a few
things before his trip.
Sleep never ranked before work with Spencer.

She rose and paced to the door.
The parking lot was still
empty, save for her small sedan.
For a moment, she actually considered calling
him.
As if he was her boyfriend and she had a right to be concerned.

But it wasn’t her place.
This was business and she’d better
get used to him being gone a lot longer than a few hours.
She was damn lucky
he’d even been around so much lately.
His absences from the store were
frequent, but he always came back.

Until the day he doesn’t…

Kelly shook off the thought and made herself get back to
work.
She wanted to have the section finished tonight.
Another going-away
present of sorts.

She grinned.
Hell, if she kept it up, she might as well buy
him a dozen roses and a stuffed bear that said
Be Mine
.

She was so involved in what she was doing she barely heard
the door open and close a while later.
She set down her dustrag and cocked a
hip as she listened to the sound of footsteps disappearing down the hall.

He had to have seen her car.
He must’ve known she was there
yet he hadn’t stopped by to say hello.
Or even “go home”.

A quick glance at her watch had her eyes widening.
Holy
fuck, it was past two.
Where had he been all night?

And with whom?

Her heart sped up in time with her breathing.
He wasn’t a
liar.
If he said he had a business dinner, that’s what he’d had.
Spencer’s word
meant something to him.
Beyond that, they didn’t have a commitment to each
other.
She hadn’t spelled anything out as far as what she would and would not
tolerate.

Even so, her senses were on high alert.
If she’d ever felt
less like crawling all over a man, she couldn’t remember it.

She headed back to his office as slowly as her legs allowed.
It was hard not to rush but she wasn’t about to look desperate.
Right now,
being made up like an overeager bimbo was bad enough.

He’d closed his door.
Nice.
As if that could keep her
out.
She turned the knob without knocking, unsure of what she’d find.

Spencer sat hunched over his desk—tie unknotted, jacket off,
shirt half-unbuttoned and head in his hands.
Shocked into silence, she stood in
the doorway and worried her lower lip.

“You don’t know when to leave well enough alone, do you?”

The smart-assed question normally would’ve pushed all her
buttons.
When delivered in a jagged voice she’d never before heard from him,
her ire had no chance.

Need flared low in her belly.
So much for thinking her
concerns had killed her desire.
Even when she shouldn’t give in, wanting him
left no room for anything else.
As his dark eyes smoldered into hers, she knew
he fucking knew it too.

Her throat convulsed as she stepped closer and smelled the
expensive perfume all over him.
It clung to his clothes, his hair, his skin.
As
if he’d been up close and personal with the owner.

She walked around the desk, already unbuttoning her blouse.
Once upon a time—last week—she never would’ve reacted this way.
She didn’t know
where he’d been or who he’d been with.
If she asked, most likely he wouldn’t
tell her.
And she accepted that, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

What she needed to do was to demand the truth.
Not make
excuses to herself about alternatives to the most likely explanation.
But she
couldn’t demand the truth, not when she knew there was a chance it would make
her leave him.
Easier to think she was paranoid.
God, she just wanted to be
wrong.

Dysfunctional relationship
had once been a term she
heard on daytime TV.
Now it was her life, and she still wasn’t backing away.

In her own way, she was still making plans.
Still taking
calculated risks.
Despite evidence to the contrary, the one thing she couldn’t
deny when it came to Spencer Galvin was her gut.
And that told her not to
believe everything her skittish heart warned could be true.

She stopped beside his chair and waited until he looked her
way before she untied the shirttails of her blouse.
Confronted with lots of
bare skin and her scarlet bra, his gaze met hers, his brows low over eyes that
were impossible to read.

Did he want her here?
What if desire had her all twisted up
and he really
had
slept with another woman?
Maybe he hadn’t even
recovered yet.

One quick glance at his tented pants answered
that
question.
Still, what was she doing?
Had she really sunk so low that the
promise of a man’s possibly sloppy seconds soaked her panties?

Yes and yes, at least to the wanting and the soaked panties.
He wanted her.
The relentless bulge in his pants testified to that as he
swiveled in his chair.
And she wanted him, as proven by the complete saturation
of her barely-qualified-as panties.

In the war between her head and her emotions, her libido
won.
At least she knew where she stood there.

His ravenous gaze roamed over her as if he were starving and
she were the only sustenance left on earth.
“What the hell are you wearing?” he
grated.