She smiled at him then and he knew that she was savoring the sparring as much as he was. In another world he would have enjoyed knowing her as a woman, not just as a sex partner.
“Good. So here’s my thought. We start with my questions—”
“Not happening, honey. No matter how many times you cross and uncross your legs, you aren’t going to get me hot enough to agree to that.”
“What would get you hot enough?” she asked.
He shook his head, unwilling to reveal that her flirting with him would be enough. “Become my mistress and you’ll find out.”
“I’m trying to avoid that,” she said.
“Why? We both know it’s what you want,” he said.
She nodded. “It is. But I have my professional integrity to think about.”
“Integrity. I didn’t know that crashing a party had any high moral value.”
“I came as a plus one,” she said.
“Whose?”
“Um …”
“That’s what I thought. I admire that you’re willing to go to any lengths to get this interview,” he said.
“How can you be sure of that?” she asked.
“You are sitting here,” he pointed out. “As I was saying, I admire your guts. But I think you need to acknowledge that all of your cards are on the table and I’m holding an ace up my sleeve.”
“Are we playing for high stakes?”
“Yes, I believe we are. I don’t want you to think that my offering to make you my mistress means I don’t respect you.”
“Sure you do.”
“I definitely respect you and I want you. It’s the easiest way for us both to get what we want. It’s a business arrangement.”
“I’m not interested in that,” she said. “Perhaps if you knew what I was writing about, it would make you see there’s nothing to fear and we could try to have a normal relationship after I write the article.”
He wasn’t interested in that. He knew from his own feelings on the matter of relationships that he would never marry or settle down. And though he’d never formally had a mistress, in general the women he involved himself with knew he wasn’t in it for the long haul.
“I doubt that would work,” he said.
“Why? Because I’m not from your echelon?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. It’s just that I’m not relationship-minded. Never have been. I saw the dark side of it from my parents’ marriage, of course, but also from friends. It’s just not to my taste.”
“I’d love to quote you on that.”
“Well, you can’t.”
“Honestly, Conner. That is the type of article I want to write. I think even you can see that it’s not invasive at all.”
“I’ve already offered to let you interview me if you become my mistress.”
“What if I just ask you about the business?”
“You can do that through my marketing department.”
“But your marketing department isn’t you. I want to know why someone who’s so disdainful of relationships would try to set people up.”
“In a word?”
“If that’s all you will give me,” she said.
He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. He liked that she never just gave in. “Money.”
“Money?”
“That’s right. There’s a lot of money to be made from people looking for that special someone.”
“That’s so cynical.”
He gave a wry shrug of his shoulders. “Obviously I don’t run around telling our clients that, but that’s my feeling. If the company didn’t make money I would have cut it from my portfolio a long time ago.”
She leaned forward. “I thought it was a family business.”
“That’s all you’re getting out of me until you agree to the terms.”
“What terms?”
“I will answer your questions and you will be my mistress.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“A month,” he said. “Long enough for us both to still enjoy each other.”
“You’re not listening to me,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to just bow to your wishes.”
He stood up and walked around the desk, stopping right in front of her and leaning back against it, his long legs stretched out so that his well-shod feet were on either side of her. “I won’t hold it against you when you do.”
She wanted to scream. He was frustrating and so arrogant she wanted to take him down a peg or two. She was tempted to agree to his deal and then back out of it when she got what she wanted. Could she string him along for enough time to get a story?
Could she live with herself if she did that?
She had been brought up in a family where lies—not outright lies but lies of omission—were routine. That was one of the main reasons she’d become a reporter—to expose the truth. So, no, she couldn’t lie to him or herself in hopes that she’d get a story without having to pay the price.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I have to look myself in the mirror each morning.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest, the sides of his jacket parting so she could see his dress shirt underneath it. This would be so much easier if she wasn’t tempted by him. If she didn’t want him.
But she knew that anything worth having was worth sacrificing for and she was just going to have to push on and stick to her guns. She’d meant what she said: She had to look at herself every morning and she couldn’t do that if she sold her body in exchange for an interview—even if it was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
“Have you ever paid for an interview?” he asked her.
She sensed where he was going with this. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Answer the question,” he said in that forceful way of his.
“I’ll bet you were never spanked as a child,” she said.
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
“You are way too arrogant,” she replied. “Yes, I’ve paid a source for an interview.”
“Then how would this be different?”
“I get your point—I really do—but we’re talking about sex, and there has always been a stigma to paying for it or doing it in exchange for something.”
He nodded and leaned forward, putting his hands on either side of her chair so that she was now surrounded by him. His face was just inches from hers and she could see those thick dark lashes of his and the compelling blue of his gaze.
His masculine scent—clean, crisp and spicy—surrounded her. “If I asked you to hire painters to do the walls of this office in exchange for the interview, would you?”
She bit her lower lip. A part of her wanted him to talk her into this. That way she wouldn’t have to accept all the blame for the fallout—and she wasn’t about to fool herself that there wouldn’t be a fallout.
“Of course I would. But I wouldn’t just