“Before you ask, no, I didn’t bring you a present,” he told Amy, that open smile flipping Cady’s stomach up and over. She shivered, remembering the sexy phrases he’d muttered in that same baritone as he’d taught her how to give and receive physical pleasure.
Amy mock pouted before half turning away from him. Cady saw her suck in a deep breath before she placed her hand on Cady’s bicep. “Obviously you remember Cady, Beck.”
Color drained from Beck’s face as he looked from Cady to Amy and back again. The warmth in his eyes faded and she watched, fascinated, as his eyes raked her from head to toe. She saw his eyes deepen with... God, could that be desire? But when they met hers again, they were the dark, cold blue of a winter’s ocean.
“Cady. What are you doing here?” His voice held no emotion as his words whipped across her.
Before she could answer, Amy flashed him a bright smile. “Cady is in PR. Julia knows Cady’s work and she suggested that Cady take a stab at developing a proposal to rebrand Ballantyne’s. Since Julia is one of the most respected consultants in the city and since she rarely makes recommendations, I thought her advice was worth taking.”
Beck didn’t drop his eyes from hers as he leaned one big shoulder into the wall. God, he was still so sexy—no, scrap that. He was even hotter than he used to be. And so remote, disinterested.
His eyes finally moved to Amy and as he narrowed them on her, Cady realized that he was pissed.
So Beck wasn’t happy to see her.
She couldn’t do this; she absolutely could not be around him. He’d sent her home, tossed her away. She couldn’t stay here and be constantly reminded that she wasn’t enough.
Cady started to turn to walk away and then she remembered what was at stake. Her business was her only source of income and she needed that income. If she wasn’t pregnant, she would leave but she was now responsible for another life, and walking away wasn’t that simple anymore.
She needed this damned job.
Cady planted her feet and turned her attention back to her ex-lover and potential client and to Amy, who obviously had an important position in his company.
“Linc asked me to source proposals from new, hungry firms as well as the established companies we’ve worked with before. Cady made it through the first round and she’s about to do her presentation,” Amy explained, still sounding cool and composed.
Cady could see the tension in his body, see his fist clench. “You’ve gone too far, Amy.”
“I have not. This is a business arrangement, a job. She’s creative, hungry and needs work, and Ballantyne’s needs someone creative, something different. You’re making this personal, not me,” Amy retorted.
How could it not be? What they had had been very personal indeed. She allowed this man to do things to her that still made her blush. And she’d returned the favor...
As she remembered hot mouths, desperate hands, labored breathing and mind-shattering orgasms, she had to place her hand on the wall to keep her balance. Beck’s eyes slammed into hers and she caught a flash of awareness, a lick of fiery heat, and she knew that he knew exactly what she was thinking. For an instant he was there with her, holding himself above her, about to slide into her.
His eyes always turned that particular shade of cobalt-blue when he was turned on. Cady licked her lips and dropped her eyes to his crotch...
Nope, nothing. No action at all. Mortified, she lifted her hot face to see the ice in his eyes. So, she was alone in that little fantasy, and Beck was definitely not taking a walk down memory lane.
But Beck was giving her another once-over, his gaze starting at her nude heels, moving slowly up her skinny black trousers to her blush-pink silk blouse. She’d pulled her long hair into a severe braid, which she twisted into a low knot at the back of her head, and her makeup, while minimalist, was flawless. With black, heavy-framed glasses, she looked every inch the New York businesswoman and nothing like the free-spirited girl he used to know.
While he inspected her like she was a car he was considering buying, she thought that Beck was now bigger and broader, harder, and he exuded power from every sexy pore. Even dressed casually, he emitted a don’t-mess-with-me vibe that dried up the moisture in her mouth and sent it straight to that special spot between her legs.
Damn.
Amy broke the tension by poking Beck with her red-tipped finger. “You need to change. You can’t listen to presentations looking like you’ve just walked off a trail.”
Beck grabbed her finger and held it, just enough for Amy’s eyes to widen and for her to realize that Beck was still pissed off. “Do try to remember who the boss is.”
Amy, utterly indefatigable, just grinned. “I do. It’s me. Let’s get back to work, people.”
Cady spun around and walked back to the reception area and ignored the curious looks she received from her fellow competitors. Beck, she presumed, went to clean up.
Neither of them saw the gleeful expression on Amy’s face or heard her whispered words. “Watching them is going to be so much fun.”
Keyed up and tense after her ninety-minute-long presentation, Cady left the conference room feeling like a washed-out rag. Needing a comfort break, she headed down the hall to the ladies’ room, thinking that she’d wash her hands and face, reapply some war paint and try to catch her breath. The Ballantyne siblings—with the exception of Beck, who had just sat there, as immovable and silent as a rock—had bombarded her with questions, most of which she’d deftly answered.
She’d done her best in the limited time she’d had, putting together a mammoth strategy for a global company, but she had no illusions. She was up against the best in the business. If she got the contract then she’d earn herself a get-out-of-bankruptcy card. If she didn’t, in a month or two she’d be packing her bags and throwing herself on the mercy of her parents.
They’d take her in; there was no doubt about it. But she’d have to learn to live with disapproving looks and the what-were-you-thinking lectures. And the image of the perfect family, the one her mother tried so hard to project, would be shattered. The pastor’s daughter, single and pregnant, the one who had so much potential, would be hot, hot gossip.
Her mother was going to kill her.
Cady felt a big hand wrap around her upper bicep and she spun around to look into Beckett’s deep blue eyes, the exact color of the navy-and-white polka-dot tie he now wore over a finely striped light-blue-and-white shirt. Walking into the conference room earlier, the last company to present, she’d immediately noticed that he’d changed and couldn’t help thinking he should always wear blue. The cuffs of his shirt were folded over the sleeves of his trendy cardigan, and both sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, showing his thick, muscled forearms.
Beckett was a snappy dresser.
“Beckett, I need to use the facilities,” she protested as he walked her past the ladies’ room.
“I have a private bathroom adjoining my office,” he growled and Cady had to half jog to keep up with his long-legged stride. He ignored Amy’s startled face as he walked past her desk and into the office on the right. Through the glass walls, a feature of the Ballantyne offices, she could see that Linc’s office was empty. Cady wondered if they ever felt like they were working in a fish tank.
Beck pushed her through the glass door into his messy office.
“The bathroom is through there.” He nodded to a door at the other end of the large space. “When you’re done, we’re going to talk.”
That didn’t