Sayers turned the smile upon her now. “Jane!” he said warmly. “Good to see you again. How are you today?”
She stared at him, wary. Embarrassed that you managed to star naked in my dreams last night. “Uh, fine,” she said. “How are you?”
“Couldn’t be better, thanks.”
Did someone spray happy mist in your Wheaties this morning? Add amphetamines?
“Would you like something to drink? Coffee?”
She shook her head, unable to look away from a sexy little mole in the middle of his left cheek.
“Tea?”
“No, thank you.” And don’t say “me” next, either. Where is your evil twin? The one I met yesterday?
Today’s Dominic was even dressed in a happy-colored pale yellow button-down and khakis, not the funereal pinstripes of the day before. His eyebrows looked less menacing. And dark, curly hairs beckoned to her from his open neckline, cranking up his sex appeal factor even more, if that were possible. Uh-oh.
Me, Tarzan, those little curly hairs crooned. You, Jane. Wanna swing to nirvana on my big, thick vine?
Huh. She averted her eyes from the danger spot and reminded herself that the man in front of her was nothing more than a chest-thumping primate who needed to be civilized.
She considered asking him to pull his anger out of the nearest file cabinet so they could get on with examining it but decided to go ahead and explore this warm and fuzzy aspect of his personality—since, after all, it was probably a mask. He’d let it slip sooner or later.
“I’m guessing you just want to follow me around and observe me, correct?”
“Yes. I may tape some conversations, too—with your permission.”
“Of course!” he said in genial tones.
Who are you?
“To start with, I have a staff meeting in five minutes. You can meet my team and see that I actually play quite well with others.”
We’ll see about that.
But it was true. Five people filed into the room, including his marketing coordinator, two analysts, an assistant product manager and a PR specialist. Three of them were women, two men. They all seemed to have an easy camaraderie with “Dom,” as they called him.
He introduced every person to her by name, joking that Jane was there to help him mind his p’s and q’s. They all looked puzzled but carried on with various reports to him.
When Jackie, the marketing coordinator, had finished, he thanked her graciously. “And how’s Tommy doing?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Kid’s gonna drive me crazy, whining about that cast on his arm.”
Dom shook his head in sympathy. “Well, tell him he’s lucky he didn’t break it in the summertime. A cast gets even hotter and itchier then, believe me.”
She nodded.
“Your Buccaneers are looking good, Tim.” Dom said to one of the analysts.
The guy flashed a big white grin at him. “Yeah. Gonna kick the he—uh, hoo-ha outta the Falcons.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Whatcha got for me?”
Tim made his report while Dom nodded thoughtfully.
Jane taped the meeting and took notes with growing incredulity. But they couldn’t possibly have all gotten together and rehearsed beforehand. No, these people actually liked Sayers. And that didn’t add up.
Hmm. She tapped her pen on her nose. And so, clearly, had the company receptionist. But while she’d written that off to a sweet young thing’s infatuation with his looks, she couldn’t write off the interactions in this meeting. It was all very peculiar. For an instant she wondered if just maybe he’d been telling the truth in her office. That he was being set up by a power-hungry boss.
But no—that was ridiculous. She knew Arianna DuBose, was a member of the Kiwanis Club with her and the local women executives’ networking group, too. She’d never seen Arianna be anything other than charming, articulate and beautifully dressed. And the woman was in a position of power already—so there was no need for her to backstab or get Machiavellian.
Sayers was an educated white male of a certain age, with certain expectations. And he’d felt anger when a woman was promoted over him—plain and simple. It didn’t take her behavioral psych degree to figure that out.
Why, then, did he seem to get along so well with the women in this room? Oh, lightbulb, Jane. They work for him. Not vice versa. It’s easy to be gracious when you’ve got the power. Satisfied, she stopped hitting her nose with her pen and capped it, ignoring the quirk of Sayers’s lips. Go ahead and smirk at me, you yutz. You’re not stumping me by this charming behavior. I’ve got you figured out.
While he took in another report, she allowed herself to assess his looks again from the corner of her eye.
Nice tapered waist. Long thighs. Solid, athletic-looking knees—no skinny knobs visible through the pants. So he probably had good legs, not chicken sticks. She peeked at the chest hair again, which was a bad idea, since it got her wondering about the broad chest underneath.
Jane, get a hold of yourself! You cannot have a fantasy about the man right in front of him.
Aw, but I’ve got such a good one, her libido whined. Listen: it involves a furry rug before a roaring fire on a cold, winter night…and he licks melted chocolate and marshmallows off your—
Stop it! She noticed that she was again tapping on her nose with her pen. She recapped it for the second time. Usually she tapped on the earpiece of her glasses, but she’d been curiously reluctant to put them on in front of Dominic.
He looked over at her and now both corners of his delectable mouth turned up.
Trying to sucker me? Not a chance. She returned his gaze coolly and waited for the meeting to be over, which it soon was. Her stomach growled audibly as he turned to her.
“Care for some lunch?”
Should she go to lunch with him? She hesitated. Well, she could observe him further with other people. Why not? “Okay,” she said. “I just need to run to the ladies’ room first.”
“Good thing,” Dominic responded.
Good thing? Why would he possibly care that she took a tinkle? Bizarre man. Jane hitched the strap of her briefcase over her shoulder and marched down the hall to the relevant door. She availed herself of the amenities, still puzzling.
It was when she went to wash her hands that she figured it out. Blue pen marks adorned her nose, making her look like a refugee from the Bic warrior tribe.
She stared at them with growing mortification. How long had they been there? Why hadn’t one of the other six people in the room said something? And how was she going to get them off?
Jane dropped her briefcase on the floor and went to town with the pink liquid soap and a brown paper towel, only succeeding in removing all the makeup from the lower half of her face. The pen marks, however, still remained.
She might as well draw a mustache on her lip or add kitty whiskers. No wonder Dominic Sayers had smirked at her!
The score between them was temporarily even, but she’d fix that—and him. There was no doubt in her mind, no doubt at all, about who was going to end up on top….
4
DOMINIC OBSERVED JANE quizzically as they moved their trays through the salad buffet at a local restaurant. The skin on and around her nose seemed extremely…thick. And