Kitabı oku: «Take Me», sayfa 3

It was easier to move on and not linger when he had an affair. No one got hurt. He was upfront and always told the woman that he had no intention of getting involved. Hell, fact was, he couldn’t get involved. It just wasn’t in him. It was always her choice if she decided to stay or go. He never admitted he didn’t have the emotional fortitude to sustain any kind of relationship.

Take it or leave it. This was who he was. The Glacier.

Joshua had coldly analyzed his obsessive attraction to and fear of being with Jessie. He didn’t want her to get close enough to see through him to his empty heart. He didn’t want her to know that what she saw was merely the shell of a man going through the motions. Like Pinocchio, he wanted to be a real boy. Unfortunately he had a wooden heart. If he had a heart at all.

Fortunately Jessie would never know just how much he relished basking in her joie de vivre.

“Are you angry because I went to Paris without you?” he asked, reigning in his thoughts. She’d been quiet all evening.

“A.” Jessie broke a small loaf of sourdough bread and absently handed him a chunk. “I’m far too busy to go gallivanting off to Europe at the drop of a hat. B, I wouldn’t have gone even if you’d asked me.”

“Then why are you so annoyed?”

Her brown eyes were so dark they were almost black as she gave him a waspish glare. “You were gone for ten days.”

Joshua bit back a satisfied smile. “Not a lifetime, surely?”

There was a pregnant silence when she said, “I hate playing games,” and she suddenly looked frustratingly lost. Some of the heat left her eyes.

“You do it remarkably well,” he told her.

She stared up at him, her eyes huge. “I won’t sleep with you tonight.”

“A. I haven’t asked you to.” He smiled coldly. “And B, when we’re in bed, we won’t be sleeping.”

Jessie made a low growling sound. “The reason I agreed to meet you tonight was to tell you to go to h—” She paused to look up as a family settled themselves noisily at the table next to them.

“You were saying?” Joshua ground out over the child’s shrieks as its mother stuffed its flailing legs into the high chair their waiter had pulled up. “Jessica?”

She turned back, her expression dazed. “What?”

“You came here tonight to tell me to go…?” He knew damn well what the little shrew was going to say. He wanted to inform her he would go to hell after he had taken her to bed and made love to her until she couldn’t remember her name, let alone give him so much aggravation.

“To tell you…” She looked at him blankly, glanced back at the fussy baby, then in a split second recovered herself. She smiled. Lord, he had never seen anything more captivating than Jessie’s smile. “To tell you I missed you,” she said huskily.

The waiter must have been trained to wait for the most inconvenient moment. He chose right then to deliver their entrée, then fussed with salad and plates and refilled water glasses. Joshua sent him off with a glare.

Before he went to hell, before he was driven out of his mind, he was going to have to spend at least a week in bed with this infuriating woman. He didn’t like this sensation of not being quite in control. She smiled a sweet, gentle smile before picking up her fork.

Joshua had never experienced anything like this in his life. Not when two people’s desire for each other was so palpable. Jessie Adams was just as turned on by him as he was with her. And still she held him off.

Half of him was annoyed by her reticence. The other half admired her restraint. When they did finally have sex he’d better alert the fire department.

He glided his fingers up her thigh. Jessie shivered, then grabbed his hand and set it back on the table. For a split second, her eyes flashed. The child at the next table broke into a high-pitched babble capturing Jessie’s attention again for a moment. When she looked back at him she gave him a dulcet glance and picked up her water glass. Her cheeks were flushed.

She laid her napkin on her lap. A fraction of a second later, her eyes met his, a warm, soft smile touched the corners of her lips. A jolt of pure desire sizzled through him.

His heartbeat sped up as he said gruffly, “I want you very much, darling, so if you don’t stop looking at me like that—”

She laughed, that deep, throaty, sexy-as-hell laugh of hers. A couple of heads turned, people smiling reflexively with her. “Behave,” she told him sternly.

Her mouth, pale and free of lipstick, tempted him beyond endurance. Damn her. “Impossible. You wore that red dress expressly to make me crazy. It did its job. Now you have to pay up.”

He leaned forward for a brief taste of her smile, slanting his mouth over hers briefly. He felt the quick, unexpected flick of her tongue. Perhaps he’d better place busy restaurants on his dangerous locations list. Electricity shot through him and he jerked away from her potency. After a quick glance his way and a raised eyebrow, Jessie resumed eating.

Joshua enjoyed the delicate greed with which she consumed her meal. A silky strand of hair trailed down her shoulder. He was sorely tempted to pull out the rest of the pins and see how it would look tangled after their lovemaking. He grew harder just at the thought.

“Tell me about Paris,” Jessie demanded, leaning forward. “What you like about it. What you hate. What does the city smell like? Did you walk along the Seine in the rain? What’s the food like?”

Joshua laughed at her outpouring of questions. So Jessie. Having her focus her entire attention on him was intoxicating. In the flickering candlelight, her skin looked translucent and incredibly soft. Her long, elegant legs were hidden beneath the table, but he could feel the erotic brush of her foot against his calf.

Once the honeymoon part of the relationship ended, he wouldn’t have to invest as much time and energy into getting her into bed any time he wanted her. He didn’t like wasting the time thinking about sleeping with her. He wanted to do it, and then go back to concentrating on Falcon International.

He bought failing businesses, put a competent manager in place, and when the business was once again in the black, sold it off. Much like not having the emotional fortitude to bond with a woman, he didn’t form emotional attachments to the companies he purchased either. Everything about his life was controlled, planned and had a finite ending.

An ending of his own choosing.

It had been years since he had taken the time to slowly seduce a woman. It had been even longer since he had wanted a woman as much as he wanted Jessie. In fact, when he thought about it, he couldn’t remember ever wanting another woman as much as he wanted Jessie. Nor could he remember one who actually listened without trying to impress him—which might explain his excruciating patience.

And the fact that he was still around. And very aroused.

Over the past several weeks, and mostly during transatlantic phone calls, he’d discovered they had many things in common: old movies, Japanese and Italian food and skiing. Joshua had no interest in skydiving, bungee jumping or spelunking. Jessie’s love of dangerous sports appalled him. Not sure why, but wanting to understand this complicated woman better, he brought the topic up again.

“I don’t get the fascination,” he finally said, after she’d told him about a recent rock-climbing excursion. “What is it about the danger that turns you on?” Her skin looked soft, the bones in her slender hands almost fragile. He refrained from touching her. He wasn’t a hand holder. Had never even thought about it before. He frowned. Even the idea of just holding this woman’s hand had appeal.

“Everything.” Her eyes looked mysteriously dark in the shimmering light. Her gaze skittered to the table next to them and back. The toddler was banging a spoon on the high chair tray.

“I suspect it’s the same surge of adrenaline you get when you…when, you know, you’re going to attempt a merger. That heady rush that tells you you’re alive. That feeling of power can’t be duplicated. I feel invincible….” She shrugged one slender shoulder. “It’s hard to explain. Why don’t you come with me the next time I go?” She gave him that mysteriously limpid look he couldn’t fathom.

“Thanks,” Joshua said dryly, picking up his wineglass and taking a sip. “I’ll stick to mergers and acquisitions. At least I won’t have any broken bones.”

“Luckily, I haven’t had any of those. Believe me, I’m not into physical pain. Just the rush.”

“I don’t like you doing anything that has the distinct possibility of leaving you dead or paralyzed.” He didn’t like the thought a lot, he thought scowling.

“I’m always careful.” She viewed his concern with a strange expression in her dark eyes. “I’ve never had anyone worry about me before.” Her lips curved in a poignant smile for a moment before she looked down at her lasagna, then back to meet his eyes. “I’ll probably stop soon anyway.” Something flickered behind those fathomless brown eyes again, then was gone.

“Somehow I doubt anyone could make you do something you didn’t want to do.” His tone was dry.

She picked up her wineglass. “With the right incentive—” she toasted him “—you’d be surprised.”

“I LOATHE THAT MAN!” Jessie slammed the kitchen door at the main house and stormed into Conrad and Archie’s family room.

Conrad hid a grin. “Another amicable dinner date?” He folded his newspaper on his lap.

“Grrr.” Jessie started pacing. “This isn’t in the least bit funny, you know. I’ve missed out a gazillion times because he keeps going on these blasted business trips. Damn it. I’m starting to like him!” Jessie flopped down in an easy chair cradling a cushion on her lap. “I don’t want to like the blasted man. Don’t look at me like that, Archie. I don’t!” She grimaced. “At this rate I’ll be old enough to be my baby’s grandmother before we do it.”

Archie hid his grin behind his book. Conrad managed to look mildly interested by keeping his expression bland. “Good Lord,” he said, tongue-in-cheek. “Sounds like you might have to have a relationship before you fall into bed with each other. How novel.”

Jessie stuck out her tongue at him. “How droll.” She kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs under her. “Neither of us wants a relationship.” She said it as if it were the plague. “I just want him to be in the right place at the right time, damn it.”

3

THE LAZY DRIFT of fog gave an otherwordly charm to Pier 39, a picturesque tourist mecca of shops and restaurants down on Fisherman’s Wharf. Jessie tucked her hand into the crook of Joshua’s elbow and matched her stride to his. Moisture speckled Jessie’s dark hair like liquid diamonds. Their footsteps echoed on the wooden boardwalk as they strolled companionably between tubs of brilliant early-flowering spring perennials and the inevitable camera-toting tourists.

Jessie tugged on Joshua’s hand. “Come on. I want to go and see the seals.”

She leaned over the railing to get a better look as the animals lolled about on custom-made platforms in the water. “Cute, huh?”

Joshua chuckled. “Yeah, really cute.” He turned up the collar of her scarlet wool coat, his hands warm on her icy neck. “You’re freezing.” He tugged off the soft, warm scarf about his own neck and wrapped Jessie in it up to her eyebrows. She giggled. “How about a couple of gallons of hot coffee?”

“And pie?”

“And pie.”

They walked quickly, and found a small coffee shop down a little jog in the boardwalk. The restaurant smelled warm and yeasty and was almost empty. They selected a tiny, rickety round table with a view of the boats ferrying tourists out to Alcatraz Island and ordered their coffee before removing their coats.

“There are only about thirty choices. We could always order a slice of each,” Joshua suggested politely as Jessie scanned the menu for the pie selections. She stuck out her tongue at him.

Joshua’s eyes darkened. “I can think of more productive things to do with that.”

“Wicked man.” She turned to smile up at the kid who’d come to deliver their coffee and take their order. The young man almost stumbled into their table. Joshua sighed. Jessie had that affect on men of all ages.

Pie ordered, coats removed and coffee doctored, they lazily discussed the art show they’d seen together the week before, Joshua’s recent trip to Japan, and a large commission Jessie had just started, a bed-and-breakfast in Marin.

The waiter delivered their order and faded away. Jessie picked up her fork, and then put it down again. She pressed a hand to her midriff.

“I’m terrified I’m going to let Conrad down.” Absentmindedly, she began to tear a paper napkin into shreds. “The people who own the B-and-B also own a small vineyard in Napa. They’re influential, and there’s a good chance they’ll send a lot of business Con’s way if I do a good job.” She fiddled with the strips of napkin she’d torn.

“I’ve seen your work, Jessie. You’re a fine designer. They’re lucky to have you.”

Her cheeks pinked. “Really?”

“Really. But if worry is preventing you from sampling the delights of that lemon meringue p—”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Jessie pulled her plate closer and picked up her fork again.

She glanced up and, smiling, offered him a bite. He closed his lips around the tines of her fork. She was going to be under him tonight. She was going to feel the fires he’d been keeping banked explode into a fury of passion that was going to leave them both too weak to move.

“Thanks for sharing that with me.” He was so turned on he felt feverish. He’d been on a slow boil for months. “I can see how much you enjoy your food. You consume enough for a linebacker and look like a nymph. God, where do you put it all?” His eyes traveled down her slender body to rest for a moment on her small breasts.

“Well, obviously not there!” Jessie blushed. “Look at the baby seals or something. I can’t eat when you’re staring at me like a lion about to devour his Bambi du jour.”

“Hmm. Soft, succulent and tender pink.”

Jessie rolled her eyes. Joshua calculated they’d be out in the cold another hour at the most. He had an excellent bottle of Cristal chilling at home. He regrouped. “Tell me how adorable you were as a child.”

“I wasn’t an adorable child at all. I was a homely, gangly child.” She smiled. “Which made it tough to make friends. My mother and I moved constantly. We’d move from apartment to apartment, town to town, sometimes state to state, so I was always being shoved into a new school.”

“Military?”

“Collection agencies,” Jessie said dryly.

He frowned. “You were poor.”

“I suppose so, although I didn’t think about it at the time. Things were how they were.”

“When did you start this love affair with food?” He couldn’t wait to feel that avid little mouth all over him. Certainly, thinking of her sexually beat thinking of Jessie as being poor and wanting and having no one to care for her. For some reason picturing her that way pissed him off and made him feel…uncomfortable, damn it.

“Oh, way back. I learned to cook when I was six or seven because it was the only way I got to eat. My mom tended to forget little details like that. At one apartment, we had a wonderful Italian neighbor, sometimes she’d let me sit and watch as she prepared the family’s evening meals. The stairwells used to smell incredible.” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Garlic. Tomatoes. Yum. Hot, homemade sourdough bread. I used to sit on the bottom step outside their door and salivate. Just the smell of garlic is enough to make me remember that apartment on Ninth.”

“God, Jessie.” He’d never imagined her as a child, just a sensual woman, born to be made love to.

She waved away his sympathy. “Oh, don’t feel sorry for me. Trust me, when I was a kid, it was all a wild adventure. I thought being hungry was normal. And I learned to make a mean spaghetti.”

“That’s child abuse.”

“My mom? No. She didn’t hurt me. She just—”

“Neglected you.” Christ, no wonder she ate as she did; there would never be enough food in the world to a little girl who was starving. It explained her insistence on always getting a doggie bag even in the finest restaurants.

“It was a bit more complicated than that.” Jessie paused and bit her lip. Her eyes met his. “My mom hooked on the side to make ends meet. There. I said it. Phew. As a teenager, I began to hate her for what she was doing. For how we were forced to live. Basically, I was a huge oops. She never knew who my father was.

“She died six years ago. I didn’t like or approve of her lifestyle, but I loved her.” She looked at him, her eyes unusually bleak. “In an odd way, now that she’s gone, I miss her. Family is important, Joshua. No matter what.”

“Family,” he repeated dispassionately, his eyes flat. “I thought mine was bad, but my life was a cakewalk compared to yours.”

“Tell me. You never talk about anyone but Simon and your cousin, Paul the Playboy.”

“Want another slice of pie?”

“Does the Pope wear a beanie?” She mouthed “Apple” to the waiter across the room, then turned back to fix Joshua in place with her chocolaty eyes. “Tell me all the Falcon family’s dirty little secrets.”

“Read the tabloids. They seem to have everything covered.”

“Poo, they make up stuff. Thanks,” she said as an aside to the waiter, who’d cut at least half the apple pie onto Jessie’s plate. She picked up her fork. “Unless the story about you having an alien’s love child is true?”

Joshua smiled. “I missed that one.”

“They had pictures,” Jessie mumbled around a mouthful of pie.

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh.” She swallowed. “No family resemblance. Talk.”

I could’ve used someone in my life just like you, Jessie Adams. Looking back, it seemed now to Joshua that he’d always been cold, physically and emotionally. “I was pretty much brought up by the servants before I was shipped off to boarding school,” he said shortly, less comfortable when he was the one in the hot seat.

“Poor little rich boy.”

Joshua stared at her for a moment before shaking his head. “Not at all. I had everything I wanted.”

“Not quite. I bet you missed your mother.”

“I missed her when I was home. She was always off somewhere. No, what I wanted was a Lionel train,” he said, annoyed by her misinterpretation of his childhood. “What I got was a track that ran the perimeter of our thousand-acre estate with a train that required an engine driver and a full-time staff to keep it running. Not quite what I had in mind to take up to my room.

“Naturally I wanted what I perceived the ‘normal’ kids had. A yo-yo, or a blue Swiss Army knife, or the brown leather bomber jacket owned by one of the servant’s kids. Stupid. I could’ve bought a hundred of each out of my allowance. But perversely it just wasn’t the same. I finally figured out that none of that was the least bit important. I was well taken care of, had an exceptional education and learned, eventually, to relish hard work and responsibility instead of growing into a dilettante.”

“Oh, Joshua…”

“On the other hand, what I’d really like, right now, is for you to come home with me.”

Jessie smiled almost sadly. “Sorry, Romeo. Bad timing.”

“Damn.”

“You can say that again. How about another slice of pie?”

“WHEN’S THE NEXT DATE?” Archie asked her.

“Tonight. Listen, guys. Don’t romanticize this. It’s sex. Plain and simple.” Except it was getting more complex every time she saw him. She shook her head as Archie started refilling her cup. “None for me, thanks.” Jessie withdrew her palm from the rim of her cup then rose and rinsed it at the sink. Drying her hands, she said over her shoulder, “We’re going to Noble’s in the city. He said he has something special to celebrate tonight.”

“Valentine’s Day,” Archie said cheerfully.

“He’s going to get you into bed,” Conrad said morosely, running his fingers through his blond hair.

“No, he’s not,” Jessie said grimly, hanging the towel she’d just used on the rack. “He can huff and puff, but he won’t blow my house down.” Then she smiled. “Not for two weeks, that is. Won’t need to dig out the good underwear until then.”

“Better run out and buy some bad underwear,” Archie advised mischievously, giving her a wink.

Conrad walked over to Jessie and tilted her chin up. “Don’t for a moment think The Glacier is going to make an honest woman of you. It isn’t going to happen. You know it, we know it, and you can bet your sweet patoot the thought hasn’t crossed his mind. I doubt the guy has ever eaten meat loaf in his life.”

“In this case, I am an honest woman. I’m his wife. At least I am until I hand him the divorce papers. I don’t want, or need either of us to fall in love,” Jessie reminded him. “I just want my baby.” And to get out of this with my heart intact.

“Then I’d suggest, love,” Conrad said softening his tone, “that instead of buying undies, you go back home and reread Falcon’s press clippings before you take your temperature.”

JOSHUA GAVE HER pink diamonds for Valentine’s Day. He watched her reaction as they sat in a dim, candlelit booth at Nobel’s.

“Thank you so much, Joshua. These are beautiful. But I don’t want you buying gifts for me.” That unfathomable look came and went in her eyes.

“You don’t like earrings?” he asked sardonically, it was clear she was delighted with the way the pendants brushed her neck.

He’d begun to realize that every gift he gave Jessie was a test. She couldn’t possibly pass every one. Couldn’t possibly be so genuinely pleased every time. No one was that good. He needed to bring what he was starting to feel when he was with her back down to a manageable level.

“I love earrings, the bigger, the better. And these are absolutely gorgeous.” She touched a finger to one large pink drop. “What are these stones?”

“Diamonds.”

Jessie flushed and he felt a need to taste the heat. He imagined warming his mouth against the fire in her cheeks.

“I mean the big pink stones.”

“Diamonds,” he repeated.

“Diamonds.” Jessie went pale. “Oh, my God. Joshua! They must be…they’re huge.”

“Five carats.” The receipt had been left in the bottom of the box, as he always instructed his secretary to do. He’d probably see them once more before they got “lost.”

“Please, I love them, but I can’t accept them.” She yanked one off her ear with enough force to bruise. “I adore big, flashy costume jewelry. I’d be paranoid I’d lose these.” She placed the earring on the table between them as if it would shatter.

Joshua picked it up and reinserted the post in her earlobe. After affixing the earring back, he stilled her other hand. “Keep them. They’re insured.” Conversation closed.

He felt the warmth of her thigh beside him on the banquet seat. She’d swept her hair up off her neck into a sexy chignon that defied gravity. The pink diamonds glinted in the soft lighting, casting rainbow prisms on her smooth cheeks. Candlelight danced in her eyes as she watched several couples moving slowly around the pocket-size dance floor. The pink jacket she wore rustled as she turned inquiring eyes up to his.

“Don’t even ask,” he murmured huskily, his breath making a curly tendril of hair dance against her cheek. He had no intention of dancing with her again until he had satiated himself with her body in bed. He was a ticking bomb as it was. “Hell, if I held you that close right now, I’d take you on the floor. Hard and fast.”

She smiled that annoying as hell little enigmatic smile of hers. The one that turned the neurons in his brain to live wires and prepared his muscles for action.

“I want you,” he murmured. “Right now.” He restrained her fingers as she tried to pull away. “You’ve been holding me off far longer than I’ve ever waited for a woman.”

The soft candlelight flickered on her face, bathing it in an apricot glow that made her dark eyes brilliant and drew his gaze to the sheen of wine on her mouth. She ran the tip of her tongue across her bottom lip and Joshua suppressed a groan. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. The movement made the neckline of her jacket gape just enough to reveal the soft upper curve of her breasts. He dragged his eyes upward with reluctance and she made a small, low sound deep in her throat.

“I think you must put that stuff in my food when I’m with you.” Her voice was so low he could barely hear her. “I’ve never felt like this in my life.”

Joshua cleared his throat. “What stuff?”

Jessie’s eyes were liquidly slumberous, and she blushed a velvety pink. “Spanish fly.”

Joshua thought he would explode. “Spanish fly is actually cantharides made from the skeletons of beetles.”

She grimaced.

Joshua held a laugh. “It causes itching all right, but not necessarily for sex.” If possible, her blush got deeper, and she gave a small embarrassed groan. His body vibrated with need. “What we both have is an overdose of good old-fashioned lust.” Then he lifted his glass. “To new beginnings.”

“To new beginnings.” Jessie clinked her glass against his, her smile brilliant before she blithely finished her shrimp.

Half her hair had escaped the pins, tangling with the heavy diamond drop earrings. Reaching out, he freed the silky filaments. His fingers lingered on her neck. “You know we’re going to be lovers, Jessie. God knows, I’ve been patient and waited long enough. I won’t wait any longer. I’m not a man who waits very long for anything. I need an answer.”

Jessie laid her hand on her purse, something she did often, almost as if it were a talisman. “You haven’t asked me a question.” She pushed the last bite of lemon meringue pie around her plate.

“I’m asking now.”

“I’m not sure what the question is.”

He pulled a folded document from his breast pocket, sliding it across the table. “I want you as my mistress, Jessie.” Joshua’s voice dropped another octave, his eyes kindling as he watched her mouth. He nudged the papers closer to her coffee cup.

Jessie eased her dry throat with a gulp of ice water. “What’s this?”

“A contract. A legal, binding agreement.” The sharp focus of his eyes reminded her of a bird of prey. “Read it.”

“I’d rather you gave me a brief summary.” Her hands balled into fists under the tablecloth. A contract! The bastard. And she’d been feeling guilty at how cold-bloodedly she was going about this.

“From now until the end of the year as my mistress,” he said baldly, “I pay your rent. Buy your clothes. In exchange, you give me exclusive rights for the duration.” Cut and dried. No mention of his fidelity.

She remembered Frankie, the fifteen-year-old who’d lived next door to them when she was thirteen. She’d had a huge crush on him. When she’d tried to steal a kiss, he’d called her a whore, like her mother. It had taken three other kids to pull her off him. She’d broken his nose and given him a black eye. She wondered how many people would be needed to pull her off Falcon.

“I’ll think about your offer.” She coolly pushed away her plate and reached for the leftover bread sticks. She filled her doggie bag then snapped two folds in the top to close it.

“You want me just as much as I want you.”

Yes. And if I’d slept with you months ago this wouldn’t hurt. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that.”

“Don’t apologize for wanting me, Jessie. You’re a sophisticated woman. You know the score. You want me and I, God knows, want you. You won’t be sorry. I can be a generous lover.” He tapped an earring with his finger. It grazed her neck and she felt the chill travel across her skin. “You won’t want for anything in my care.”

She took a calming breath. “You want me to sign a contract.” It wasn’t a question.

“What did you expect?” he asked, his face impassive. “A handshake and a gentleman’s agreement?”

Jessie’s laugh sounded brittle, even to her ears. “I can see why that wouldn’t work. Neither one of us is a gentleman.” She paused. “What happens after my time is up?” Her voice sounded oddly flat. “Do I just disappear, no questions asked, to that great graveyard for all your old mistresses?”

Joshua merely watched her. Suddenly angry—he was too damn cool!—Jessie shoved the papers back across the table. “I hate to be the one to disillusion you, Joshua, but not every woman finds you irresistible. I thought I could do this but, no, thank you.”

This was too impersonal, too calculating. She’d thought she could handle this part of it, but she’d been wrong. Dangerously wrong. A little late in the day, Jessie, she taunted herself.

“I want more than this. I deserve more than this.”

“Ten thousand a month.”

“W-what!”

“Ten thousand a month, tax free. An apartment and your clothes. And a car.”

Jessie gritted her teeth. “I wasn’t talking about mon—”

“Twelve thousand. And that’s my final offer.”

Black dots blurred Jessie’s vision. “You can take those papers and shove them—”

Grabbing her purse and paper bag, she stood. Joshua gripped her wrist tightly as she tried to sweep past him. With his other hand, he picked up the contract. “Take this. Read it. I’ll give you two weeks to decide.”

Jessie stared down at him, her breathing erratic. “One of my best qualities,” she said frigidly as she tugged her hand away, “is that I make up my mind quickly. You’re a self-righteous bastard, and I’m immeasurably grateful that I didn’t fall into bed with you. You’re a cold, arrogant—” her breath came out in a rush, her heart pounding so fast she thought she might faint “—jerk,” she finished.

She had to get out of here. Now. Her cold hands took the papers from him, folding and then refolding them. Then she twisted them into a tight tube. “Here.” She shoved them against his chest. “Try this for size!”