The Wager

He punched the number on the pad and the elevator doors slid shut, enclosing them in the small space. “Do you think I would make up such a thing?”

“What I think, Mr. Logan, is that you’re very good at spinning tales and turning on that Southern charm to get your way.”

Josh gave her a forlorn look. “There you go, slinging those arrows again.”

When Laura burst into laughter, he couldn’t help grinning in return. He liked the sound of her laughter, he realized. Almost as much as he liked the way her eyes sparkled and the way the dimple winked in her left cheek when she smiled. Suddenly itching to trace the tempting curve of her mouth with his finger, he shoved his hands into his pockets. The truth was there wasn’t much about Laura Harte that he didn’t like, Josh admitted, as he felt the sexual sparks that had been licking at him like flames all evening blaze into full-blown lust.

Lust he could handle, Josh told himself as the elevator continued its ascent. Back in New Orleans when he’d first seen Laura’s picture, he’d anticipated the sexual chemistry. She was a beautiful woman, and he’d always had a healthy appreciation of women. Thanks to the dossier he’d read on her and what details Olivia had given him, his curiosity about the unknown Jardine heiress had been peaked long before he’d ever met her. So neither his attraction nor his curiosity about Laura had come as a surprise. What had been surprising was that he genuinely liked Laura Harte—not just the attractive package, but the woman herself. It was a complication that he hadn’t counted on when he’d agreed to Olivia’s plan. And it was the reason, he acknowledged silently, that all afternoon and evening he had put off telling Laura the real purpose of his visit—Olivia Jardine and the Princess.

Way to go, Logan. For a man who prided himself on never allowing personal feelings to blindside him in business, he had screwed up royally this time. He just hoped it wasn’t too late to come clean with Laura and still salvage whatever was happening between them. The elevator stopped and he was grateful to be able to escape the intimacy of the confined space.

“Well, I guess this is it,” Laura said as she turned to face him.

“Where are you parked?”

“On the other side of the garage. But you don’t have to—”

“I thought we’d already discussed this,” he said lightly. “Which direction?”

She shot him a sidelong glance. “Funny. I don’t remember any discussion.”

“Sure you do. You agreed I would walk you to your car and save myself from getting booted out of the Southern gentleman’s union.”

“There is no such union,” she said, her lips twitching with laughter again.

“Are you willing to risk it and have my disgrace hanging over your head?”

“Whoever came up with the description of charming to describe Southern men forgot to mention that they were stubborn, too.” She sighed. “Come on. My car’s this way.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Josh said, and fell into step beside her. With his hand at her back, they started through the cavernous garage in the direction she’d indicated.

As they walked past row after row of cars of various makes and models, Josh was conscious of the shadows shifting along the garage’s walls and the echo of Laura’s heels as they clicked on the concrete flooring.

She stopped in front of a sleek blue convertible. “This is me,” she said, and after unlocking the door with the remote on her key ring, she turned to him. “Thank you again for dinner.”

“I’m the one who should be thanking you. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed an evening so much.”

“Me, too,” she murmured.

The lighting was poor, but bright enough for him to see the glint of silver in her blue eyes, the satin smoothness of her skin. Desire kicked him in the gut as he stared at her lush mouth. He wanted to sample that ripe mouth, had been eager to taste it all evening.

“It’s getting late. I really should be going. So, I guess this is goodbye,” she said, and extended her hand.

Josh looked at the hand she held out to him. The smart thing for him to do was to shake hands, make arrangements to see her in the morning so that he could tell her about Olivia and say good-night.

“Josh?”

To hell with being smart, he decided. Going with impulse, he pulled her to him. Against him. Into him. He heard the quick hitch of her breath, saw her eyes turn cloudy. And then he swooped down and took her mouth.

She tasted just the way he’d imagined—hot and sweet, soft and strong. She made some primitive sound low in her throat. Protest or plea, Josh wasn’t sure which. He only knew that the desire for her that he’d managed to keep at simmer all afternoon and evening was now storming to a boiling point. And it showed no signs of slowing down.

Fusing his mouth to hers, he took.

So did she.

Tongues danced, mated. He filled himself with her scent, with her taste, with the explosion of her response. Still it wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He tore his mouth free, speared his fingers into the fiery hair that framed her face. When her lashes fluttered and she stared up at him out of eyes that were the color of smoke, desire delivered another one-two punch to his system. He would have to pay for this lapse in reasoning later. Josh didn’t have any doubt about that. But for now, for now he couldn’t bring himself to care what retribution awaited him—not when the taste, the scent, the feel of Laura in his arms was a fire burning hot in his blood.

Using his teeth, he nipped at the soft skin of her lips, her jaw, her neck. He sloped his hands down her sides, shaped her waist, her hips. And when she arched her body, pressed herself against his arousal, Josh groaned.

“This is insane,” she whispered, her hands racing over his shoulders, down his back, setting off new fires wherever she touched.

“Yes.” It was insane. He knew mixing business and pleasure was asking for trouble. And considering the stakes, to do so now with Laura could prove disastrous. He didn’t dare risk it. But oh how he wanted to. How he wished he could just say to hell with it and take what he wanted, what she was offering now.

“I should go,” she murmured against his lips even as she wound her arms around his neck, drove her fingers through his hair.

“All right.” He choked out the words and started to step back.

Laura yanked him by the hair and pulled his mouth back down to hers.

Hunger whipped through him lightning quick, driving every thought from his mind save one—Laura. He feasted on her mouth, groaned as her teeth scraped his lip. But her mouth wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Breaking off the kiss, he captured her face between his palms. “I want you,” he confessed. “I’ve wanted you from the minute I set eyes on you.”

“I know. I know,” she said, her breathing as ragged as his. “It’s crazy. We hardly know each other.”

“Doesn’t matter.” All that mattered was this. All that mattered was now. Blinded by need, he reached for the zipper at the back of her dress. And he froze at the grumble of a car’s engine.

Sanity came slamming back to him in a rush as the headlights from an approaching car flashed on the wall behind them. Laura stiffened in his arms as the car turned off toward the exit lane and disappeared into the belly of the garage. When it was silent once more, Josh dragged in several breaths. He took a step back. “Laura, I—”

“Don’t,” she said, holding up a hand. She sucked in a few breaths of her own. “Whatever you do, don’t you dare apologize.”

“I have no intention of apologizing—especially since I’m not the least bit sorry.”

“I…um, right. That’s good, then. I guess.”

Unexpectedly moved by the flush of pink to her cheeks and the distress swimming in her eyes, something inside of him shifted, softened. “Laura, it was only a kiss.”

“I know that.” She looked down at the ground as though it held all the answers to the mysteries of the universe. She looked everywhere and at everything except him.

He tipped her chin up so that he could see her eyes. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We’re two healthy adults who are attracted to each other.”

“I know. It’s just that I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”

“At kissing? You could have fooled me,” he teased.

“That’s not what I meant,” she said, more color flooding her cheeks. “I meant that I don’t usually end up crawling all over a man I’ve just met.”

“That’s good to hear, since I don’t usually end up necking in hotel parking lots with assistant general managers, either.”

She laughed as he’d hoped she would, then eased back a step. “I’d better go.”

Josh stooped down, retrieved her keys where they had fallen just behind her foot. He held them out to her. But when she reached for the keys, he held on to them. He stared at her, wished that things could be different, that she wasn’t Olivia Jardine’s granddaughter and that his regaining ownership of the Princess was not tied to her.

“Josh? You’re going to have to give me my keys. I need them to get home,” she said, her voice light, teasing.

“I want to see you again. Will you meet me for breakfast in the morning? There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

The smile slipped from her lips as she reclaimed her keys. “Listen, Josh, there’s no point in me denying that I’m attracted to you after what just happened. And I know Logan Hotels has a reputation of being a great firm to work for. But Nick Baldwin is not only my boss, he’s my friend. I thought he was your friend, too,” she said, her voice as cool as her eyes. “So if you want to see me again just so you can offer me a job, I can save us both some time and embarrassment and tell you right now that I’m not interested.”

“Nick is my friend,” he advised her, hurt that she would think he would stab his pal in the back by trying to steal his employee. “My wanting to see you isn’t about business. It’s personal.”

“I—I’m sorry. It was foolish of me to jump to that conclusion. I had no right to assume—”

He cut off her apology with a quick, hard kiss. “You had every right to jump to conclusions and assume just what you did. Now, is eight o’clock for breakfast too early?”

“No. But I have a meeting then. Could we make it for nine instead?”

“Nine o’clock is fine. I’ll meet you in the hotel’s dining room.”

“All right,” she said.

After opening her car door for her, he waited until Laura had started the engine and strapped on her seat belt. Then he tapped on her window. Frowning, she eased down the car’s window. “Did you forget something?”

“Just this.” Leaning through the window, he gave her a long, slow kiss. “Good night.”

“Good night,” she whispered.

For a long time after the taillights of the convertible had disappeared, Josh stood in the dimly lit garage and thought about the explosive kiss they’d shared. “Dammit, Logan,” he muttered as he stalked off toward the elevator. Laura Harte was forbidden fruit—Olivia Jardine’s granddaughter and the key to his regaining the Princess. He had no business lusting after her because lust had a way of messing up a man’s mind. So what if she kissed like a dream and just thinking about her had him rock-hard and aching? He’d get over it. No way did he intend to let a few hormones stand in the way of his plans. Laura Harte was a means to an end. Nothing more.

But later, much, much later, while he tossed and turned, unable to sleep, he kept remembering ghost-blue eyes dark with desire, the feel of satin-soft lips, the scent of flowers and sunshine.

Six

“Thanks to the tourist traffic generated by the wine crush in the Valley, our occupancy rate for October is running at ninety-five percent. That puts us up nearly ten percent over last year at this same time period.”

Laura focused her attention on Tina Sawyer, the sharp brunette that she’d hired eight months ago as the hotel’s director of marketing. The other woman had been doing a fabulous job, which was evident from her report to the department heads at the hotel’s weekly meeting.

“Our holiday campaign blitz is already under way and the print ads are scheduled to start running on the first of November,” Tina continued.

Try as she might, Laura found herself only half listening to Tina’s report, her thoughts once again drifting to Josh. Despite a restless night in which she’d warned herself repeatedly not to read anything into that wild kiss that the two of them had shared, Laura hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind.

“I want to see you again. It’s personal.”

A burst of longing arrowed through her as she recalled the husky tone of his voice, the hot gleam in his eyes. He’d looked at her as though he’d wanted to swallow her whole. Biting down on her lower lip, Laura acknowledged if only to herself that for one crazy moment last night she had wanted him. And what did that say about her? While she would like to believe it was the loneliness she’d felt these past months that had caused her to react so out of the norm, deep down inside she wasn’t at all sure. She could imagine what her mother would have to say on the subject—no doubt something romantic about fate or destiny, Laura thought absently. A sharp pang hit her as reality came crashing back. She’d never know what her mother would have thought of Josh because her mother was dead. The jarring reminder sobered her. As Nick came to his feet, she realized she’d been in la-la land over Josh for most of the meeting. Silently, Laura promised herself to make up for the lapse in attention once Josh was gone.

“I think that about covers it for this morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you,” Nick said from his position at the head of the conference room table. “Have a super day, and as always, if you have any problems, you know where my office is.”

Amid the scrape of chairs and buzz of conversation, Laura stood and turned toward Tina, who was busy filing her notes away in a folder. “That was a good report, Tina. Very concise and informative. You’re doing a great job.”

“Thanks,” the other woman said, a mile-wide smile on her face. “I just hope Mr. Baldwin is pleased.”

“Mr. Baldwin is very pleased,” Nick said as he joined them.

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