The Rebel Tycoon's Outrageous Proposal

She nodded, the fight momentarily sucked out of her. She was still trying to figure out if she should feel shamed or enraged. And people said she was insensitive.

Before she could tell Jared what she thought of his people skills, the phone in her hand rang again, startling her. She read the display: Summer.

“It’s my sister.” She pinned a smile to her lips so she would sound cheery when she said, “Hi, there.”

“What’s with the fake happy voice?” Summer demanded.

So much for that idea. “Nothing,” she said.

“Holly, tell me.”

“Just a silly mistake. The FBI think I stole some money and I have to…deal with stuff.”

“That’s terrible!” Summer sounded even more shocked than Holly had been. “I’m coming back,” she said instantly.

“No.” Holly managed to inject her usual authority into the word. “I want you to stay where you are. You need that job.”

“But I want to help,” her sister protested.

“I know, and it’s sweet of you. But there’s nothing you can do. I just have to work through this. It’ll be fine.”

By the time she managed to convince Summer to stay in Portland, Jared was looking at his watch. Too bad. She wasn’t about to apologize for talking to her sister.

“I have to get to work. Let’s meet tonight and discuss progress,” he said.

Holly seized the chance to wrest back some control. “I’ll need more time to get up to speed.”

“Tomorrow morning, then.”

“Sunday night,” she said firmly. “I’ll spend the weekend thinking about your options.”

“Are you charging me your exorbitant hourly rate for the time you spend thinking?”

“It’s the most valuable time you’ll get out of me,” she said with no false modesty. “If you don’t want to pay for it, I won’t think about your deals and we’ll go ahead with whatever any other accountant would recommend.” She held the door of her apartment open. “In which case, yes, we can meet tonight and this job should be all over in a week.”

Jared didn’t budge for maybe half a minute. “Sunday, then.” He handed her the key card. “This will get you in and out. I’ll have Janine, my PA, collect your stuff from your friend’s house and drop it here.”

“I thought you said I could go out.”

“If people see you arriving with your baggage, they might guess what’s going on.”

She scowled. “If you had this all worked out, why did you take my clothes to AnnaMae’s in the first place? You could have brought them straight here.”

“I couldn’t bear to see you in that navy suit again.” He grinned, dispelling the tension of a minute earlier. “And I wanted to see your face when your underwear showed up at the window.”

“Great,” Holly said wearily. “A client with the mental age of a twelve-year-old.”

And, damn him, he threw back his head and laughed.

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK that night, Jared tapped on her door with what he considered admirable restraint. She’d had ten hours. Surely she had something to show for them, no matter what she’d said this morning. He was curious to see how she’d got on—and warmed by the thought of exchanging more of the banter that both frustrated and elated him. He was certain Holly enjoyed it as much as he did.

He knocked again, tapping his foot as he waited, but again he got no response. He frowned. She wouldn’t have gone out. She had all she needed for her work, and Janine had stocked the refrigerator. Maybe Holly was in the bathroom. He waited another minute before he struck the door with the heel of his hand.

When she still didn’t appear, an unexpected wave of terror flooded him.

She wouldn’t.

“This will be the end of me,” she’d said about the call from the CPA association. She didn’t mean it like that. Holly was strong. A survivor. But hadn’t Jared thought the same about his brother?

The roar in Jared’s head reached a crescendo and he pounded on the door. “Holly? Let me in or I’ll break this door down,” he yelled, loud enough for his words—and his fear—to penetrate the thick wood and the soundproofed walls.

Just as he was about to make good on his threat, he heard the scrape of the chain. Another second and the door opened. Holly stood there, alive and well, blinking.

“Where the hell were you?” He pushed past her into the room, where a quick glance told him nothing sinister had happened. His fear dissipated in an instant, to be replaced by a surge of adrenaline, or relief, or just plain anger. He grabbed her by the shoulders, trembling with the effort not to shake her.

Holly had no idea why Jared was so mad. But the tremor in his powerful fingers told her he was struggling not to take it out on her in some physical way.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned.

“Don’t you dare,” he said, injecting the words with cold fury, “scare me like that again.” Then he hauled her close and lowered his mouth to hers.

If this was a kiss, a small part of Holly’s brain registered, it wasn’t like any she’d had before. The rest of her brain struggled to deal with the instant response of every nerve ending to Jared’s touch. But when she realized she’d already parted her lips to the invasion of his tongue, that now her hands had wound around his neck and into his thick, dark hair, Holly dismissed her brain and instead surrendered to the incredible experience that was Jared’s kiss.

He devoured her with a hunger that should have horrified her. Instead she explored his mouth with a greed that equaled his, moved eagerly under his insistent hands, which pulled her against his hard length.

Then, as if sanity returned to both of them in the same instant, they sprang apart, Holly stumbling. Unable to meet Jared’s eyes, she busied her hands tucking in her shirt, which had made its way out of her jeans, embarrassed to find she was breathing heavily. The only consolation was that Jared looked equally discomfited, tugging at the collar of his shirt, running a hand through the hair she’d mussed.

Now Holly noticed the pallor of his face, which emphasized the darkness of his eyes. But she could see he was more than furious; he looked positively spooked. So instead of castigating him for kissing her—and in all fairness, how could she when her response had suggested she was desperate for his touch?—she said in the mildest of tones, “What do you mean, scare you?”

Jared shut his eyes. When he opened them, the anger was gone, his voice was calm. But she sensed the huge effort that it cost him. “When you didn’t answer the door I thought maybe you’d overreacted to this FBI thing and…done something stupid.”

It wasn’t like Jared to employ a euphemism when plain language was available. “You thought I’d killed myself.”

He flinched. “You were upset this morning.”

“You’re right, killing myself would be stupid.” Her acerbic tone seemed to reassure him, and he let out a breath. “I’m innocent and the investigation will prove it. So throwing myself out a penthouse window would achieve very little.”

“Only a sore head,” he agreed, sounding almost his normal self. “They don’t open and the glass is extra tough.”

She grinned at the release of tension. Jared smiled back. His relief added warmth to the smile, setting off a fluttering somewhere around Holly’s midriff.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded before his charm overcame her resistance. “I told you I didn’t want to see you before Sunday night.”

“I’m ordering Chinese takeout. Do you want some?”

“No, thanks. I’ll cook something here.” There was an awkward pause. Holly figured Jared really wanted to know how her work was going, but she’d told him she wouldn’t be ready to report back until Sunday, and she meant it.

“Why didn’t you answer the door earlier?” he asked suddenly.

“I was concentrating. It can take a while to get through to me when I’m engrossed in my work.”

Jared nodded.

“Why would you think I would kill myself? It seems…somewhat extreme.”

In an instant, his expression shuttered. “I’ll leave you to it.” He made the distance in his tone a physical reality by heading for the door he’d so recently threatened to break down. As if the sight of it had triggered his memory, he turned on his way out. “By the way,” he said carelessly, “that kiss—it won’t happen again.”

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