A Weekend Temptation (3 page)

“Great.” She let go of her glass and decided she was being hard on Grant. Before she’d quit Stanfield, she’d never had time to date. For all she knew, Grant was being typical. This was their first date. Of course, he was trying to wow her.

She should be impressed. Grant wasn’t a man with secrets. He spewed private information like a water fountain. And he’d certainly dressed to make an impact in his sleek charcoal jacket.

“So, Grant, what are your personal goals?” She almost cringed at the cold interview question. She sounded like Joel, driven and uncaring.

“God, I don’t have time for personal goals. If you weren’t so smokin’ hot, I wouldn’t have made time for this date.”

“So it’s safe to say you don’t want to get married and have children?” She knew this was the wrong question for a first date, but she decided to dive right in. She was twenty-seven. She didn’t have the luxury of time. Besides, if Grant was Mr. Right, the question wouldn’t send him scampering.

“Why do women always want the same thing?” He pointed the tines of his fork at her. “Can’t we get through the main course before you start ragging me for offspring?”

“Of course we can.” She wanted to say, “Eat fast. Really fast.” But she was too polite.

He took another bite of his meat and slid the food to the side of his mouth. “Do you think about your financial future? Do you have an investment plan? I can make you a bundle.”

“I can’t afford you. I’m on a fixed income.” She didn’t tell him that not having a social life had allowed her to save quite a nest egg. She could afford to take off three years. That should be enough time to find Mr. Right, shouldn’t it?

“Where did you say you worked?”

She frowned and rubbed her forehead. “I quit my job a couple weeks ago. I used to work for Stanfield Corporation.”

He dropped his fork. “Really? I read in last month’s
Wall Street Journal
that Stanfield Corporation is the biggest acquisition company in the world now.”

She nodded and watched as Grant lathered butter on his roll, as if frosting a cake.

“Joel Stanfield is a legend in the business world. He’s
Fortune Magazine’s
top billionaire to watch this year. Can you ask him to meet with me?”

“Ask him yourself.” Joel’s deep voice boomed from behind her.

She whipped her head around. He towered above her in a midnight black suit, black shirt, and striped tie. Power exuded from his very skin the way cologne did from some men.

Grant couldn’t stand fast enough. He thrust his hand out, ready to do his businessman handshake. With the two men standing side by side, it was hard not to do a visual comparison. Grant wasn’t as tall or as broad, and he didn’t have a tenth of Joel’s sexual charge.

“The only way I will meet with you, is if you leave this table, and
my
Ava,” Joel said.

Her heart didn’t have a brain and fluttered at his, “my Ava.” Her name sounded too good on his lips.

Grant shrugged, pulled out his business card, and passed it to Joel. Joel didn’t look at it, just slid it into his pants pocket.

“Call me Monday, whatever I have on my calendar can be rescheduled for you, Mr. Stanfield,” Grant said.

Joel nodded but didn’t move his dark, melting eyes from her. Honestly, he was the only man she knew who could make her feel heated with just the power of his gaze. Joel might not do other emotions, but he did seduction like a master.

She shifted her attention, watching in shock as her date left her behind. All the while, she tried to ignore the way her body responded to Joel.

Maybe she could ignore the attraction by focusing on what she hoped would be the stronger emotion—anger.

“That royal jerk.” Ava clanked her fork on her plate. “I should have been more important than a stupid meeting with you. Look at me. I’m pretty right? Look at my come-get-me dress.” She lifted her hands and traced the air around her curves. Her ivory, silk wrap-dress clung to her body like a second skin. It had cost her an arm and two legs, but it made her feel like Marilyn Monroe.

“The dress works for me.” Joel gave her a wolf’s smile and slid into the chair Grant had vacated. He signaled the waitress to remove Grant’s plate. The waitress stood holding the dish while Joel ordered Ava another glass of red wine and himself a mineral water with a lime slice.

“If tonight is any indication of what I’m going to have to go through to find a husband, I—”

“To find a what?” Joel leaned forward.

“Why are you here, Joel?”
And why do you have to be so damn attractive?

“Isn’t it obvious? To get you back.”

“I don’t want to be back,” she lied.

He nodded to the waitress who delivered their drinks. When the woman was out of earshot, he asked, “Why the hell not?”

“With the long hours you make me work, I’ll never find a man.”
More like I’ll never want to find a man while I’m lusting over you.

“You don’t want to find a man.”

“You know when I took that Friday off?” She paused, and he nodded. “I went to my brother’s house in California.”

“So?” He took a sip.

“I want what he has.” She picked up her spoon.

“What? A beach house? That’s easy. I’ll buy you one in the Hamptons. See ya Monday.” He started to stand.

What did he just say? He’d buy her a beach house?
Focus, Ava.
“Wait, this isn’t over,” she snapped.

He sat back down with a shrug and grabbed his drink.

“No, it’s not about his Malibu house…” She took a deep breath. “Robbie just had a new baby. He has a wife, Megan, who loves him, and a precious little girl.” She sighed.

Joel set his drink down and lifted a brow. “You want to be married?”

“Yes.” Was it really so hard to believe?

He shook his head. “You do not.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” She bit her lower lip, and with her spoon, made circles in her cheddar potatoes. “I want children. I always have. And I want a husband to help me raise them.” Her father’s death had left her mother alone to care for her, her sister, and her brother. She saw first hand the stresses that went along with being a single parent and wanted to avoid them.

“I agree with you, a child should have two parents but…” He tapped his glass with one finger. “You want a husband?”

She nodded and glared. He didn’t deserve an answer.

“So you’re not coming back to work?”

“Have you been listening? Did you, or did you not see me dining with the handsome suck-up?”

He laughed. “I did.” His smile sent her pulse sky-rocketing, like it always did.

“When Grant asked me out, he seemed like a good catch. I wish I could have seen what a jerk he was before I invested all afternoon with him. I don’t want to have hundreds of dates with losers. I’d rather get a root canal. I want to skip ahead and date Mr. Perfect, now.”

“You’re going to quit and devote all of your time for husband hunting? Most women work and date at the same time. Most dates are at night.”

“Most women don’t work for a man who dominates their every waking hour, filling their evening and weekend hours with work.”

“But you love the job. You’ve never complained before.”

“I’ve always had a plan. Devote a certain amount of time to my career then, when the time’s right, focus on my family life.”

“What if I cut you back to forty-hours a week?”

“Even if I believed you’d actually do that, it’s still not good enough.”

“Why?” He tilted his dark head. “Why don’t you want to work for me? Do you think about me, about that night when I kissed you?”

Could he read her thoughts? Her mouth opened then closed.

“You and I want the same things. Both of us want to be married and are having a problem finding the right mate.” His expression turned serious. All hint of warm seduction left his face.

“You are not asking me to marry you, are you?”

Chapter Three

Ava blinked. Joel wanted to be her husband? It didn’t seem possible.

“No. Of course I’m not proposing. We don’t belong together,” he said.

His flat tone should not have made her heart squeeze. It was the truth, but hearing it from his lips was pure pain. “What exactly do you want?” She tried not to snarl.

“I want what I’ve wanted since the day my lips claimed yours. I want to know what it’s like to take you to my bed.” His voice was low and deep.

“You d-did not just ask me to…” Her cheeks burned. What he asked made more sense than a marriage proposal, because she wasn’t in the same league or even the ballpark with the likes of Claudia LeMure, and that female prize had struck out with Joel. If Claudia couldn’t win a wedding ring, what hope would a regular girl like Ava have?

“I want to take you to my private island and make love to you until your muscles liquefy.”

She swallowed and took a second to remember how to speak. “The last time you kissed me, you broke your cardinal rule of no drinking and cleaned out your office bar. Did you do that again?”

He shook his head. “No. But I can’t get you out of my mind, because we never reached completion.”

She grabbed her drink and drained half of it, glad for the potency of the wine. Praying the depressant would relax her shaking body, she replied, “No.”

“It makes sense why it’s so hard for us to find the right spouses. We have unfinished business between us.”

“What makes sense is that you need a doctor-prescribed vacation. A vacation alone. Or with Claudia in your bed, not me.” She finished the rest of her wine and smiled as the waitress refilled her glass. The dear woman must know what it was like to be offered a dream for exactly the wrong reasons.

“I don’t want Claudia. She’s no longer my fiancée. I want you.”

She should tell him “No way in hell,” but his arrogance would never accept it, and she wasn’t much of a liar anyway. “I should be finding a husband not wasting time in your bed—”

“If you spent even a minute in my bed, I promise, it wouldn’t be a waste of your time. You’d be more satisfied than you’ve ever been.”

His eyes held as much dark sexual promise as his deep penetrating voice and made the butterflies implode in her stomach. “No. It’s not a good idea.” Her voice became breathy.

“Why not? Tell me you haven’t wondered what we’d be like together. When you’re dating, are you sizing up the men, comparing them to me? Wondering if they will be able to please you the way I can? Don’t you wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped the kiss that night? If I would have, instead, carried you to my desk, slid your silky teal skirt up your long legs and—”

“Stop!” she shrieked.

Wait! He remembered the exact color of skirt she’d been wearing that night? But that was seven months ago. She’d thought the kiss had been an accident, one he’d never thought of again. But she’d been wrong. She
had
affected him.

“This time we finish. Come with me. Let me make love to you. Because you need closure as much as I do.”

He rubbed his sensual lips, making her shiver. What would his whiskers feel like as they rasped against her sensitive skin?

Was he doing it on purpose? Making her want him?

Closure. He just wanted a brief affair, so he could go on with his life and then marry his perfect Claudia-like woman with Ava forever out of his mind. She should tell him to get in his red Ferrari and drive straight through the gates of hell.

But she’d been on six dates this week, thanks to her sister Bethany, the Matchmaker of Manhattan. Apart from Grant, each man had been handsome, successful, honest, and looking for a permanent relationship. None of them had been wrong for her, yet she’d allowed none of those men to claim her lips the way she’d allowed Joel. Even though he was so wrong for her, a man with secrets, like her father.

What if she did go away with Joel and let him make love to her? Would she then be free of his sexual spell? It wasn’t like she had a ton of experience.

Yet if she allowed Joel to take her to his bed, afterward she’d be free to explore a meaningful relationship with a man who was right for her.

“You expect me to believe you can’t marry Claudia until you’ve had me? What’s so special about me? I’ve been working for you for a year, and you haven’t been interested, apart from one drunken kiss.” She swung her index finger in his direction.

His black eyes drank her in like she was the finest after-dinner liqueur, one he wanted to savor. Her nerve endings stood at attention. Did he look at Claudia that way? Because she’d just bet the woman flew at him, tearing her clothes off, begging him to take her.

“Oh, I’ve been interested all right. But you were my employee, and I don’t seduce my employees.”

Since she’d told him she wasn’t going back to work for him, that made her just a woman he wanted. She shivered again.

“I’m not going away with you.” She reached down to grab her purse and clunked her forehead on the edge of the table.
Son-of…
Just what she needed—a purple bruise. That should attract a lot of dating prospects.

He held up a hand. “Listen. Then I’ll let you leave.”

“Let me leave? You don’t own me. You’re not even my boss now.”

“Let me finish. If you don’t, I’ll have my PI find you at each and every date, and I’ll come ruin them for you.”

She gasped in horror. “You’re saying if I don’t go on this sexual trip of yours, you’re going to ruin all my future dates?”

“Haven’t I already? You compare me to every man you meet,” he said.

The gorgeous bastard had a point. “Do you even hear yourself? You are the most arrogant man on the planet.”

“Tell me I don’t speak the truth.” He lifted his brows in challenge.

“You don’t speak the truth.” But she couldn’t meet his dark chocolate eyes.

“Let me finish my argument.”

She sighed and held her purse, signaling this was the end of their discussion, no matter what insanity plagued him. “Fine, but make it quick. I’m late for a Tylenol. Mr. Superbroker gave me a throbbing headache.”