AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ears?”
“People! With ears!” I stop and take a deep, calming breath. I’m getting a little frantic, but the idea of Sloane finding out that we let the story out an hour after arriving at the conference is not a pleasant one.
“I’m going to get to the point,” I say.
Rhett cocks an eyebrow. “You have one?”
I inhale deeply. “I need help.”
Rhett lets out a loud bark of laughter, his face lighting up with glee. “Are you seriously asking me for help?” he says.
“I—”
He talks over me. “First you insult me in the room, then you come down here and yell at me in front of my new friends. And then, then, you ask me to do you a favor? Jesus, Liz, doesn’t your whole job center around being good at talking to people?”
I bristle instantly, but Rhett just grins. It’s beaming, taunting, and somehow makes him look a hundred times more attractive, like a devious demon carved out of marble. This, of course, only makes me more annoyed.
“I am plenty good at my job,” I spit. “It’s your fault I’m like this. You drive me fucking crazy.”
He smirks and glances at the women down the bar. I don’t follow his gaze but I can hear them titter. “I seem to bring that out in women.”
“Maybe in that custom-made suit,” I say. “Try it next week when you’re wearing a garbage bag.”
“I’ve found I don’t need to wear anything at all.”
I smack his chest. “Stop! Look, just hear me out. I’m not going to try to force you to go tonight.”
Rhett sips his drink and says, “Couldn’t have anyway.”
I power on like he hadn’t spoken. “But I will acknowledge that you — for some reason — make some women act like, well, that,” I say, gesturing down the bar. “And for once I’d like to use your powers for good.”
Rhett scowls. “You mean for the bank.”
“I mean to help me,” I say.
He considers this for a moment, turning the thought over in his head with visible pleasure, like he’s tasting the fine notes of my desperation. “So,” he says, “you’re finally admitting that you need me. I knew it would come but I’m surprised by how quickly. What happened, pray tell, to ‘make my job easier and stay out of my way’?”
“I was wrong,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I’ll say.” He makes a show of swirling his drink, of considering my plea. “I might help you,” he finally says. “But first you have to say please.”
I roll my eyes. “Please,” I huff.
“Nooo,” he says, the word dripping off his tongue. His lip curls in a rakish smile revealing again those startlingly white teeth. “You need to mean it.”
The look I give him has turned lesser men to stone; Rhett merely grins wider.
“Ple—”
“No, no, no,” he cuts me off. “Get on your knees.”
In an instant the tension ratchets up to twenty. Suddenly we’re locked in a stand-off. Rhett’s smile has slipped off his face, and a challenge dances in those startlingly deep blue eyes. I try to keep my own face level, but the blatant sensuality of his words goes straight to my core and it’s all I can do to not picture us this morning, those arms wrapped around me, his breath in my ear…
No. Focus. Miranda Lee. Seating arrangements. My job which matters more to me than anything, everything. This isn’t the first time my career has tested my pride, but I know instantly that it’s going down in history as the most memorable.
I deliberately take a knee and then drop the other one, never breaking eye contact. “Please Rhett. Oh pretty pretty please help me do the job your mother sent us here to do,” I say in a monotone.
Rhett looks mighty self-satisfied, but there’s another expression there too, something darker, more primal, just behind those blue orbs. But then the shadow slips away before I’m sure I even saw it.
