Page 9 of A Christmas Negotiation

What the hell?For an instant, Jeremy shrank back from the door, his mind whirring with thoughts, even when there was no time to think. Before he knew what was happening, Isabel, along with another woman and a very tall man, were being led into the room by Jeremy’s admin. “Mr. Sharp, this is Mindy Eden, COO of Eden’s Department Store.”

Mindy, willowy and poised with flame-red hair, offered her hand. “Mr. Sharp.”

“Special adviser to Eden’s, Sam Blackwell,” his admin continued.

Sam, towering and dressed in black, shook Jeremy’s hand. “Hello.”

“And lastly, Isabel Blackwell, special counsel for Eden’s.”

Isabel stepped forward, but her beguiling scent arrived a split second before her. It filled his nose, and that sent memories storming into his mind—their white-hot tryst in her hotel room was not anything he would forget anytime soon. Unfortunately, he couldn’t afford to think about what her luscious naked body looked like under her trim gray suit. He was too busy trying to tamp down his inner confusion. Had she known who he was when she seduced him? Had she seen him in the bar with Mr. Summers a mere fifteen minutes before the fire alarm sounded?

“It’s nice to meet you.” Isabel offered her hand. He’d noticed that night that her skin was unusually warm, but right now he felt as though he’d been burned.

Jeremy cleared his throat. “Nice to meetyou, as well.” He gestured to the other side of the long mahogany table, more rattled than when he’d worked his very first case. He couldn’t help but feel as though they were being ambushed. He’d been led to believe that Eden’s in-house counsel would be handling this. Unless Isabel was a new addition to their team, she was a ringer. “Please have a seat.”

Isabel sat directly opposite Jeremy. The look on her face was difficult to decipher, but he reminded himself that he hardly knew her. What were her motives? What sort of person was she? Most important, what was her endgame? For a man with countless trust issues when it came to women, this was not only bringing all that to the surface in an uncomfortable way, it felt as though Isabel had opened an entirely new area of mistrust to explore. He deeply disliked the revelation.

Jeremy drew in a calming breath.Focus.He looked Isabel square in the eye. She met his gaze with steely composure. On the surface, she was quite simply stunning. Easily the sexiest woman he’d ever met. But he sensed now that beneath that flawless exterior was a woman who was at the very least, trouble. He didn’t want to regret the other night, but perhaps he should. Would he feel as though he was at less of a disadvantage right now if it hadn’t happened? “Ms. Blackwell, your client’s grandmother borrowed 250 million dollars from Mr. Summers’s father in 1982. She offered the Manhattan location of Eden’s Department Store, the building, inventory and the land it sits on as collateral. By our calculations, with standard interest adjusted for inflation and compounded monthly, that unpaid loan now sits at a balance of just over 842 million.”

“You have got to be kidding,” Mindy Eden scoffed. “Why not just round it up to an even billion?”

Isabel placed her hand on Mindy’s forearm, then smiled at Jeremy, the picture of cool composure. “And what exactly would Mr. Summers like for us to do about that?”

Jeremy had no choice but to continue. “As it’s been nearly forty years, Mr. Summers expects the loan to be repaid in cash within thirty days or we’ll begin proceedings to claim the property.”

Isabel nodded, then licked her lips, making Jeremy clutch the arm of his chair. “Any talk of property seizure is premature, Mr. Sharp. Frankly, my client had never even heard of Mr. Summers prior to the letter your team sent to the Eden’s offices, so I don’t know how the Eden family should be expected to simply hand over the keys to a multibillion-dollar business and property without exploring this matter as thoroughly as possible.”

Jeremy knew he should be feeling as though he’d been put on notice, but he only felt incredibly turned on. Blood was coursing through his body so fast it was making his head swim. Oh, Isabel was good.

“My first priority is to determine the authenticity of the promissory note,” Isabel continued, her cheeks flushed with brilliant pink. “We can’t be expected to proceed without an expert analysis of the document. I’m not convinced it’s authentic or that it has Victoria Eden’s true signature on it.”

This was not good news. And yet Jeremy noticed a significant tightening in his pants.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Mr. Summers bellowed.

Jeremy turned to his client. “Please, Ben,” he muttered. “I’ve got this.”

“It’s a handwritten note, Mr. Summers.” Isabel’s voice was direct and cutting, while her chest was heaving in a way that brought back entirely too many memories of the night at the Bacharach—having Isabel at his mercy, in her bed. “Anyone could have produced it. You could have fabricated it last week for all we know.”

“It’s real. I have no reason to lie,” Benjamin said.

Isabel’s eyebrows shot up. “From where I’m sitting, you have 842 million reasons to lie. Do you have financial problems I should know about, Mr. Summers? Is that what I’m going to find when I start looking into your businesses?”

“Ms. Blackwell,” Jeremy said as a warning, stopping himself from uttering what he really wanted to say—Ms. Blackwell, you and I need to hash this out on our own. Alone. On this conference table.But he had to get his act together. “Ms. Blackwell, I’ll thank you not to speak to my client directly, especially when you’re accusing him of things that have no basis in fact. Mr. Summers is not on trial here.”

“If he’s going to get ugly about the matter in front of my client, I’m afraid I have no other choice. This is not as cut-and-dried as you’re trying to paint it.”

Jeremy sensed this meeting was starting to go off the rails and he had to get it back on track. More than anything, he really needed to ask Isabel a few questions that were not appropriate in front of their respective clients. “Ms. Blackwell, would you mind asking your clients to wait out in the lobby? I’ll ask Mr. Summers to adjourn to my office so that you and I can discuss the terms of determining the authenticity of the note.”

Isabel lifted her chin and narrowed her sights on Jeremy, seeming suspicious. “I’ll give you five minutes.”

I’d rather have ten.“Certainly.”

Isabel turned to Mindy and Sam, and they conferred with heads bowed. Jeremy took his chance to chat with Mr. Summers.

“I don’t like being taken out of the negotiations,” Mr. Summers said in response.

“I assure you, this will be nothing more than boring legalese. Plus, it’ll give me a chance to find out more of what exactly their strategy is. This isn’t the usual Eden’s team.”