Natalie Patrick - The Millionaire's Proposition

“But?” She folded her arms over her chest, her eyes sparking with challenge.

That spark set off its own little fire in Clark. No one challenged him—not the big man, the boss, the one who signed the paychecks. He gritted his teeth to keep from grinning in sheer delight at rising to the forgotten feeling. “But I thought I’d find you living somewhere more suited to your personality.”

“Like where?” The tendrils of her hair quivered with the quick, controlled jerk upward of her head. “The armory?”

Clark laughed. It felt good to laugh and really mean it. “Actually, I had more in mind the country, but I assume if you are going to insist on city life, you could do the least damage at an armory. That or one of those steel-and-marble skyscrapers with...no, no, far too many opportunities for elevator mishaps there.”

“I can afford this place—at least for a while longer still. It’s clean, convenient and safe. That’s why I’m here.” She tacked on a look that reminded him he had yet to explain his own presence in her building.

Clark sighed. He had no business being here, he told himself as he skimmed his thumb over the velvety box in his pocket. Damaged charm or not, he had other, far more serious responsibilities demanding his attention right now.

His mind went over the reports his legal team had handed him in the meeting he’d abandoned in favor of this errand. The operation he’d been determined to buy out, a struggling, privately owned company that would flounder within a year on its own—or flourish as a part of Clark’s empire—would not sell. That incomplete transaction gnawed at his insides, but then, so had this dangling bit of unfinished business concerning a certain young lady and a bent baby bootie.

That’s why he had come here today, he knew. Once he’d tidied up this nagging loose thread that was Miss Becky Taylor, his mind would settle back on his work and turn to the more pressing issues facing him. All he had to do was hand the young woman her repaired charm, wish her well in her life and then get back on track with his own life.

Clark lifted his head. His gaze honing in on Becky Taylor as a whole package now, he looked with a more critical eye to guard against any of those impulsive, wayward reactions his body might have to her. Even in the grim lighting of the vacant hallway, she looked decidedly pulled together, youthful, healthy, radiant. Her hair, caught up in some kind of casually stylish contraption that matched her blue-and-white suit, gleamed in the yellowed light from overhead. And she was not wearing those bedraggled eyeglasses that made her look as if she needed someone to take her by the hand and help guide her through the perils of life. Still, Clark found himself wishing he could take her hand just the same.

He scowled for no one’s benefit but his own. He had to get this over with so he could get his mind back onto the pending buyout with all its pitfalls and problems. He coughed and then put on his most congenial, yet formal tone. “Actually, Ms. Taylor, I am, in fact, here to see you.”

“I thought so. Why else would a man like you be in a place like this? It’s an okay place, of course, but it doesn’t exactly have Clark Winstead written all over it.” She blinked at him. Her hand flattened just above her full breasts, and her cheeks flooded with a pale blush.

Any thoughts Clark had of mishandled meetings and arrested acquisitions faded on the spot.

“I mean, that is, Mr. Winstead.”

She cocked her head.

“Yes?” He tipped his head to mimic the angle of hers. “What is it, Ms. Taylor?”

“What is what?” she whispered as if hypnotized.

“What is it you want?” He lowered his voice to match hers.

“Want? Want? I don’t want anything. You’re the one who came here to my apartment to see me, not the other way around.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. Twice she made a quick, gasping sound, one of exasperation that he would even ask such a thing, he believed.

“But you said my name,” he reminded her.

“I did? Oh, yes, I said...” She winced, overplaying it with great zeal and apparent self-deprecating humor. “I was correcting myself—for calling you by your first name. I really shouldn’t have, not without your asking me to for real, that is, not just in my...” She bit her lip, smiled and then waved one hand in the air. “Anyway, it was rude and I’m sorry.”

“Think nothing of it.” Clark could not think of any woman, either known to him in business or in his private life, who would have reacted so openly, so honestly, so overtly. In fact, she could not have been less subtle in her flustered chagrin, Clark decided, feeling his smile grow from practiced gesture to genuine enjoyment, if she were choking on a chicken bone. And that endeared her all the more to him. He extended his right hand. “Please, do call me Clark.”

“Clark,” she repeated. Her gaze sank into his, shining with blatant admiration, he assumed, and hoped he wasn’t too big-headed for making that assumption. Her small hand became a perfect fit inside his larger one. Her fingers curled around his and she lowered her chin just enough that her lashes created an enticing veil over her pupils as she murmured, “And you can call me—”

“Rebecca,” he concluded, wanting to let her know he had not forgotten how she had first introduced herself. Clark was a detail man and he had no compunction in letting everyone involved with him know that up front. Not that Miss Rebecca Taylor was in any way now—nor was she ever likely to be—involved with him. He released her hand. “Or is it Becky?”

“Becky is fine, thank you.” She tucked her hands behind her back, then folded them in front, then let them fall to her sides. “I’m sorry again about calling you by your first name like that. It was so presumptuous of me, but after our little run-in, I just sort of thought of you as...well, I just sort of thought of you as a Clark and not a—” she made a dour face “—Mr. Winstead.”

“Well, I am pleased to see I did leave a...lasting impression on you.” He let his gaze linger in hers until she looked away. “And happy to report the impression my heel left on your silver charm was not quite so everlasting.”

He dipped into his pocket and pulled out the box, offering it to her the way one might tempt a high-strung pony with a sugar cube—the box resting in the center of his outstretched hand.

“Why, thank you. You really didn’t have to do this, you know. Just sending it back to me would have been enough.”

Enough for her, perhaps, but Clark needed to see this thing safely and satisfactorily through to the end. Or so he told himself. That’s why he had gone to such great lengths to return the trinket.

“Or I could have come down to your office and picked it up myself.”

“No. I don’t mind doing it, really.” Besides, the idea of this woman loose in his office with her lethal umbrella, her pointedly honest opinions and...those great big angel eyes... Clark blinked at the turn of his thoughts, then shook his head, half-expecting to hear his suddenly short-circuited brain rattling. Even after doing it, he realized he could think of worse things than having Becky in his office, much worse—like perhaps never seeing her again.

She took the box, and just as her fingers brushed his palm, he closed his hand.

She raised her questioning gaze to his but said nothing.

He pressed the pads of his fingertips to her skin, the box still between them. Once he let go, he would have no reason to see her again—unless he made a reason. The picture of Becky dressed, as he could provide for her, in extravagant jewels and designer clothes, or perhaps in just the jewels without the clothes—sprang to mind.