Avril Tremayne - Kiss Don’t Tell

***

Adam looked at his phone and smiled.

Lane wasn’t sounding as controlled as she’d been last night.

Which meant yes! he was on the right track.

He’d figured a methodical, control-freak economist—a predictor of trends—would hate not knowing what was going to happen next. It stood to reason that wondering when or where he was going to pop up and what he was going to do with her when he did would crack that cold casing of hers. And with one short phone call, he’d proved it.

She’d be stewing now, all because he’d called her at the office when the contract clearly stated he should not. Because he’d gone one step further and arranged to visit her at her office when that was forbidden, too. She’d be regrouping. Strategizing. But no matter what she did, he was p-r-e-t-t-y certain she’d be nicely on edge tomorrow night.

So on edge, maybe she’d even end up calling the whole thing off. Sarah would be happy, his mother would be happy, Erica-the-unknown-quantity would no doubt be happy since she hadn’t sanctioned the plan in the first place.

But Adam, perversely, decided he would not be happy, and that therefore there would be no calling things off.

Not yet.

Not until he’d managed to get Lane Davis hot and bothered.

Making her lose her cool was the least he could do to pay her back for rocking his equilibrium so badly. He’d never considered himself a vain guy, but he sure as hell wasn’t used to women being totally unimpressed when they looked at him. So what was it that Lane wasn’t seeing in him that other women saw? That’s what he wanted to know. And was she not seeing it because he didn’t have it as far as she was concerned, or because she didn’t yet know he had it?

He supposed she might have expected someone who looked more like his sister, in which case—whoa!—he must have been a shock to her system! Sarah was a tiny, pretty, sparkly fairy, whereas Adam was … well, not exactly elegant. He was big, and dark, and brawny. Square-jawed, bold-nosed, hard-mouthed. Maybe a little long on frown and short on hair. A bit … intimidating. Maybe. But not hideous . Women liked looking at him. Women wanted him.

But not Lane. At least, not intrinsically. ‘You look like you’d be good at it.’ That’s what she’d said. But he hadn’t seen any evidence she thought she might actually enjoy what he was about to teach her. She’d sat across from him and talked about sex in the most unemotional, businesslike fashion, all blood tests and schedules and bank accounts, without giving him even one appreciative look. Not one!

Adam realized his temper was fraying again and pulled himself up. Did it really matter if she wanted to enjoy herself or not? Did it matter that she was only interested in the goals she wanted to reach and therefore had restrictions in place for how and where they connected? A contract, that’s what the two of them had. Lane knew his sister but she didn’t know him . She was right to be leery of parading him around her office—especially after what DeWayne the Douchebag had done to her.

But he was nothing like DeWayne the Douchebag, he told himself, rallying. He wasn’t going to shame her. It wasn’t an insult being seen with him. If he was going to make her look anything , his intention would be to make her look hot, not cold. And he wasn’t a trained seal who could be expected to perform when and where she wanted, begging for a treat when he came up to scratch.

Nope. No way. If anyone was going to be begging it was going to be Lane. And until she was begging, until she felt him like burning fever in her blood, he’d be damned if he was going to be giving over the goods all at once, either.

This was going to be a slow, sloow, slooow journey to the finish line.

And he was going to win.

***

The next morning, Lane dressed and undressed three times before deciding on the same square-cut navy suit she’d worn on Monday night on the basis that at least Adam hadn’t run screaming in the opposite direction at the sight of it. She then applied a full face of make-up only to scrub it all off when she realized her colleagues would know something was up if she turned up for work looking like that. In any case, she’d hate for Adam to think she’d taken any special care for their first … time.

Yes, ‘time’ was the correct word, not the ‘date’ he’d called it. It wasn’t a date, it was a time, a session, a meeting.

A lesson.

First lesson.

Whew. What that thought did to her insides!

Pull yourself together, Lane. She looked in the mirror—her new favourite pastime—and nodded, satisfied. No way would Adam guess she’d agonized over what to wear.

And then the implication of that hit home and her shoulders drooped. ‘And that’s a good thing, is it, to look like you didn’t spare a minute’s thought for how you look?’ she asked her reflection.

Eye roll. ‘Aaaaand you’re talking to yourself. Isn’t that the first sign of madness?’

***

If talking to herself was the first sign of madness, Lane figured that wandering around the office like she’d just woken from a coma and didn’t know where she was had to be the second.

So poor was her concentration, it was almost a relief to pack up her laptop and files and head out to the reception area to wait for Adam.

Or it would have been, if she’d known what to do when she got there five minutes ahead of their appointment.

She knew it was an unusual occurrence that she was leaving the office early, but she hadn’t expected it to be remarkable enough to warrant the receptionist’s constant semi-alarmed glances at her. Or perhaps it was her style of loitering that was making a spectacle of her—the way she sat, then stood, then sat, then stood. The receptionist kept on looking at her like she was a zoo exhibit, which made Lane send a silent prayer of thanks skywards that the area was more or less deserted. Some of her colleagues had left for the day, but most were out of sight, hunched over desks, and therefore not watching her.

She was even gladder of the lack of an audience when Adam emerged from the elevator at 6:05 p.m., because for sure he would have drawn every assessing eye. He was wearing blue jeans and a navy Henley T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows. Despite the swaggeringly casual attire, he looked perfectly in tune with his surroundings. It was as though he’d been walking onto her floor at 6:05 p.m. every evening for three full lifetimes. He looked more at home there than Lane herself did, even though he dressed nothing like a banker—certainly nothing like the impeccably tailored David Bennett.

As he turned in her direction, Lane noticed that the top two buttons of his T-shirt were open, which made Lane wonder if two undone buttons was the rule when you wanted to look ridiculously sexy. One look at him and her fingers itched to get at her own buttons, which were primly done up to the hilt.

But there was no time, because he was charging straight for her, glancing neither right nor left.

Lane knew it was going to be an awkward moment—how could it not be?—and cast around in her head for a suitably safe topic of conversation to break the ice and establish a nothing-to-see-here-folks vibe. Something that would prove to the receptionist that this was nothing more than a regular business meeting, regardless of Adam’s two undone buttons. He was a builder so … house prices maybe? Because she’d seen some research today that indicated a renewed boom, with house prices set to rise by—

Oof.

She was suddenly in Adam’s arms, looking up, and she couldn’t remember what she’d been thinking. Something to do with percentages … or was it—?