Deal of a Lifetime Read online

  Con’s fingertips waltzed slow circles up her neck to just behind her ears and down again.

  Rolling waves of warmth joined the tiny shivers sending shocks from toe to scalp and back. “Maybe you did, and maybe Buddswell just likes a challenge. I know for a fact he’s a trophy fanatic, whether the trophy is a world championship, a wild animal, or a desirable woman.”

  Desirable? Did Con really see her that way, or was she still just an object he’d decided he wanted? Her head fell forward. She found it hard to concentrate. “Possibly, but if he sees me as a challenge, that means I’ve got his attention. My job is to focus that attention on business, not pleasure.”

  “You mean pleasure like this?” Con’s low question vibrated through her entire body. He moved; his heat warmed her back from nape to toe. His lips pressed soft and firm below her earlobe. His hands stroked to her hips, resting there and rocking her bottom into his pelvis.

  “Mmm.”

  He set up a slow rhythm, then released her hips. Momentum or longing kept her moving, she wasn’t certain which. Right now, she didn’t care as long as he kept touching her. His marvelous hands circled her shoulder blades. He pushed gently on one shoulder and pulled on the other. Tam turned. The credenza pressed into her back. She broadened her stance. For balance, only for balance.

  Con stepped closer. He blocked the light, filling her world.

  “Tam.” His lips brushed her name across her mouth in a yearning, wanting echo of her own desire. His fingertips whispered over her cheek and temple into the hair at her crown. “I smell peaches and think of you. Seeing Buddswell close enough to do this, drove me mad.”

  “He…” Tam tried to explain.

  Con stroked a hand up her bare arm.

  Her breath caught. “…was teasing you.”

  “No,” Con insisted.

  “No?”

  “Buddswell’s a master at seduction. I’ve seen him operate. You’re the one he was teasing.”

  The uncomfortable image of the huge, redheaded man in Con’s place filled Tam’s mind. She jerked her head up. “OW!”

  She put one hand to the spot where her skull impacted Con’s chin and pushed him away with the other.

  “You’ve got an awfully hard skull.” He rubbed at his lower jaw.

  Anger throbbed in time with the pain that attacked her skull. How could he undervalue her so much and still want her? “You’ve got a head full of rocks if you think I’m in any danger from Buddswell.”

  “The man’s affairs are legendary.” Con eyed her as she put a fist on one hip and poked her opposite index finger into his chest.

  Fury darkened her eyes to solid lapis. “Simply because other women can’t see past the basketball glitter, that makes me susceptible?”

  Con frowned. “You were certainly susceptible in the bar.”

  “Is that what you think?” She poked at his chest again. “That our contract talks were some sort of code, and I was primed and ready for Buddswell?”

  Con retreated before her attacking index finger.

  She pressed on through his open bedroom door, advancing with his every step, blasting him. “What does that make you? Some sort of sexual clean-up man?”

  “Now just a minute.” The end of the bed hit his lower legs. “You can’t—”

  “Don’t you just-a-minute me.” She shoved at him with both hands and surprising force.

  He landed on the bed like a brick.

  “I can do anything,” she ranted. “I can even trade sex for a contract if I want. What I don’t want is you.” She whirled and stomped across the sitting area to her bedroom where she shut her door with deafening care.

  He leapt after her. Before he could stop her, the door lock clicked. “Tam,” he shouted and rattled the doorknob. He wanted to smash something.

  “Go away.” Her voice strained through the door. A sniffle followed.

  Struck to the heart, Con staggered. She’s crying. In the months they’d lived together, sharing a bed, dreams and everything else, Tam never cried.

  He’d caused this. His stomach twisted, and his throat dried. He’d hurt the woman he loved. He thrust a hand through his hair. How? How had he gotten so mad with jealousy that he behaved so stupidly? What happened to finesse, subtlety? He moved back to the door and knocked softly. “Tam?”

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “It’s all right. I just want to say I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

  “Go away,” she wailed.

  “I will.” He stepped away from the door.

  “Now!”

  “I am. I’ll shut my door really hard.”

  Once in his room, his shoulders slumped. He put his hands in his pockets and stared back toward the other bedroom. Tam was in there, but going back wasn’t the way to get to her. He sighed, shaking his head at himself. Despite the attraction that sparked between them, he wasn’t making any progress. Judging by Buddswell’s actions Con had some serious competition. Then there was that guy she’d been talking to on the phone.

  The only thing worse would be having Tam disappear again. That frightening thought alone kept him from giving up. He had a whole long, lonely night to consider the problem of how to regain Tam’s trust.

  Chapter Four

  Tam left her room the next morning well rested and determined to make Con leave. She acknowledged the difficulty of the task. He was persistent to the point of obsession. During her internship, she’d seen him wear down all opposition when he believed he was right. She’d admired that determination so much that mixed with his potent sexuality she hadn’t wanted to resist when he’d pursued her. That was all the more reason now to put him at a distance, preferably a large physical distance. His persistence, combined with his intelligence, had helped him survive a difficult family life, pulled him out of the Chicago projects, and elevated Terence Connor O’Neal to one of Fortune 500’s most respected business voices. If he set his sights on a goal, he always achieved it. Being equally driven, she’d loved him precisely for his determination as well as his generosity, empathy, and passion for challenges. However, his persistence was now a reason to fear him, especially because he’d never given up on the idea of getting her back. What would he do, if he knew she’d kept a daughter from him? He’d grown up without a father. Would he understand or be understandably angry? She had to tell him but needed time to figure out how to do that with the least amount of risk to Susa.

  Because of her daughter, winning the battle of wits and determination with Con was a do-or-die proposition. Unfortunately he had very few weak points and no known vices to attack. Tam wished she had more weapons in her arsenal. She didn’t, so she’d just have to use her knowledge of Con’s bull-headed precision and incisiveness against him. The first step of her plan to oust him from the suite was to make him disgusted with her. It was a risk, but she figured that within twenty-four hours of living with every bad habit she could resurrect (and a few she’d acquired just for this purpose) he would demand other quarters if not leave the conference altogether. She smiled thinking of his reaction when he went to shower and shave this morning.

  ****

  Con woke to his alarm’s beeping. Eaten with guilt, he’d tossed and turned most of the night. He’d screwed up and had to find a way to show Tam he was sorry. The best he could think of in his sleep-deprived state was to stick as close to her as possible without crowding her, all the while showing her what an attentive, thoughtful gentleman he could be. Over the next twenty-four hours he’d soothe her anxieties; then he’d begin courting her in earnest. He knew her, her likes, dislikes, strengths, and weaknesses. She wouldn’t know what hit her.

  He silenced the alarm, tossed back the covers, and headed for the bathroom. He opened the door to the sitting room and stepped back in surprise. Clothes were strewn across every piece of furniture, and make-up littered the horizontal surfaces. A laptop and portable printer surrounded by what looked like several reams of paper occupied the entire desk. The paper spil
led over onto the floor. Dishes and food littered the table.

  The mess was a physical shock. He scratched his head. “What in blazes is going on here?”

  Tam was a neatnik. She claimed she didn’t have time to be messy. He’d thought the comment so insightful; he’d picked up the neatness habit from her. He’d been pleasantly surprised at how much more time he had and the great deal more he accomplished because he no longer spent every spare minute looking for things.

  “Where did this disaster area come from? Are you so desperate to get to Mike that you’ve lost your senses?” he asked of his absent ex-lover. Knowing she wouldn’t want housekeeping to sift through her personal belongings, he decided he could afford a few minutes to help her out and folded clothes, cleared tabletops, and picked up papers. By the time he restored order to the sitting room he knew he’d be late for the first seminar. He could sit quietly in the back row until the meeting was over and then join Tam.

  He stripped off, stowed his dirty clothing in a hotel laundry bag, and headed for the shower only to be confronted by another epic mess.

  “I don’t believe it. Tam wouldn’t do this.” He stood amazed, gaping at the lingerie draped across the shower rod, sink, and towel racks. All but one towel and one washcloth lay heaped on the floor. He cringed at the tubful of dirty soapy water when he peered behind the shower curtain and frowned over the gooey mess of cosmetics decorating the sink.

  Fingering a pair of pale pink panties, he continued to think out loud. “This is more than any man should have to put up with.” Still he wiped away enough of the muck in and around the sink to be able to soak the clean washcloth and take what his mom used to call a sponge bath before reaching for his shaving kit.

  The kit was empty. He spent a good five minutes hunting before he found his shaving cream hiding behind the commode. When he found his razor in a puddle beside the bathtub, he cursed. He and Tam had lived together the better part of a full year. They’d settled the razor issue in the first week. He stared in disgust and dismay, cataloguing the array of small disasters. She knows better than to use my razor. What in Hades is going on?

  Her motive sprang to mind in a nanosecond. He laughed so hard he had to lean against the wall for support—nothing was clean enough to sit on. “That underhanded female, she did all this on purpose. She’s trying to run me off.”

  He had to admire the attempt, but she’d made one mistake, and that mistake told him more than she probably wanted him to know. She still had feelings for him. He was now certain. Feelings so intense that they frightened her. Good, the intensity of his desire for Tam frightened him. He’d been scared to death when he first mentioned marriage. She said she wanted to think about it, and he hadn’t died. Neither had he been as relieved as he imagined he’d be, given how scared he’d been. Mildly worried by her hesitation, he’d gone three months before acknowledging that her silence was a rejection. Then he’d been crushed. He hadn’t thought her cruel or cowardly, so her silence baffled him as much as it hurt. In his mind, married or not, they were a unit. He’d failed to take her feelings seriously. Hopefully he wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  He hurried to shave and dress, made a call to housekeeping, and left an extra large tip for the maid. He wouldn’t catch up with Tam at the first seminar, but he’d be right beside her for the rest of the day.

  ****

  When Con slid into the seat next to her, Tam jerked her attention away from the speaker long enough to give him an ice-cold stare. “Don’t you have a meeting or something? Go away.”

  “Not on your life, sweetness. You’re stuck with me.”

  “You can’t mean to pursue this relationship after the conference is over.” Eyes wide, her voice rose a notch.

  “I mean precisely that.”

  “Ssssh,” came from several directions.

  Rather than continue the argument and disrupt the seminar more, Tam faced forward, ignoring her sexy shadow.

  She rose the minute the presentation ended and the applause started. She edged to the end of the row where the departing crowd forced her to stop. Con’s hot hard body thunked into her from behind. His spicy citrus scent enveloped her, and her knees wobbled—only for a moment but long enough to cause Con to steady her. He stepped up beside her, taking her by the elbow. Then using a very commanding tone of voice, he cleared a path for her to the door.

  Once in the somewhat less crowded hallway, Tam shook off his hold, uttered a brisk thank you and, weaving through the stream of conference attendees, strode off to her appointment with Buddswell.

  The crowd thinned as she made her way to the managerial offices. Almost no one loitered in the hallway, when she paused before the office lobby. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.

  “Meeting with Buddswell?”

  Con’s voice startled the wits from her enough for her to jump and once more make contact. His arms circled and released her in quick succession. The effect was just as devastating as if they shared the most intimate kiss. She should have known she couldn’t lose him in that mass of people outside the seminar rooms. Pointedly ignoring him despite her body’s foolish protests, she gave her name to the receptionist, then seated herself on a settee.

  “It won’t work, you know.” Con sat beside her.

  Tam paused in the act of opening her portfolio, gave Con one needle-eyed stare, then shifted herself and her belongings to a club chair across the room. Settled, she perused the notes she’d made for this appointment.

  He took up a seat on an ottoman positioned in front of her chair. “That mess in the suite was a good try,” he continued in a conversational almost soothing tone. “But you made a mistake when you used my razor. I can only believe that you’re so upset by your feelings for me that you weren’t thinking straight, or you would never have been so careless.”

  She looked up at him, opened her mouth to speak, then changed her mind and returned her gaze to her notes. The marks on the page refused to make sense. The sight of him, his gaze filled with tenderness, took her breath. She drew in a steadying lungful. He was right. She had been careless and foolish to imagine that she could chase him off with something as childish as an annoying and uncharacteristic mess.

  Her feelings for Con had never changed. Her heart belonged to him. She’d honestly intended to marry him after graduating, but she’d become ill, and that engagement announcement had hit her hard. Con’s silence and apparent desertion had hurt almost as much as her mother’s suicide and her father’s neglect. She’d lacked the strength to fight for Con, her baby, and her life at the same time. Frightened throughout the long illness that she would lose her child, Tam clung to Susa with lion-like ferocity. Regardless of the cause, she wasn’t about to risk the one certainty in her life on the chance that Connor really loved her. What if he didn’t? What if he was simply determined to have what he thought he wanted? She’d lose everything, her business, her daughter, and her heart. No, yielding wasn’t an option. Since Con refused to give up his idea that they belonged together, she had to get rid of him. As far as she could tell, only one avenue remained open for achieving that goal—an appeal to Mike Buddswell.

  “Mr. Buddswell will see you now.”

  Tam cast a fulsome glare at Con and stood. “Thank you.”

  The secretary nodded. “This way, please.”

  She followed the secretary from the reception area through a spacious outer office into the lion’s den. Pacing across the plush umber carpet, she took in the large number of trophies. They weren’t all for basketball. A variety of wild animals and large fish, each professionally preserved and mounted, decorated the dark paneled walls. Sprinkled in between the creatures and the glitter of awards, glossy photographs showed Buddswell proudly hoisting the kill or accepting each item. The display was impressive and intended to intimidate. Tam refused to be manipulated in either her business or her personal life.

  Buddswell sat in lanky muscular splendor on a plaid club chair next to a huge fireplace where a
length of pungent spruce burned brightly. A tray of his healthy snacks lay on the granite slab serving as a coffee table. Three identical club chairs completed the arrangement that flanked a burgundy leather sofa.

  He stood as she approached. “Ms. Donal. Please have a seat and tell me how I may help you.”

  As he gestured to the couch, his eyes raked her shape beneath her prim gray suit, but no crude comment escaped his smiling lips. Tam took the proffered seat, feeling a bit like Red Riding Hood confronting the wolf.

  Mike’s smile broadened, and he sat. “I see you brought Con with you. Have a chair Con.”

  Tam twisted, furious to see Con three steps beyond the sofa. She barely contained her anger with Mike for inviting him to stay.

  “Thanks, Mike.” Con ambled over to the couch and sat beside Tam.

  “You’re mistaken, Mr. Buddswell. Connor invited himself. I would like him to leave.” Her jaw tight, she clipped her words. She smiled but threw daggers with her glance.

  “I regret Ms. Donal that I have personal and business reasons that require Con’s presence.” Buddswell turned his attention to her nemesis. “However, Con, it’s mighty bold of you, inviting yourself to a competitor’s private business meeting.”

  Tam refused to acknowledge her annoying ex. “Bold or not, I find his behavior rude, and I want him to leave.”

  “Now hold on, Tamsin.” Buddswell steepled his fingers, his gaze almost sly as he focused once more on her chest. “I agree Con’s behaved rudely, but I believe boldness should be rewarded. Besides, I’d probably seek his opinion about whatever it is you propose, so he might as well hear it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”

  “But…” What could she say? Buddswell was known for his eccentric business practices and wouldn’t consider a request for confidentiality, especially if he intended to consult Con. If the former basketball star admired boldness, what could be bolder than to put her proposal to him while Con listened. She brightened her smile and leaned forward. “I see you offer me a challenge, Mr. Buddswell.”