Hunk for the Holidays (24 page)

“Shut up!” The pressure in her head grew. “You manipulated me.”

Those whiskey eyes widened. “I manipulated you? Really? Just where did this manipulation take place? When I forced you to drink too much champagne? Or maybe when you ordered me to get you to a bathroom, then stripped off your clothes and got in my shower? Or, possibly, it was when I woke up and you had your mouth on my—”

Her head felt as if it might explode. “You’ve had your fun, so you can just leave!”

But he didn’t leave. Instead, he took two steps closer. “Have I hit a sore spot, Cassandra? Worried that word might get out that Cassie McPherson is a controlling sex fiend who pays for escorts?”

He was close enough that she didn’t have to reach far to hit him. Except he didn’t wait like Foster for the punch to land. He caught her fist in one hand and jerked her close to him with the other. “Ah, I have hit a sore spot. Well, join the club. You have been hitting sore spots with me ever since you weren’t waiting for me at your condo.”

She struggled to get out of his arms. “I don’t date liars.”

“I never lied.”

She stilled and glared up at him. “Really? What would you call masquerading as an escort? Halloween?”

He ground his teeth. “I wasn’t masquerading. You were the one who jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

“And you didn’t correct me.”

“When a beautiful woman throws herself at a man, what do you expect him to do? Say no?”

“Obviously not! You didn’t stop the woman who threw herself at you this morning.”

“This morning? Are you nuts—” He paused. “Are you talking about Sierra, my twenty-year-old assistant?”

“Which is even more disgusting.” Her eyes felt as if they would pop right out of her head. “And I never threw myself at you.”

“Really?” He backed her up against the desk. “And what would you call wanting to pay me for sex?”

“Stupidity!”

He snorted. “That doesn’t change the fact that you threw yourself at me.”

“Nor does it change the fact that you lied.”

His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. “I tried to tell you the truth and, obviously, you didn’t believe me.”

“When was that? Before or after you made a fool of me?” She leaned back and crossed her arms to show her anger—and to keep her breasts from touching his chest.

His eyes narrowed. “I never made a fool of you, Cassandra. You seem to be able to do that all by yourself.”

“Really? Then what would you call it when someone conceals their identity in order to play with another person’s emotions?” She lifted a finger and poked him in the chest. “Is that what James Sutton calls fun?”

He grabbed her finger and refused to let go. “So now you’re saying that I played with your emotions. I thought I was just a hot one-night stand.”

She lowered her gaze. “You were.”

There was a long moment of silence in which the space between them seemed to shrink, taking all the air with it. She swallowed and watched as the hand that still held her finger moved to her chin and tipped it up. His eyes were no longer cold as he searched for the truth she struggled to hide. He found it much quicker than she’d hoped.

“Now who’s the liar,” he whispered before he lowered his head.

His lips were scorching, rivaling the fire that blazed behind him. He didn’t punish her with a hard, devouring kiss. Instead, his warm, moist mouth gently slid over hers. Cassie tried to collect herself enough to give him the hell he so richly deserved, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her eyes closed right before he slipped his hands to her waist. The edge of her sweater was lifted and cold hands
tingled over her bare skin as he easily lifted her to the top of the desk.

She trembled and placed her hands on his chest. The fact that she was kissing James Sutton—a lying, conniving jerk—didn’t seem to matter to her treacherous body. The hormones that had been so easily controlled with a simple shower nozzle were now raging out of control. And all it had taken was one little kiss.

Or one big heart-stopping, soul-touching kiss.

A kiss too good to let her mind take control. So she released her brain and let her body do what it would. Of course, she hadn’t expected her body to be so ravenous it forgot where it was and proceeded to cling to James like spray-on insulation.

Which was exactly how her father found them.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Big Al McPherson’s voice resounded through the room like a sonic boom, causing James to pull away from the kiss.

Of course, he couldn’t get very far away with Cassandra’s legs wrapped around his waist. It took only a second to figure out she wasn’t going to move. She had frozen in place with her nose pressed into his sweater and her eyes squeezed shut. When James lifted his gaze to the man who stood by the open door, he understood why.

Big Al McPherson deserved his nickname, not only because he was a large man, but because he filled the room with a powerful presence. It radiated off him like heat off hot pavement. His thick red hair was faded with age and peppered with gray, but the large muscles in his arms and chest were those of a thirty-year-old.

He walked farther into the room while James tried to untangle himself. It didn’t take him long, not once Cassandra cooperated by dropping her hands and legs and jumping down from the desk.

“Hi, Dad. Is dinner ready?”

James had to give it to her. She tried her best to look as if nothing had happened, which wasn’t easy when her lips were swollen, her hair was mussed, and her eyes still held the glaze of desire. James probably didn’t look much better. Fortunately, the appearance of her father had caused his erection to quickly deflate.

Big Al snorted and turned to him. “Matt informed me we had company. I assume you’re James Sutton.”

James cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.” He stretched out a hand.

Big Al gave him a handshake that almost sent him to his knees. “I’m sorry I missed our meeting the other night. I left a message on your cell phone.”

“Yes, sir.” James nodded, then shot a glance over at Cassandra. “But I’m afraid I didn’t get it in time.”

Her eyes darkened to a deep emerald filled with fire. No doubt he would catch some hell for not mentioning the meeting with her father.

Big Al nodded. “So I assume that’s how you met my daughter.” He walked around his desk and sat down. “Since I couldn’t meet with you on Friday, we can do it now. Have a seat, Sutton.”

James remained standing. “Actually, sir, I need to talk with your daughter.”

His bushy red eyebrows lifted. “Really? Because it
didn’t look like you two were doing much talking when I came in.”

There really wasn’t much to say to that, so James pulled out a chair and sat down.

“You staying or leaving, Cassie?” Big Al asked.

For a moment, James thought she would bolt for the door. Then the cool businesswoman he had come to admire took control. “Staying.” She took the other chair, trying her best not to look at James.

Her father smiled. “I figured as much.” He opened the humidor that sat on the top of his desk and pulled out a cigar. He didn’t smoke it, just held it in his hand and rolled it between his fingers. He leaned back in the chair. “So let’s cut to the chase. How much will you take for your company?”

His words completely broadsided James. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Your company. How much do you want for it?”

Up until this point, James had been more interested in getting Cassie alone than anything her father might have to say. Now his mind struggled to catch up. The man wanted his company?

“My company’s not for sale,” he stated.

“Come now, Sutton. Almost everything’s for sale. Especially to a young, single man like yourself.” Big Al stuck the cigar in his mouth and chewed on the end. His green eyes, so much like his daughter’s, piercing. “Name your price.”

The room seemed to shrink around James as he worked to comprehend the drama that was playing out before him. “So let me get this straight: You wanted to meet with me last Friday night to make me an offer for my company?”

“Exactly.” Big Al smiled.

It was the smile that finally had the truth slamming into James. He’d been a fool. While he had been excited about getting to meet the man and talk construction, Big Al had only wanted to get his hands on his company. A company he had built from the ground up with a lot of sweat and blood. What an idiot he was.

“Dad—” Cassandra interrupted.

“Not now, Cassie,” he ordered as he continued to watch James. “Do you realize how many companies smaller than yours have gone out of business in the last year?”

“Is that a threat?”

“Just a fact.”

James wondered how the arrogant man had lived so long without getting his ass whipped. “So you’re making the offer out of the goodness of your heart? Do you try to help out all small companies, or just mine?”

“Just yours.”

So Matthew was right. His family saw him as a threat and wanted him out of the picture. Completely. But what James didn’t know was if the man was working alone or if the woman who had come very close to stealing his heart knew about it and wanted the same thing.

He swiveled around in his chair and stared at her. “Did you know about this?”

Cassandra’s face was white, her eyes wide. She looked innocent and surprised, but James wasn’t about to fall for that charade. She was a smart businesswoman, a real workaholic. Something as big as acquiring another company wouldn’t get past her. That was why her good friend Amy Walker had called Sierra claiming to be a reporter for the
Post
. Cassandra was getting information for her father. Information that would help them decide if he would be open to selling his company. He thought that after spending two days with him, she would’ve known better.

Unless she really did just think of him as a one-night stand.

When Cassandra didn’t answer, James swallowed down the lump that had formed in his throat. He was surprised at how much the realization hurt. But he had always been able to turn his hurt to anger.

“It must’ve been quite a shock to learn that the man you were screwing was also the man you planned to screw,” he said.

Big Al slammed his fist on the desk. “Watch the way you speak to my daughter, Sutton!”

James stood and glared back at the man. “No. The answer is ‘no.’ I don’t care how much you offer me. Sutton Construction isn’t for sale.” He glanced down into the green pools of Cassandra’s eyes and felt his chest begin to cave. With the pain came anger, steel-cold, punch-a-friggin’-wall anger. He knew if he didn’t get out of there soon that was exactly what he would do.

He turned and walked to the door. But before he reached it, he couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder at the man who casually leaned back in the chair studying him as if he were some damned science project. “And if you think I took some of your business this year, just wait for the next.”

James jerked open the door just as Big Al’s laughter echoed off the high ceilings. The laughter took him by surprise. What didn’t was finding all of Cassandra’s
brothers standing in the hallway. He’d had little doubt that Matthew would spread the word about who he was. And the brothers didn’t look very happy with the news. All except for Matthew, who stood there, grinning.

“I’d ask you to stay for dinner,” he said, “but I think that might be pushing it.”

Ignoring the comment, James strode past them. Matthew had taken his jacket when he first arrived, but damned if he would stick around to find it. To hell with the jacket. To hell with the McPhersons. And to hell with Cassandra. Her complete silence let him know exactly who she sided with. Who she would always side with. And he sure as hell didn’t want some daddy’s girl as a wife.

A wife?

Where in the hell had that come from? After two days of knowing the woman, only an imbecile would be thinking of marriage.

He jerked open the front door, then slammed it behind him. Snow gathered on his head and the shoulders of his sweater as he walked to his SUV and tried to come to grips with the fact that he very well could be an imbecile. Or at least had been one until a green-eyed vixen and her father brought him back to his senses. Now there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he would even consider marrying a McPherson.

No matter how much she had made him laugh.

Or how much she had made him feel.

Chapter Twenty-one

The slamming door snapped Cassie out of her daze, and she turned to her father. “What do you think you’re doing? Why would you decide to buy Sutton out and not tell me?”

“Watch your tone, young lady.” Her father sent her a warning look. “I still run this business, and I don’t need your okay on my decisions. Although you need to explain what you’re doing cavorting with our main competitor.”

“I’m not cavorting,” she said, and heat infused her cheeks at the bold-faced lie. “Besides, I didn’t know he was our main competitor.”

“You didn’t know? What do you mean you didn’t know? Who do you think we’ve been discussing for the last few months? Some other James Sutton?”

“No. I just thought—” She cut off when she realized who she was talking to. The last person she wanted to know about her escorts was Big Al.