The Tycoon's Tender Triumph (11 page)

His hand dropped and a knowing look came back into his dark eyes. “But you’re still going
to do it your way, aren’t you?” he said as he placed the other plate on the table across from the first one. 

She shrugged and
took one of the chairs
. 
“I don’t know any other way.”

He turned around and
looked at her.  “You’ll learn.”

Chloe ignored him and looked instead at the eggs on her plate.  “This smells delicious.  I didn’t know you could cook this well.”

“There’s lots about me you don’t know,” he replied and took the seat across from her.  “I’m a great cook.”

“Why do you have
Jessy
then?”

“Because she likes to cook as well, I don’t always have time and she needed a job.”

Her fork was midway to her mouth when he said that.  “You created a position for someone only because they needed a job?”

“No.  I needed a cook as well.  But she does a lot more than cook.  She’s sort of the mother
for all the ranch hands, bossing them around and making sure they stay out of trouble.  She’s pretty priceless
.  Those cookies she gave you yesterday?”

“
Y
eah,” Chloe encouraged before swallowing the bite of scrambled eggs that were amazingly delicious.  “They were fantastic.”

“She made over five hundred cookies yesterday, all of them brought down to the
stable
s for the ranch hands.”

Chloe couldn’t imagine making that many cookies in her lifetime, much less in a day.  “That’s a lot of cookies.”

“There are about fifty
guys that run the horses on my
ranch on a regular basis, plus more than come in during seasonal times during the year,” he explained. “She makes a birthday cake for ea
ch one of them.  She’s amazing and none of
the guys
are willing to cross her and get out of line, knowing she’d come down on them like a ton of bricks.  Not to mention what I might do to them
.”

“Good morale.”

“Don’t you know it,” he replied with gusto.

If someone had told Chloe a week ago that she’d be sitting at her father’s breakfast table across from Sam Marchant discussing employee issues, she’d have laughed in their faces.  But here she was and she still couldn’t believe it.  The fact that Sam was too big for that chair didn’t help the image either. 

“Finish up, we have a lot of work to do.”

Those words were to be remembered later that evening when she was still sitting in Sam’s masculine office, working through the details of her business plan.  Although Sam was a financial genius
which, in her mind meant he was good at the big picture
, that didn’t mean he wasn’t thorough in his plans
and very detail oriented
.  Each time she had an idea, Sam fo
rced her to research the issues
, get more information.  He was generous with his
advice
too, but a tougher task master she’d never met. 

Chloe had thought her marketing job in New York had been difficult.  Those wimpy New York executives had nothing on Sam Marchant.  He knew
figures
off the top of his head and challenged everything she suggested.  Sometimes she was able to prove her ideas were valid.  Other times, he came at her
suggestions
from an angle she hadn’t even considered and he was relentless at shooting it down, not letting her get into any detail that would swerve away from the goal of getting a solid business plan down on paper. 

And the financial side of Sam’s planning was terrifying.  She’d
once
thought the expense of
repairing
the
old
stable
was overwhelming.  She hadn’t even considered
the cost of
a marketing plan, the insurance needed, the travel that would be involved or the social organizations that would need to be tapped into in order to make her idea a success.  Sam did though.

It took five straight days of working from early morning through
midnight some
times before Sam finally declared that her plan was solid. 
The only breaks he allowed her was a few moments in the morning and evening to talk with her father.  Even lunches she was sitting in his office trying to figure out a solution to a problem he’d presented to her.  Maybe it was a bit more difficult since she would only tell him that her idea was more creative and centered on the art world.  As she gained knowledge with the industry and hurdles she might face, she was becoming more confident, but also more daunted by what she had to do to overcome those obstacles. 

They hadn’t even started contract negotiations or
coming up with the financing
for a business
.  Sam offered to finance her venture but Chloe refused to accept his offer.  Not just because she thought he was offering her charity, but also because she’d spent too much time in his company over the past week.  And each time she saw him, her heart sped up.  When he got close to her to look over her shoulder at her notes, point out a
piece of
data on the computer screen or just walking down the hallway to get something to eat with
Jessy
, Chloe would smell Sam, feel his heat and her skin tingled, her heart raced. 

The more she got to know him, really know him and not just sense his physical attraction, the worse it got.  She learned that she actually liked him.  His laugh was infectious, his intelligence a complete turn on and his voice was the sexiest thing she’d ever
heard
.  She’d always thought she was a woman attracted to shoulders and muscles in a guy and Sam already had plenty of those to spare.  But working with him so much, she decided that a man’s voice was a dangerous aphrodisiac. 

She was sitting in his large leather chair while he bent over, both of them looking at the finished product on one of his computer screens. 

“
You really should let me finance this, Chloe
. 
Whatever you’re going to sell, I’m betting i
t’s a solid idea and I believe you’ll make a success of the venture.  I’d like to be a part of it.”

His belief in her success warmed her heart.  His approval meant a great deal.  But she’d spent too much time in his company over the past week and she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be around him more often.  She suspected that if she allowed him to invest in her project, he’d be more involved than she was comfortable with.  “I don’t think it would be a good idea.”

“Why?  Because we’re attracted to each other and you’re afraid of me?”

Chloe wasn’t sure what to say to that.  She’d never been a very direct person, nor had she ever dated men who were very direct.  She was used to men who waited for some sort of blatant signal that she was ready to move to the next step, which, she acknowledged, rarely ever happened.  So she’d had many male friends
over the years, and only dated
a few. 

This directness from Sam was disconcerting.  She didn’t like it and pulled back, stepping around his desk and moving to the other side.  “I think I’d better go,” she said, picking up her jacket that had been
lying
over the back of the chair. 

“Why?  Because you’re scared or because I’m reading you wrong?”

Chloe took the easy way out.  “Because you’re completely reading me wrong.  I’m not attracted to you.  That’s all in the past.”

Sam smiled and Chloe didn’t like the way his eyes lit up with challenge.
  “Are you really trying to convince
me
of
that?  And I wonder if you believe it, or if you simply want it to be true.”

She shifted uncomfortably. 
“It’s true and you’re just going to have to accept it.”

“Then all the times I touch you, when you get all flustered, that’s just a pretence?” he asked, standing up and walking around his desk. 

Chloe looked at the doorway, then back at him. 

“Don’t try it.  You won’t make it,” he replied softly, moving to stand in front of her.  “Why won’t you let this thing between
us go?
  You know it’s there and I promise you it’s mutual.”  His hand came up to touch her hair,
his long fingers tangling through the ends.  “I think it could be extremely good between us.”

Chloe shook her head, pulling her hair out of his fingers, careful not to touch him in any way.  “It might be fine, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea to risk it.”

“Fine?” he parroted.  “You think this could be just ‘fine’ between us?”  He put a finger to the base of her neck.  “I suspect that it could be a whole lot more than ‘fine’ and what’s more, I think you know it would be as well.  So what’s holding you back?”

Chloe shook her head and took a step back, only to find that the desk was behind her, a solid force that halted her backwards escape.  “Sam, please…”

His eyes swept down so they were staring at her mouth.  “Please what?  Please show me that we could be on fire?”

“No,” she gasped.  “Please don’t do this.”

He was quiet for a long moment as his eyes took in her features.  “I don’t think I can ignore this any longer.”

Chloe tried to shake her head, to push him away.  But as his head slowly descended, she found that she couldn’t move.  She couldn’t speak or
even think.  All she could do was
anticipate the touch of his l
ips.  She’d experienced it once
before so she tried to brace herself.  But she should have known.  Nothing could prepare her for this…

When his lips finally touched hers, she inhaled sharply, barely moving her lips against his.  But it was enough.  The touch was simple, gentle and careful, as if he were afraid of breaking her, but the moment their mouths touched, lightning struck and Chloe moaned as
his hands pulled her closer,
molding
her body against his as his mouth took possession.  He didn’t have to tease her to open her mouth.  She didn’t wait, ravenous for him and her arms came up, pulling his head down to hers, her fingers
sliding
into his hair as her back arched into him. 

She couldn’t get enough of him and she loved it when he deepened the kiss, his hands moving from her back to her waist, creating a trail of fire as they moved.  Chloe whimpered as she stretched up onto her toes, trying to reach more of him, to touch him against all of her. 

She felt her shirt come out from the waistband of her jeans and when his hands touched her bare skin, she cried out, breaking away from the kiss as her mind fought to keep up with all the sensations that were blasting through her system. 

His hands were in her hair, pulling her head back and she moaned again as his mouth moved to her ear, then down her neck, biting and nibbling as he explored her throat.  When his hand moved along her skin, she wiggled, shivered in reaction.  She reached down to stop his hand from moving again but he ignored her hold and moved so his thumb could caress her stomach and Chloe’s hand relaxed, then moved back to his shoulders, wanting to feel the same. 

She didn’t hear the jumbling, but sighed with pleasure when he lifted her up and  pushed her bottom onto the desk.  A moment later, one hand came down to her leg, pulling her thigh so that one leg was bent, sliding against his hip and she could do nothing more than hang on as he pressed against
her more intimately.  This posi
tion had him right up
near
her and she could feel his reaction against her, hard and demanding. 

When she’d felt that with other men, she’d either been afraid or regretful that she didn’t feel the same.  But with Sam, she was thrilled that she could make him feel this way, so quickly and so strongly.  It gave her a bit of feminine power that she’d never felt with any other man, hadn’t even wanted to. 

“Chloe, we need to go upstairs,” she heard him growl but his hand moved, sliding upwards and she ignored his words, too caught up in the way he was making her feel.  Then his mouth moved to hers again, his tongue sliding into her mouth, mating with hers and instead of gasping with pleasure, she could only imitate his movements, trying to figure out what he liked and reveling in the feeling of his body reacting to her touch, her kiss and feeling extraordinary because she had the power to make this man feel this way.