Who's on Top? (17 page)

“No, thank you,” he growled. She was stunning—supermodel material—but she left him cold. For one thing, she was far too skinny. Someone needed to go after her with a funnel and a bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup. For another thing, she was rude. And to top it all off, she was in his way.

She must have decided that he wouldn't break Jane's door down, because she finally removed her leg from his path. “Have a seat.” She gestured to the chair opposite the sofa.

He reluctantly did so, though he felt a lot more like pacing the room. Dom folded his arms and glared at Jane's closed door, willing away the schmuck taking up her time.

“Headache?” asked the blonde.

“What? No.”

“Tooth pain?”

“No.”

“Just garden-variety homicidal tendencies?”

He turned his head toward her. “You certainly make refreshing small talk.”

“Thank you. I try. I'm Shannon Shane, one of Jane's partners.”

“Dominic Sayers.”

“I thought so. You don't look very happy, Dominic.”

“I'm not.”

“Is there anything I can do to help you until Jane's free?”

“Yep. You can get me a tire iron, a steak knife, a tarp and some rope. Maybe some concrete blocks, too.”

“That's not funny.”

“You set the tone of this conversation. Now you don't feel comfortable with where it's going?”

Shannon cocked her head and looked at him for a long moment. “I like you, Sayers. I'm not sure why, but I do.”

Jane's door opened and a young woman emerged with a Finesse PR folder. The same type that he'd seen on Arianna's desk. Dominic got mad all over again.

The young woman called over her shoulder, “I still can't believe the difference in the way my boss treats me!” And Jane's voice said, “I'm so glad, Lisa.” The young woman exited.

Before he could open his mouth, Shannon said to Jane, “You have a visitor.”

Jane popped her head out and greeted him with a big smile. “Hi! So you must have gotten the good news.”

“A
cranky
visitor,” added Shannon, rising from the couch and moving toward her own office. “See ya, Sayers.”

Jane looked a question at him. “Cranky? Why? Come in.”

He strode past her and turned. The fact that she looked particularly pretty today made him even angrier. He'd trusted her.
Two-faced little psych major.

“
Why?
Oh, hell, let's see. I enjoy being blindsided, betrayed and then fired. I think it's fun. What's not to like?”

Jane paled. “Fired? Based on what?”

“
Your report,
sweet Jane. The one you turned in right after you told me that I had nothing to worry about, that I might be surprised. Yeah, I was surprised, don't you know. Surprised right out of my job! Based on your cute little blue report.”

Jane shook her head. “I don't understand.”

“Nice try. Don't pull the innocent act on me.”

“Dominic, the report was positive! I said nothing in it that would give Arianna justification for firing you.”

Dom looked at her through slitted eyes. “You lie even better than she does. You play dirty, dirty pool.”

J
ANE STARED AT
D
OMINIC
. “Excuse me?”

He walked forward until he almost stepped on her toes, glowering down at her from his superior height. Still absorbing his insult, she didn't back up an inch.

“What did she promise you, Jane? A public endorsement, a big fat fee? Or—” he snapped his fingers “—a consulting contract?”

Jane sucked in a breath as that arrow struck home, and his eyes widened in what he thought was comprehension. Before she had a chance to speak, he overrode her.

“That's it. You
finessed
yourself a consulting contract. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for your new business, without you lifting a finger. All you had to do was
sell me out
.”

She had never seen so much raw contempt on anyone's face. It leaped from his expression like acid and seared her. The fact that it was undeserved made it hurt even more. And despite all of her training, she was only human. She got furious, too. How could he think this of her? How could he? After what they'd shared.

“I didn't sell you out!” she shouted.

He bent forward, lowering his face to an inch from hers. “Spare me your justifications. Don't make me sicker than I already am. You're going to tell me that you didn't make up my background? That I had a bad attitude with you from the start? That I made my own bed, and now I've got to lie in it?”

His hot, angry breath slapped her face with each word. She opened her mouth to hit back, but he continued.

“Did you tell Arianna that
you
were lying in my bed, too? Did you tell her how you came apart in my arms? Did you tell her that
I fell for you,
Jane? That I was half in love?”

His eyes closed in pain and rage, then opened again to focus on her. “Is all of
that
in your
friggin' report?
” he thundered.

Half in love with her? Jane forced a dry, wooden tongue out of her mouth in a futile attempt to moisten her lips. “You don't understand—”

“I understand perfectly. ‘Oooh, Dominic,'” he mimicked. “‘Thanks ever so for the multiple orgasms! But I've been offered a pile of money to screw you over easy, so don't let the door hit you on the way out.'” He laughed.

“No—”

“Then you used psychobabble on me to justify your exit strategy. All the mumbo jumbo about how our personalities are too unyielding, that we'd never find a compromise, that a relationship between us
would never work because neither of us could possibly give up control—”

“Dominic, let me speak!”

“I'm
through
with listening to you speak. You are one sad sack of a woman, General O'Toole. You just go back to manipulating your father, your brother, your cousins. You just retreat to your behavioral psychologist's throne—pass judgement on men for the rest of your lonely life. You'll never be able to share that life with a man until you wake up and decide to respect one!”

Jane felt an almost physical pain in her chest; she found herself unable to speak.

His gaze focused on her mouth, which began to tremble, to her mortification. “I do respect men,” she finally whispered.

“No, you don't.” His voice was flat and final. “It's the ultimate irony, Jane. You were brought in to judge me for not respecting women. You came on board to fix me or toss me out on my ear. Well, you've tossed me. And I don't need fixing. But I think you do.”

Dominic took a last long look at her face. Then he turned and left.

 

J
ANE TOOK WOBBLY STEPS
backward until her spine hit her office wall. Then she slid down it inch by inch until her bottom rested on the floor. She stared straight ahead at nothing.

Her first conscious thought was that Shannon and Lilia had heard every word without even trying. No
cups or intercom eavesdropping necessary. So they knew that she'd slept with a Finesse client…and worse, the part about the multiple orgasms. Shannon would be merciless on that score.

Then she thought about his accusation that she didn't respect men. That hurt. And when she took a good, hard look at herself, the charge held some validity. She'd gone poking into Dom's past, but she'd carefully avoided scrutinizing her own—and what it said about her. Did she insist on mothering her dad and Gilbey because she didn't respect their choices in life? What was this overwhelming need to fix them? Did it stem from a fear of not being able to fix herself? Why did everyone have to be perfect, anyway? Weren't they just as lovable flawed?

It's because I want them to be happy,
she told herself. But the truth…the truth was that it was easier to worry about them than to examine her own issues. Like not being able to admit weakness or defeat. Did she have such an ego that she had to control a Jane O'Toole fiefdom? Was that why she scrubbed baseboards with a toothbrush when she got mad? Anger felt out of control to her…so she controlled the dirt in her apartment as a swap?

She'd studied psychology in a desperate bid to understand and control her own emotions. That was understandable in light of her grief over losing her mother. But was it healthy to use her profession in order to curtail the confusion of falling in love?

Admit it, Jane. You couldn't handle the idea of
being vulnerable to Dominic. Being in love with him means exposing your underbelly. Being in love with him means risking loss again—loss and grief. You helped everyone else get over the loss of Ma. Did you ever deal with your own devastation?

Jane sat against the wall for a good hour, vaguely surprised when Shannon didn't come barging in to demand the “scoop.”

The scoop was that somehow, despite all of her rationalizations and careful analysis, she had fallen in love with Dom. She just hadn't been able to admit it before he did. And now it was too late.

Finally what she should have wondered about
first
hit her: how had Arianna used her evaluation to fire Dom when it had been positive?

A nasty, niggling suspicion formed in the back of her mind. Had the vice president, left with no alternative, rewritten it herself?

 

J
ANE EMERGED FROM HER OFFICE
prepared to be flayed by Shannon's acerbic wit. What had she said a couple of weeks before? That Jane had been close to humping doorknobs since Dom had shown up? She cringed.

And now both of her business partners had overheard intimate details. Her face heated up as she rounded the corner into the kitchenette for some coffee. She'd rather have a cosmo—or five—but the clock read only one p.m.

Neither Shannon nor Lilia seemed to be in the of
fice, but on the little tiled table sat a box emblazoned with familiar flowing script, and it smelled like pure heaven. Krispy Kremes!

Jane opened the box and found a note from Shannon inside. “We thought you could use these. One dozen cream-filled, your favorite. Milk in the fridge. Love, S.”

Jane's eyes filled with unwelcome tears, and a lump formed in her throat.
Damn it, I am not going to cry.

She reached for the fattest, most icing-washed doughnut in the box—just to help her swallow the lump. She ate it in three bites and grabbed another while walking to the fridge for the milk. Sugar and vanilla and fat partied on her tongue in mild hysteria before diving down her esophagus, seeking her thighs. Her head swam with the flavors and utterly ignored the protesting squeaks of her conscience.

Funny, but five doughnuts and a quart of milk later, the lump was still there and tears poured down her face in a steady stream.

Jane never cried. She got a little misty-eyed during sad movies or particularly manipulative long-distance telephone commercials, but she did not boo hoo over spilled milk. She generally just mopped it up and got on with life.

Now she was drinking the milk, binge-eating—she undid the top button of her trousers and grabbed yet another doughnut—and sobbing in her office over a
stupid man
. This undignified, destructive behavior was all his fault. And she did, too, respect him.
She respected him enough to strangle him immediately, with her bare, icing-encrusted hands. And after she strangled him for thinking she was such a low-life, she'd…she'd…

Jane gazed for a long moment at the backward gold script that spelled out F-i-n-e-s-s-e on the glass door. Something crude, unladylike and unprofessional rumbled at the back of her throat. Jane tried as hard to stifle it as she tried to repress her emotions, with equal success. Finally she gave up and emitted an almighty burp.

When Lilia and Shannon walked in a half hour later, she was splayed on the office couch clutching her stomach.

“Murderesses,” she moaned.

“Well, if it isn't Little Mary Sunshine,” Shannon exclaimed in overly bright tones. “What's the matter, did you eat the whole dozen?”

“Five,” Lilia predicted. “She'd be kissing porcelain if she ate them all. And remember, five is her special number.”

“I hate you both,” said Jane with her eyes closed. “Even though I love you. Thanks.”

Shannon called from the kitchen. “No way! She ate
six
. She's getting over her five compulsion. Our Jane is blossoming.”

“Then these are appropriate,” said Lilia.

A
clonk
sounded in front of Jane—something being put on the coffee table. She reluctantly opened her eyes to see what it was.

Lilia stood there fluffing a flower arrangement. A silk one. Yellow roses.

Jane started to laugh. “You guys are the best.”

Lilia held up her hand, palm out. “Wait!” She handed Jane an elaborately wrapped package, tall and skinny with a monstrous shiny gold bow.

Jane's brows rose. “What is this, booze?” She pulled off the bow and tore at the paper, anticipating a nice liter of vodka. They'd make some cosmos right here in the office, she didn't care what time it was.

The box did not contain vodka. Instead it held a spray bottle of silk-plant cleaner.

Lilia smirked at her expression. “I just couldn't give you flowers without a way to dust them.”

For the second time that day Jane burst into tears, she couldn't say why. They stemmed from a weird gratitude—a thankfulness that Shannon and Lilia understood her and loved her in spite of her flaws. And maybe a little bit because of them.

As she, the CEO, sat there honking like a goose and leaking like a faucet, Shannon's arms came around her and Lilia stroked her hair. “It'll be okay, Jane. We're going to get to the bottom of all this. That witch obviously forged your report. And we think Dominic loves you almost as much as we do—otherwise he wouldn't be so mad.”