Page 13 of Business Temptations

She paused, tilting her head slightly. “Is that the problem?”

He stood up abruptly and moved over to the bottle of scotch she kept in the cabinet just for him. Pouring himself a large dose, he contemplated how to answer her. He knew that, despite her lack of attraction to various men, she was still frustrated by her lack of dating. “Being a strong woman is not the problem, Bailey,” he told her firmly, irritated that she didn’t already know this.

Bailey stared at him for a long moment, obviously debating his comment. Finally, she said, “I know that being strong isn’t a problem. I was just asking if…well, if the reason more eligible men don’t ask me out is because I’m intimidating.”

He shrugged, allowing his eyes to move over her soft, feminine figure. She was perfect, maldita sea! However, he kept his expression blank as he affirmed, “Probably.”

Her lips twisted with that revelation and she sighed, pushing away from the counter. “Right. Well, I guess we’d better go through some of the issues I came across earlier today. You’re going to need to be involved in some of the negotiations.”

“Why? I thought you wanted to handle all of the negotiations after last year when I–”

She lifted a hand, stopping his recitation of the time he snapped at the lawyers on the opposing side of the negotiating table. “No, trust me. I don’t want to go through that whole debacle again. You’re brutally ruthless, which has driven our massive expansion into markets I hadn’t even dreamed we’d be able to conquer. However, this issue might need a softer touch.”

He grunted, but didn’t argue with her. “So then, why do you need me in the conference room with you next time?”

“Because Bernie Macelvoy asked to speak with me about sending more product to his stores. I told him no initially.”

“Good. We’re not doing business with Macelvoy,” he replied firmly, his eyes hardening with anger.

Bailey shifted on her feet as she closed the dishwasher and turned it on to clean overnight. “I know that we had some…trouble with him during an event last year, but–”

Matteo shook his head. “That wasn’t trouble, Bailey. He sexually harassed you. He cornered you, touched you inappropriately, then he spoke to you in an insulting and offensive manner and kept on doing it even after you told him to stop. He completely disrespected you and your role in our business.”

“Yes, but…”

Matteo refused to allow her to excuse the man’s behavior. Bracing his arms wide on the countertop, he frowned at her. “Bailey, if he treats you like that, and you’re the president of the company, then how do you think he treats the other women in our company? Or his own company? He has more power over them, which means that he will put them in danger. We cannot do business with men like that. It only empowers them to treat others with the same lack of respect. And most people don’t have the resources that you enjoy. The man abuses whomever he can. Doing business with him is not something we should allow.”

Her jaw clenched and she nodded agreement, her eyes hardening at the truth in his statement. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.” She lifted her chin and nodded. “He called earlier and was very apologetic, which is the only reason I took his call and considered reopening negotiations.” She picked up her wine and led Matteo into the living room where they had both left piles of paperwork. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. Sometimes…” She knew that Matteo was very clear about not doing business with bullies. He’d grown up with two of them. His father had been a brutal, merciless bully to Matteo, then the ass had shipped Matteo off to boarding school where another bully, the headmaster, had taken over.

Bailey shook her head and looked up at him. “I’m sorry and you’re right.”

He pulled her into his arms, holding her for a brief moment. But Matteo didn’t allow himself to hold her for very long. The sensation of holding her soft curves against his body was…both heaven and hell.

“Thank you,” she whispered and he felt the vibrations of her soft voice against his skin. “Thanks for being the voice of reason. Sometimes, I get a bit…”

“Soft,” he filled in for her and pulled back. Looking down at Bailey, he shook his head. “You trust people too easily. You want to see the best in everyone.”

“Not true!” she argued and stepped backwards.

He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked an eyebrow at her. “Remember the day that Miles Burnett…?”

“We don’t speak that man’s name anymore!” she hissed, glaring up at him with her finger pointing towards his chest.

He chuckled as they walked over to the sofa and sat down to review documents. “Fine. What about that time you gave money to that politician, only to find out that he had a history of sexual abuse?” he challenged.

“Yeah, that was stupid of me.” She sighed and lifted her tote bag onto her lap, already pulling files out. “However, in my defense, I really wanted to believe in that politician. I wanted to think that he was a good person.”

Matteo picked up her glass of wine and took a sip, then set it back down beside her elbow. “He was a politician, Bailey,” he replied, grabbing his own work, a contract that needed fixing. “Politicians aren’t trustworthy.” He started marking through some of the clauses on the contract.

She laughed, nodding her head. “I know, I know!” For the next two hours, they bantered back and forth while each of them worked on business issues. Finally, Bailey could no longer see the words on the document and she closed the file she’d been working on with a sigh.

“I’m done,” she announced and stood up, taking her now-empty wine glass back to the kitchen. “You still have more to do?”

He nodded, absorbed in the document he was reviewing. “I’ll just be a few more minutes,” he said.

Bailey walked into the kitchen, rinsed their glasses, and put them into the sink since the dishwasher was still running. Then she stared out through the window at the night sky wondering why she felt so…”off” tonight. With a sigh of irritation, Bailey headed back through the large living room of her penthouse condo. With a glance, she noticed that Matteo was still concentrating and she smiled. There was no man as dedicated to the success of a business than Matteo. And she lo…respected him intensely for his dedication, but not so much his ability to thrive on only four or five hours of sleep. Nope, she envied that!

Walking into her bedroom, she cleaned off her makeup and stripped off her dress, hanging it in the closet for her housekeeper to take to the drycleaners. She pulled out a nightgown and slipped the satin over her head, enjoying the way it slid down over her curves.

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