Page 54 of Hard Deal

“I had to dig them out. I keep a pair for funerals.” As he said it, he realised how ridiculous it sounded. He was going to an interview in funeral socks and a borrowed tie that was basically a cure for insomnia.

“You’re serious?” She shook her head, the light bouncing off the fine gold hairs framing her face like a halo.

“What? Black is entirely professional. Seems to be a mainstay in your wardrobe, though I’m a big fan of the red.”

“You are?”

“Fuck yeah. You look...” He swallowed. “Luminous.”

“Thanks,” she said with a shy smile. It was like watching the compliment warm her from the inside out. “It would be a terrible idea for you to go for an interview in such boring socks.”

“How so?”

“It’s false advertising.” She cocked her head. “They’ll be expecting a serious, upstanding gentleman who will toe the company line and play buzzword bingo every day.”

“And what are they really getting, huh?” He leaned against the dining table, crossing his legs at the ankles. The relaxed pose hid the tension and anticipation roiling inside him.

We’ve been over this already. Her opinion of you is based on what you’ve presented her—and it isn’t good.

But then why was she here? Why not wait until they were back in the office to come and see him. She could have easily given him the “good luck” present earlier that day. He’d seen her walking toward his office then making an about-face at the last minute.

“They’re getting someone vibrant and interesting and creative. Someone who’s ready to stop living in the shadows and make their own success.” She took a step toward him. “Someone who’s smart and sexy and has a lot to say.”

“You calling me a big mouth?” He suppressed a smile.

“What I’m trying to say—and doing a crappy job of it—is that you should go in there being you. Because who you are is pretty freaking great.” Her eyes dropped to the floor and her shoulders rose and fell with deep breaths. “I know we haven’t done things the conventional way and when I left here the other day I told myself I wouldn’t be back...”

“Then why are you here?”

“I couldn’t stay away.” Her voice trembled as she looked back up. “And I realised that you’d only ever seen me in granny knickers.”

“What?” he growled.

For once his mind hadn’t moved past her outer layer of clothing. The red dress was enough to keep the imagination whirring—how it clung to her rounded hips and exposed the delicate shadow of her cleavage in a way that told him she most definitely wasn’t wearing a bra. But now all he could think about was what she had on underneath.

“You know, I wore them that first night as a deterrent,” she said. She bent down to undo the buckles on her sandals, giving him a fine view in the process. Her hair slipped over her shoulders and she craned her head up, the sharp angle making her olive green eyes look wide and round. “I told myself that if I put on those hideous things there was no way I’d let you get under my dress. That the potential embarrassment would keep me from letting you get too close.”

She slipped the strap through the buckle and stepped her bare foot onto the floor. Then she started on the second one.

“I told myself that it would be a terrible idea to get involved with you at all. That the date was only part of the deal because you were trying to get some kind of hold over me. Because you wanted the woman who said no.”

She stepped out of the second sandal and gently nudged them to the side with her foot. Without shoes, she was more than a head shorter than him but her presence filled the room as though she were eight feet tall. He’d never seen her like this before—shining and radiating emotion. Raw and vulnerable...and owning it.

“I told myself it was a game for you. A challenge. Just to see if you could do it.” She slipped one of the straps over her bare shoulder. The slide of satin over skin was like an electric shock, it vibrated through Caleb’s body—stealing his breath, halting his heart. Tightening and hardening and tensing him. She slipped the other strap down. “That maybe you were laughing at me on the inside.”

“I was never laughing at you, Imogen. Only with you.”

His brain wanted to shut this down—tell her to stop. There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be able to think straight once she shimmied out of that dress. But there was more to this than baring skin. She was baring her soul to him. Stripping back everything that she used to hide herself away.

“The second you took me up those stairs I knew I had underestimated you.” She reached behind herself, her chest thrusting out as the sound of a zipper being lowered sliced through the air. “I had seriously underestimated you.”

“How?”

“Because in a room full of people you made me feel like I was the only one there.”

The dress sagged and she let the material slip down her body like a caress. Her breasts were bare, her nipples pink and pointed. The world’s tiniest scrap of red lace covered her sex. It was studded with stones that winked at him, taunting him.

“To me, you were the only one.” His hands twitched by his sides. But he couldn’t reach out to her—not yet. Sure, it filled him with pride to know he’d rocked her world, made her feel special, but what he wanted from Imogen wasn’t limited to the physical. He wanted more. “I wasn’t proud that I had to resort to blackmailing you for a date.”

---