LITMIR.BIZ

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words against you.”

      “Good.”

      She stepped into the elevator and punched the button for her floor. Ignoring the older man entering right behind her, she said, “Fine, fine. You’re right. But, Debbie, when he kissed me, he—” She stopped, glared at the man listening with avid interest and lowered her voice. “I swear, I felt something from him. Something real. Something …”

      “Hard and horny?” Debbie provided.

      Caitlyn’s head smacked against the wall of the elevator. She didn’t want to believe her friend. Didn’t want to think that Jefferson could kiss her like that and feel nothing but a physical response. But then again, this was the man People magazine had called one of the most eligible bachelors in the country last year.

      And not only had Jefferson had the damn article framed, he’d made a vow to be on that list every year for the next twenty years. This was not a man who wanted to end his days of solitude. He wasn’t looking for a permanent relationship. And if he were, he wouldn’t be looking at Caitlyn.

      His kind of man wasn’t interested in women like her. He went for the models, the actresses, the blue-blooded East Coast beauties.

      If he was making a play for an admin from Long Beach, there had to be a reason.

      The elevator pinged and the doors opened slowly. She stepped out, said goodbye to Debbie and walked down the hall to her room. If she was a little disappointed by the realization that there was nothing real between her and Jefferson, she’d get over it. It’s not as if she had really believed everything he’d said to her. Not that she’d actually toyed with the idea of something real between them.

      Okay, fine, she thought with a disgusted sigh. So she’d done a little bit of toying.

      She swiped her key card, pushed the suite door open and paused when she heard Jefferson’s voice saying her name.

      “Caitlyn is falling right into line,” he said, clearly on the phone. “I’m telling you, Jason, it’s going to work.”

      Falling right into line? Caitlyn scowled and focused on what else he was saying to Jason. The younger of the Lyon brothers, Jason had turned his back on the company his grandfather had founded and gone into medicine. Now he was an emergency-room doctor outside Seattle.

      “You don’t understand, that’s all,” Jefferson was saying. “I know what I’m doing.”

      And just what exactly was he doing?

      Caitlyn glanced down the long hallway to make sure no one could see her hovering outside her own room, eavesdropping. Assured the coast was clear, she frowned again, leaned in and listened to every word.

      “I’m telling you she’s ready for it. I know what you said, and if I had the time, maybe I wouldn’t be doing it this way. But, damn it, Jas, I need her at work. She knows the specifics on every deal we’ve got coming up in the next six months. I don’t have time to train someone else.”

      He paused and Caitlyn’s hand tightened on the doorknob. She gritted her teeth to keep from hissing.

      “The seduction of Caitlyn is moving along great. I should have her back to work within a week or two.”

      She narrowed her eyes on the door as if she could stare right through it and bore a hole through Jefferson’s thick head. That’s what he’d been up to all along, she thought. Seducing her, romancing her, all to get her back to work for him.

      “I know what I’m doing,” he said, his voice dropping low enough it was hard for Caitlyn to hear over the pounding of her own heartbeat. “I get her into bed, get her home to Long Beach, then I act like a bastard and get her to break up with me. Then she’ll feel so bad about dumping me, she won’t have the heart to quit working for me, too.”

      Her jaw dropped and her eyes narrowed. Unbelievable. Did he really think she was that stupid? That malleable?

      “It is not a stupid plan,” he argued.

      Thank you, Jason, she thought furiously.

      “I don’t have stupid plans. And, little brother, you know as well as I do that when my mind’s made up on something, I never lose.”

      Until this time, Caitlyn vowed. This time he would lose. This time the world wasn’t going to spin just the way Jefferson Lyon expected it to. She’d twist his idiotic plan around until she had strangled him with it.

      Of all the nerve.

      Of all the arrogant, self-serving … She just didn’t have enough insulting adjectives to fit him!

      “Right. I’d better go. Going to talk her into an early dinner, then a moonlight swim. Trust me, Jas, she’ll go for it.”

      Caitlyn’s hand fisted around the strap of her purse so tightly she wouldn’t have been surprised to see the leather fused to her skin. But she took a deep breath, eased the door closed and winced as the lock snicked into place.

      Then, making plenty of noise, she slid her key card through again and pushed the door open.

      He was standing beside the closet and turned a wicked thousand-watt smile on her. If Caitlyn hadn’t heard that little phone conversation between him and his brother, chances were her knees would have been melting again.

      As it was, everything in her was cold and still.

      Well, except for the seething rage.

      “There you are,” he said, drawing her into the room and taking her purse and packages from her. “I was about to send a search party to the village.”

      “Oh, you were worried?”

      He stepped closer, ran his fingers up and down her arm and then brought her hand up to his lips. Planting a kiss on her fingers, he looked deeply into her eyes and asked, “What do you think?”

      Wouldn’t she love to tell him exactly what she was thinking? Wouldn’t she love to turn him out on his ear? Make him sleep in a pool chair or something, as Janine had suggested earlier in the week. She’d love to see surprise on his face when she called him on his plan. She’d love to see him try to talk his way out of what she’d heard.

      But as satisfying as all that sounded, she had a better idea. He had a plan to seduce her? Well, two could play at that game. She was going to turn all of this around on him. Caitlyn was going to seduce him. She was going to go along with his scheme, let him think he was winning and then, just when he was flushed and pleased with himself … she’d dump his fine ass and quit.

      Again.

      And there was no time like the present to start. Swallowing the fury still choking her, Caitlyn pulled her hand free of his and forced a shy, sweet smile.

      “Didn’t mean to worry you,” she said, and turned, scowling, to pick up her packages. When she faced him again, that smile was in place and her voice was even, soft. “I thought, if you wanted to, we could have an early dinner. Maybe take a swim?”

      His eyes narrowed and she wondered if maybe she’d played her hand too quickly. But then his expression smoothed out and he was giving her that knock-’em-dead smile of his. “Exactly what I was thinking just a minute ago.”

      “Isn’t that a coincidence?” she said, and only mentally added, You are so busted, Jefferson. And you’re going to be so sorry you messed with me.

      At the door to the bathroom, she paused and looked at him. “I’m going to take a shower, get ready. Won’t take me long.”

      “Great. I’ll just make a few phone calls while I wait.”

      She nodded and closed the bathroom door. Leaning back against it, she wondered if he’d call Jason back. Tell him that the plan was working. Tell him that good ole Caitlyn was, as he had put it, falling right into line.

      Caitlyn dropped the bags onto the white-tiled

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