LITMIR.BIZ

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she picked up the phone again and dialed Trace’s room. He answered gruffly, as if she’d interrupted something important.

      “Are you ready?” she asked, keeping her tone neutral despite the fact that just his voice was enough to provoke all kinds of inappropriate responses.

      “I’ll be in the lobby in five minutes.” He hung up, not bothering to say goodbye.

      She put the phone back in the cradle, and dropped her head to her hand. Why did she let him get to her like this? Every time she saw him, her thoughts went directly to sex without passing Go or collecting two hundred dollars. It was downright Pavlovian, and worse, it made her feel like a fool.

      She stood up, pushing back her chair. She would not think of sex with Trace, not in any context. Too many memories there, too much history. What she needed to remember was how he’d rejected her, how her heart had been crushed.

      She turned off her computer and headed to the hallway. With every step, she took a deep breath, picturing herself confident, uncaring, cool as a cucumber. All she had to do was show Trace the hotel. Once he saw it for himself, he’d get it. He’d see that it wasn’t sleazy in the least. Then he’d tell her father, and everything would be fine. It would.

      She rode the elevator up to the lobby, and when the doors opened, there he was. He was staring at the painting at the end of the hallway, his hands in his pockets, the picture of debonair. She might hate him, but she couldn’t deny that his particular combination of looks, style and chemistry was her Achilles’ heel.

      One last deep breath and she stepped to his side. “I thought we’d start at the top and work our way down.” Without waiting for a response, she led him back to the elevator, and put her key card in the slot above the floor buttons. This particular card would give them access to the roof. She had another that would take her to the penthouse suites.

      The doors closed and the only sound in the cab was the soft music playing from the speakers. It was Norah Jones, and Piper focused on the lyrics instead of the man standing so close to her. The long seconds ticked by accompanied by a solo guitar and the briefest hint of his cologne. She kept her expression neutral, her back straight, even when she saw the reflection of his eyes staring back at her.

      She blinked first, looking at the elevator’s progress as it went from the sixteenth floor to the seventeenth. Only a few more seconds and they’d be on the roof, and then it would be easier.

      When they finally reached their destination, she held back a sigh, and simply led him outside. “This is the garden,” she said. “Mostly flowers, but some vegetables that they use in the restaurant.”

      Trace took in the whole of the expanse in front of him, surprised at the size of the garden and how lush it was with a riot of colorful blooms. It was beautiful and calming, with scattered benches and standing fountains.

      He remembered this building. A prime piece of real estate, most of Piper’s trust fund had gone to acquiring the space. It had been nondescript. A bunch of offices with a coffee shop and a dry cleaner, and something else he couldn’t remember on the ground floor. There was nothing nondescript about it now.

      “In the winter, this whole area becomes a greenhouse, so the guests can still come up here and get away from it all.” She headed to her right, pointing out the retractable roof. “The pool, which I’ll show you next, has the same kind of roof, which we can put up during undesirable weather. But during the summer and spring, we’re going to keep it open.”

      He followed her down a short flight of stairs to the indoor pool, which was much longer than it was wide, Olympic-size, he thought. The floor was tiled gray and there were chrome sconces at wide intervals on the white walls. Next to the pool was a large Jacuzzi tub, and there were white lounge chairs and round tables lined up ready for bathers. On the far wall was a bar, not staffed at the moment, but it appeared to be fully stocked.

      “Those are the locker rooms,” Piper said, leading him toward two doors next to the bar. She walked ahead of him, sorting through some keys.

      Trace let his gaze move down her body, captured by the sway of her hips. He preferred her in skirts, but this was a close second. He couldn’t keep his eyes lowered, however, not with the temptation of that incredible behind right in front of him. Goddamn, it was enticing. It was nuts, how much he wanted her when he didn’t even like her all that much. Yeah, she was fun, but so was golf.

      He forced his head up, his thoughts away from temptation. He had no business thinking about her ass, or any other part of her. She was a job, that’s all. Piper was enough trouble with her clothes on.

      She opened the men’s locker-room door, and he followed her into the small but efficient space. It reminded him of a lesser version of the changing room at his gym, fully equipped and ready to go. “Do you have a workout room?”

      She nodded as she walked him past the showers. “It’s on the fourth floor. I’ll show it to you later.”

      “Great.”

      “The only thing left on the roof is the library,” she said. “It’s right through here.”

      She led him into a lushly decorated space that had the same domed, Plexiglas ceiling as the pool area. Only there was a coziness that took him by surprise. The wall that separated them from the lockers had a large fireplace in the center, and it looked to him as if it burned real wood. Looking up, he saw the chimney, which, oddly, seemed to fit with the other high-tech materials. There were cream-colored couches, each equipped with soft pillows, reading lamps and footstools. Rich carpeting covered the floor, and as the name implied, there were shelves of books throughout the room.

      As he wandered, he spotted small groupings of chairs, coffee tables, chaise lounges, magazine racks. The bar at the pool was open in here, too, although there was a separation where the wall met.

      “That’s to keep out the noise,” she said. “It’s very quiet in here, and even though the sound system is wired throughout the entire roof, each space is divided to create the perfect environment.”

      Trace nodded. “So what? People come up here to screw during poetry readings?”

      Piper’s jaw tightened. “Yeah, that’s it. We were just going to call it the Orgy Room, but we thought that might be a bit much.” She walked quickly back to the elevator, and when they were both inside, she pushed the button to the nineteenth floor with more force than was necessary.

      Trace relaxed, resting his shoulder against the steel of the cab. She’d faced front which gave him the chance to look at her, to note the tension in her shoulders. Even that expensive suit of hers couldn’t hide her frustration. He liked her this way. On edge, on the defensive. He could control things better this way. When Piper was angry, she let things slip. Besides, there was nothing more satisfying than seeing that fire light up her eyes.

      He wished he could see them now, even though he knew them as well as his own. They were a startling blue that most people thought were colored by contact lenses. Large, perceptive eyes with thick, dark lashes. Eyes that were made infinitely more beautiful when lit by passion or pain.

      He’d been hypnotized by them more than once. Even when she couldn’t find the right sharp words, her gaze could tease him to the brink of madness.

      He wasn’t about to get tangled up in blue eyes. Like those who’d been turned to stone by Medusa, he’d learned it was better not to look.

      The elevator stopped, and he stepped into the cool hallway.

      “These are the penthouse suites,” Piper said, heading to the left.

      “What are you charging?”

      “Five thousand a night.”

      “And the lower suites?”

      “Twenty-five hundred.”

      From what he knew about Manhattan hotels, she was in the right ballpark. It would be interesting to see what was behind the penthouse doors.

      She didn’t make

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