LITMIR.BIZ

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to the bone without seeming defensive.

      Sadly nothing came to mind. So she left it at the nod.

      “You look …” Then he hesitated, apparently unsure which adjective best described her.

      “I believe ‘well’ is usually how one finishes that sentence.” Oh, God. Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut?

      “That’s not what I was going to say.”

      “Well, you seem to be having trouble finishing the sentence,” she supplied. “Since I’m sure I look just fine and since I’d much rather get this over with than stand around exchanging pleasantries, I thought I’d move things along.”

      He raised his eyebrows as if taken aback by her tone. “You aren’t curious why I’m here?”

      That teasing tone stirred memories best left buried in the recesses of her mind. Unfortunately, those pesky memories rose up to swallow her whole, like a tsunami.

      As if it were yesterday instead of two months or more, she remembered what it had felt like to be held in his arms. Cradled close to his body as they swayed gently back and forth on the dance floor. The way he’d smelled, musky yet clean against the sensory backdrop of stale smoke and spilled beer. The way her body had thrummed to life beneath his touch. The way she’d quivered. The way she’d come.

      She thrust aside the memories, praying he wouldn’t notice that her breath had quickened. Thankful he couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart or see the hardening of her nipples.

      Hiding her discomfort behind a display of boredom, she toyed with the papers on the table where she’d been sitting. She couldn’t stand to look at him, so she pretended to read through them as she said, “I know why you’re here. You came here to take control of Biedermann’s.” Thank God her voice didn’t crack as she spoke. It felt as if her heart did, but that at least she could hide. For the first time since he walked into the room, she met his gaze. “You can’t honestly expect me to welcome you. You’re stealing the company I was born to raise.”

      His expression hardened. “I’m not stealing anything. FMJ is providing your failing company with some much-needed cash. We’re here to keep you in business.”

      “Oh, really. How generous of you.” She buried all her trepidation beneath a veneer of sarcasm. As she always did. It was so much easier that way. “Since that’s the case, why don’t you just write out a nice hefty check and leave it on the table on your way out. I’ll call you in a decade or so to let you know if it helped.”

      “A big, fat check might help if all you needed was an infusion of cash. But the truth is, Biedermann’s needs a firm hand at the helm and you can’t have one without the other. You know that’s not how this works.”

      His words might have been easier to swallow if he’d sounded apologetic instead of annoyed. No, wait … there wasn’t really any way that anything he said could be easier to swallow.

      “No. Of course that’s not how it works. You’ll go over the company with a fine-toothed comb. You’ll tear it apart, throw out the parts you don’t like and hand the rest back in pieces. In the end, everything my family’s worked for for five generations will be gone. All so you can turn a quick profit.”

      “Tell me something. Is that really what’s bothering you?”

      Of course it wasn’t what was really bothering her. What was really bothering her was that he was here at all. Her safe, what-the-hell-I’m-stuck-in-Texas fling hadn’t stayed where it was supposed to. In Texas. What was the point of having a fling with a stranger if the man ended up not being a stranger at all?

      But she couldn’t say that aloud. Especially given the way he was looking at her. With his expression so intense, so sexual, so completely unprofessional, it sent a wave of pure shock through her system.

      “W-what do you mean?”

      “Come on, Kitty. This anger you’re clinging to isn’t about Biedermann’s at all. This is about what happened in Texas.”

      She quickly buried her shock beneath a veneer of disdain. “Texas. I’m surprised you’d have the guts to bring that up.”

      “You are?”

      “Of course.” She strolled to the other side of the conference table. “I’d think you would be the last person to want to hash that over. But since you brought it up, maybe you can answer a question for me. Was anything you told me true or was it all pretense?”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “You know. That whole charade you put on to pick me up back in Texas. That aw-shucks, I’m just a simple cowboy trying to make a living act.”

      “I never said I was a cowboy.”

      “No. But you had to know that’s what I thought.”

      “How exactly was I supposed to know that?” His facade of easy charm slipped for a moment and he plowed a hand through his hair in frustration. He sucked in a breath and pointed out in a slightly calmer tone, “You weren’t exactly forthcoming about who you were, either.”

      “I did nothing wrong.” True, she hadn’t exactly presented him with her pedigree when they’d first met, but surely it didn’t take a genius to see she didn’t fit in at that bar. If there had been an obvious clue he didn’t, either, she’d missed it entirely. She refused to let him paint himself the victim. “I don’t have anything to apologize for. I’m not the one who pretended to be some down on his luck cowboy.”

      “No, you’re just the one who gave me a fake phone number instead of admitting you didn’t want to see me again.”

      “If you knew I didn’t want to see you again,” she asked, “then why did you go to the trouble of hunting me down?”

      “I didn’t hunt you down. What happened in Texas has nothing to do with FMJ’s offer.”

      “Then how exactly did the offer come about anyway?” she asked. “If you didn’t go back to work and say, ‘Wow, that Kitty Biedermann must be really dumb to have fallen for my tired old lines. I bet we could just swoop in and buy that company right from under her.’”

      His gaze narrowed to a glare. “You know that’s not how it happened.”

      “Really? How would I know that? What do I really know about you other than the fact that you’re willing to misrepresent yourself to get a woman into bed with you?”

      “I never lied to you. Not once. And despite the fact that you’re acting like a brat, I won’t start now.”

      “Maybe you didn’t lie outright, but you certainly misled me. Of course, maybe that’s the only way you can get a woman into bed.”

      Ford just smiled. “You don’t believe that. The sex was great.” He closed in on her, getting right in her face as if daring her to disagree.

      God, she wanted to. That would serve him right.

      But when she opened her mouth, she found the denial trapped inside her. Between the intensity of his eyes and the memories suddenly flooding her, she just couldn’t muster up the lie.

      Instead she said the only thing that popped into her mind. “You can’t convince me that FMJ is prepared to buy Biedermann’s solely so you can get laid.”

      He grinned wolfishly. “Boy, you think highly of yourself.”

      “You were the one who brought up sex,” she pointed out.

      “You didn’t let me finish. I was going to close with the suggestion that we both try to forget it happened.”

      “Oh, I won’t have any trouble with that,” she lied easily, barely even cringing as she waited for the bolt of lightning to strike her down.

      “Excellent.” He bit off the word. “Then you agree from here on

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