Chapter Four
My phone vibrated on my desk. Again.
And, once again, I ignored it.
I knew who it was without looking. Since the wedding Saturday night, Landen had been texting and calling me sporadically throughout the last two days.
And I’d ignored him each and every time.
I wasn’t trying to be petty or bitchy. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted to say to him. Even after two days, I still had no words. Every time I thought back to the kiss we shared that night, my brain scrambled and my cheeks felt hot. I also didn’t know what I wanted. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss him again or if I wanted him to leave me the hell alone.
In other words, I was confused as fuck.
I also didn’t know how in the heck he got my cell number. While I knew his from all the times I’d called him from the office to confirm or reschedule appointments, he shouldn’t have had mine. But he was also excellent with computers so it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he’d hacked into Chris’ computer and obtained it that way. I couldn’t say I knew Landen well, but I knew him well enough to understand how his mind worked when he wanted something. He put Chris to shame with his tenacity. And damn me, if I didn’t admire it. Just a little.
He wasn’t going to back off. He might not have the same head for business that Chris did, but he was damn good at designing software. I’d overheard Chris talking about how he would stay up for forty-eight hours straight if that’s what was necessary to fix all the bugs in a program. And that he never backed down from a challenge.
There was no doubt in my mind that he saw my withdrawal and my silence as a challenge. It might not be how I intended it, but that’s how he would perceive it.
Still, I wasn’t ready to talk to him. Not yet. I needed another day, maybe even two, to figure out how I felt. Then again, all my vacillating might be for naught if all he wanted to tell me was that the kiss had been a drunken mistake.
I had to be honest, at least with myself because I wasn’t ready to hear that either.
The office phone rang and I sighed, taking my hands off the keyboard. Though Chris was on his honeymoon and had offered me paid time off while he was gone, I hadn’t taken it. I didn’t have the money to go somewhere fun and sitting at home for a week straight would drive me nuts.
I reached out and snagged the handset.
“Barden Consulting.”
The line clicked and I stared at the phone with a frown on my face. I replaced the receiver with a shrug. Must have been a wrong number.
I reached for my coffee cup and took a sip, wincing at the taste of cold coffee. Glancing at the clock, I realized that I’d been working for longer than I thought. With a sigh, I got to my feet and headed into the small kitchen area.
Instead of making another cup of coffee, I decided to wash out the cup and call it a day. It was nearly five and I was getting hungry.
I heard the electronic ding of the exterior office door opening and frowned. I’d locked it when I came in because I was the only one in the office and there were no appointments scheduled for the day.
Fear trickled down my spine. A hang up call and now some unknown person was in the office. I watched enough Homicide Hunter to know this wasn’t good. My cell phone was still sitting out on my desk and there was no landline in the kitchenette. I grabbed the heavy coffee mug I’d just washed. It was huge and held sixteen ounces of coffee. It was also my favorite cup. Praying I didn’t have to break it over someone’s head, I silently kicked off my heels and crept forward. Before I’d taken two steps, a large male form filled the doorway. I’m ashamed to say I squealed like a small child and jumped backward at his abrupt appearance rather than swinging the mug as I intended. In fact, I dropped that heavy fucker right on my foot.
Yelping, I lifted my foot and grabbed it between both hands as I glared at Landen Weber.
“What in the hell?” I yelled. “You scared the snot out of me!”
Landen crouched down and lifted the coffee mug, looking from it to where I was hopping up and down on my good foot, still clutching my injured one. “What did you intend to do with this?” he asked, an arrogant tilt to his brow.
“Why don’t you hand it back to me and I’ll show you?” I gasped as I released my foot and hobbled over to the counter so I could lean against it as I took in my injury.
When he smirked, it took everything I had not to reach into the cabinet and throw one of the clean coffee mugs at him. He came over to me and set the cup out of my reach on the counter before hooking me under my armpits and lifting me up like a child.
I squealed again, clutching his shoulders, as he dropped my ass onto the cold granite countertop. The thin, flouncy skirt I wore did nothing to protect my ass and the backs of my thighs from the chilly stone.
“Listen up, Landen—” My angry tirade died in my throat as he knelt, gently grasped my ankle, and lifted my aching foot up onto his knee. When his thumb rubbed over the red spot, I hissed at the pain.
“Can you wiggle your toes?” he asked, pushing a bit harder on the spot.
I groaned but managed to move my toes. “I’ll be okay,” I stated. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”
He continued to rub the spot in progressively firmer strokes. After a few moments, the pain faded and a new sensation replaced it. Something dangerously akin to arousal. Okay, so it was arousal, but I pretended it wasn’t. I bit back another moan, this one for a completely different reason.
After a few seconds, his other fingers feathered across the bottom of my foot and my leg jerked.
He took my heel off his knee and stood, his eyes coming to my face. “You’re right, nothing’s broken, but you’re probably going to have one hell of a bruise.”
“Gee, where’d you go to medical school?” I asked.
Landen shook his head and came closer, his belly touching my knees. I watched him warily when I saw the look on his face. He no longer seemed concerned so much as pissed off.
Leaning forward, he propped his hands on the countertop on either side of my hips. “Why haven’t you been returning my calls?” he asked, going directly for the jugular.
Wary of the gleam in his eyes, I studied him before I answered. “I didn’t know it was you,” I lied.
Don’t ask me why I lied, I didn’t know. Well, yes I did. To answer him honestly would have given him the upper hand and I wasn’t prepared to do that right now. In addition to being addicted to a challenge, Landen was also wickedly intelligent. Winning an argument with him was damn near impossible, but that didn’t stop me from trying.
Unfortunately, he knew it. “Bullshit. You’ve called me enough to have my number memorized. You knew it was me.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Maybe I didn’t feel like talking to you, did you consider that?”
He stared at me for several long moments and I didn’t look away. I kept my eyes level on his. No way would I back down, not when he was this close to me. It felt too much like surrendering and I wasn’t willing to throw out the white flag just yet.
“No, I don’t think that’s the problem either,” he murmured. His voice was soft, as though he was talking to himself rather than to me. “I think you’re off balance and you don’t know how to deal with me. You can’t place me in a neat little box.”
I fought to keep my expression the same at his words. He was both right and wrong. I didn’t know how to deal with him. Or a man like him at least. Then there was the fact that we couldn’t get along. He was domineering and arrogant. I might admire his confidence in the professional world but I didn’t want to date someone who would take it for granted that I would do whatever he said. Because I wouldn’t.
I might let things slide in the office. Okay, so sometimes I let things slide in the office because I didn’t want Chris to feel obligated to fire me, though I still enjoyed giving Landen a hard time.
But in romantic relationships, I wanted something different. I wanted a partner. Someone who wouldn’t treat me as though I were an employee but an equal. I had a hunch that Landen wouldn’t know how to treat me as an equal. Not just because of his arrogance but his intellect. The man was smarter than anyone I’d ever met, including my boss, Chris, who was no slouch when it came to brains.
I’d barely made it through business school. I understood the principles and concepts, but I still struggled the entire time. I didn’t retain information the way Landen and Chris did.
Oh, and he was a freaking client. That had to be a no-no, even if it wasn’t in the employee handbook. Ethics and all.
There were too many reasons to think that getting involved with him was a bad idea, no matter how attractive I found him.
“Earth to Chelsea,” Landen drawled.
I realized that I’d been staring into his dark blue eyes with an unfocused gaze for an indeterminate amount of time. “What?”
He smirked at me and leaned forward. I sucked in a sharp breath as his lips barely touched mine, suddenly very aware of how thin my skirt was and how close his body was to mine.
Then he pulled away and said, “Are you hungry?”
I shook my head but my stomach awoke at the question of food and growled loudly. I felt the heat rise up my neck and into my cheeks and I scowled.
Landen just laughed and grabbed my waist, lifting me off the counter. I didn’t squeal this time, though it was a near thing, and grabbed onto his shoulders to keep my balance as he set me on my feet.
I wobbled when I put down my sore foot and realized my shoes were still on the floor next to him. Before I could say a word, he crouched down before me and grasped my ankle. I kept my hands on his shoulders for balance as he slid my shoes back on, one at a time. Then my stomach turned a somersault as he trailed the tips of his fingers up the back of my calf and prayed I hadn’t missed any spots shaving that morning.
When he rose, my breathing wasn’t entirely steady and I could feel the flush still heating my face.
He studied me in silence for a protracted moment before he reached up and took my hand off his shoulder. “Let’s get dinner.”
Landen tugged me along behind him out of the kitchen and over to my desk. He perched on the edge as I shut down my computer and removed my purse from the bottom drawer. I slipped the strap over my head so the bag lay across my body.
He picked up the picture frame I kept next to the pencil cup and stared at the picture as though he were trying to figure out a puzzle. It was a photo of five of us at Lucy’s first photography showing here in Dallas last year. Lucy was in the middle, flanked by Tanya, Yancy, Grier, and me. We all had our arms around each other and wide, bright smiles on our faces. Well, they were all smiling. I had my head tilted back as I laughed. I remembered it was because Marcus had cracked a joke. I couldn’t remember what he’d said, but Lucy’s ex-boss, a world-renowned photographer, was hilarious. And very sexy. He wasn’t necessarily my type, but I could appreciate the gifts nature had given him.
“Landen, about what happened this weekend at the wedding—” I began. His head snapped up and he placed the frame back on my desk. Something about his posture gave me pause but I steeled myself and continued, “We both had a little too much to drink and got carried away. I don’t think it would be smart to read anything more into it than that.”
My body tensed when he got to his feet in a fluid motion and stalked toward me. All thoughts of standing my ground scattered as he closed in on me. Self-preservation kicked in and I retreated until my back hit the wall behind me.
Landen’s hands came up and pressed to the wall on each side of my head and he leaned in, crowding me until our bodies were less than an inch apart. “You mean it was just a fluke, that if I kissed you right now you wouldn’t open your mouth for me and try to yank my hair out by the roots like you did Saturday?”
I frowned at him. He was right, I had done both of those things on Saturday, but as I feared, he was taking it for granted.
I placed my hands on his chest and shoved. He moved back an inch but that was all. He still loomed over me like a dark, sexy, angry cloud. “And that right there is exactly why I don’t want to get involved with you. You kissed me and I kissed you back. It’s not a big deal. If I don’t want to go any further than that, it’s my prerogative. Just because I find you attractive does not mean that I’m going to ignore my common sense.”
“And what does your common sense say?” he asked, his voice dark and dangerous.
“That this is a bad idea,” I retorted. “If we ignore the reality that you’re one of Chris’ clients, then there’s the fact that we argue every time we see each other and there are times you get on my last damn nerve because you’re so high-handed. I don’t see us making it past one date.”
His head cocked to the side and his hand moved from the wall to my face, cupping my cheek. His eyes dropped to my mouth and his thumb trailed across my bottom lip in a soft caress. “We argue because I like arguing with you. And you like arguing with me. If you didn’t, you’d just freeze me out the way you do everyone else who gets on your nerves.”
How in the hell did he know me so well? I didn’t share personal details with him when he came to the office. And most of our conversations revolved around bickering. Clearly, he observed me more than I thought. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I merely stared up at him with narrowed eyes.
Finally, he sighed and smiled slightly. “Fine, you said we wouldn’t make it past one date, right?”
I nodded slowly, a sinking feeling in my chest at where that question was most likely leading.
“Then let me take you to dinner right now, tonight, and put that to the test.”
My eyes squinted more. “But you can’t be on your best behavior,” I stated. “You have to be yourself and not act differently because you want to win.”
He chuckled. “I’m always myself.” His hand moved from my cheek and he tapped my nose with the tip of his index finger. “And you’ll be your usual feisty self, I take it? Or do you intend to act like a brat just to test me.”
I wasn’t sure it was possible to squint and lift your eyebrows at the same time, but I managed it. “Of course not. I’ll behave as I usually do when you’re around.”
With my agreement, he pushed away from me, putting a foot of space between us. “Then let’s go have dinner.”
Without waiting for my agreement, he took my hand and pulled me toward the door of the office.
As I turned off the lights and locked the door, I suppressed the urge to laugh. There was no way we would get through appetizers without our conversation devolving into a heated argument. No way at all.