“Delivery for…”
“No!” Quinn growled as she spun around in her chair. She ignored the startled look of the delivery guy as well as the chuckles of her co-workers. “Take it back,” she told the delivery guy firmly. “I won’t accept it.”
The young man’s mouth fell open and he stared for a long moment. Quinn stared right back at the man, tapping her foot impatiently before he finally shook himself out of his stupor. When he looked down at his clipboard, she could see the blush appearing on his neck and took pity on the man.
“Look, I’m sure that you’re a nice guy and my anger isn’t directed toward you.” The blush just got worse and she wasn’t sure what to do about the poor man. “But I’m not going to accept this delivery.”
He cleared his throat and used his pen to point toward the clipboard. “The instructions are to leave it here even if you refuse delivery.” The poor man’s voice cracked under the strain.
Quinn sighed, rubbing her forehead. She’d been avoiding the man in question for the past three days, but he was relentless. It seemed like she received a delivery every hour. Flowers, clothes, small trinkets…the man was embarrassing her!
“Fine! Just leave it here!”
She even signed for the stupid delivery, feeling bad for the delivery guy. It wasn’t his fault that his company had been hired by the most annoying, obnoxious man in the world!
So what if she dreamed about him making love to her every time she closed her eyes? So what if she woke up in the morning with the sheets twisted around her legs, the pillows pushed off of the bed, her heart racing and was barely able to catch her breath?
He was tormenting her! He was taunting her!
She signed the clipboard and handed the pen back to the delivery man, who nodded his thanks before rushing out of the building as fast as he could, even tripping over the trash can in his efforts to get away.
Quinn felt horrible, but then her fingers tightened on the box, reminding her that Bryce Steele was seriously trying to undermine her.
She wasn’t going to give in. No way! He was just being rude and ridiculous, sending her so many gifts.
“Aren’t you going to open this one?” Suzy asked, one of her co-workers. Suzy stood by Quinn’s desk but everyone had stopped working. Even the clients were waiting, hoping to find out what was inside the box.
Quinn looked down at the box in her hands, trying to ignore her curiosity. “No. I don’t want to know.”
“Seriously?” Suzy asked, shocked and dumbfounded. “You get the most gorgeous stuff! And you’re not wearing that watch he sent the other day. Why not?”
Quinn shook her head, rubbing her forehead as the strain of avoiding the man hit her hard. “I can’t accept the watch.”
There was a long silence before Suzy finally asked what everyone else was thinking. “You can’t accept it? It is beautiful! I know you loved it. Why are you talking so crazy?”
Quinn slumped in her chair. It had been a beautiful watch. More lovely than anything she’d ever seen. But she’d looked it up online that night and realized that it was a ten thousand dollar watch! No way could she tell anyone here that Bryce Steele had sent her a ten thousand dollar gift!
Impatiently, she glared at the room, trying to resist the curious stares and amused expressions since everyone knew that there was something going on between herself and the enemy. “Can’t you see what he’s doing?”
Suzy and Mike shrugged. Mike had the desk right next to hers and he just laughed. “Buying a beautiful woman gifts isn’t a crime.”
“It is when he’s the enemy.”
Suzy shook her head. “Yeah, but the flowers are nice.”
“I can’t accept the gifts. I’m fighting him in a legal battle.”
Mike chuckled again. “Legalities aside, you’re fighting him as a woman. This battle has nothing to do with the waterfront project.”
A voice interrupted them from behind. Quinn turned around and smiled, relieved when she saw that there were three people standing at the receptionist’s desk and, thankfully, they were her clients on the very subject she was discussing. “Jenny! Mark! Come on in!” She walked forward and ushered them inside, shooing Suzy back to her own desk. “What are you doing here? Did you need an update?”
Mark cleared his throat, looking at Jenny nervously. “No. We don’t need an update. We just came by to thank you.”
Quinn froze, her stomach clenching with dread. “Thank me? For what?”
They smiled but the expression was strained. The three of them were shifting on their feet, trying to figure out what to say. “We had a community meeting last night.”
Quinn instantly knew where this was going.
“It wasn’t planned,” Mark assured her. “It was just a quick meeting and Mr. Steele himself showed up and talked to us, listened to our concerns.”
“He didn’t!” she snapped, furious with the man. He shouldn’t have approached her clients without their legal representative in attendance as well. “What did he say?”
Mark pulled out an envelope. “He made another offer for the building and,” he handed the papers to her. “Well, we wanted you to go over the offer. We wanted to know if it was a good offer and if we should accept it, or if we should keep fighting.”
Quinn was furious but she took the thick envelope. “Let me go over the details. How about if we go into the conference room and let me skim through everything?” she offered.
When they were all settled into a chair with coffee and tea, she sat down next to Jenny and pulled the papers out. Quickly, her eyes skimmed over the words, flipping through each of the pages. The more she read, the sicker she felt. When she looked up at her clients, she tried to force a smile to her face.
“Is it that bad?” Tony asked, the only one who hadn’t spoken up yet. “We thought it was a pretty good offer.”
Jenny and Mark agreed. “The others all got similar offers too.”
Quinn ran her hand over the papers, smoothing them out in front of her as she fought back the tears. Why was she sad? Her clients had all received amazing offers to sell their homes, even a very generous relocation package.
She was sad because she’d lost! She’d lost the battle to save the buildings.
Okay, and yes, there was sadness because she’d been looking forward to winning against Bryce Steele. Steele Industries was one of the big guys. It had been exciting to build up a strategy to defeat them.
Now it was over.
Over?
Goodness, was she sad because she wouldn’t have any reason to see him? To spar with him?
That made no sense! She didn’t even like him!
But that didn’t mean he didn’t spark intense emotions within her.
Yeah, that was all it was, she thought as she looked up at her clients. “How about if you give me a day to review these documents, just to make sure there isn’t any language that could be dangerous. I’ll get back to you tomorrow after work. Would that work for everyone?”
The three of them smiled with relief and all nodded in agreement. “We’ll let the others know as well.” Mark stood up and came around the table, patting Quinn on the shoulder. “You did a great job, protecting us over the past several months,” he told her.
She smiled weakly, wanting to be more excited about the outcome. But she’d really wanted to win!
But hadn’t she won?
No. Not really. All of those lovely buildings were going to be torn down. She’d lost. Yes, her clients had won. She’d forced Steele Industries to increase their offers to each of the remaining residents.
But that hadn’t been what this was all about. Not in her mind.
Maybe she’d just misunderstood her clients’ wishes. Thinking back, and trying to be brutally honest with herself, she realized that yes, the original requests of her clients had been to get more money out of the offers. Failing that, they wanted to stay. But yeah, they’d all agreed that they wanted to move.
It had only been Quinn’s silly desire to save something old, something nostalgic, that had interfered with her quest. She could be honest enough, at least with herself. She’d wanted to save the buildings.
Sitting alone in the conference room, she stared at the papers, wondering what her next step should be. Sighing, she knew that she needed to get with her other clients and find out what they wanted. Obviously, Mark, Jenny, and Tony wanted to accept this offer. And it really was a generous offer. Shockingly generous, she thought with increasing resentment.
Darn it, he was doing exactly what she’d accused him of doing! He was buying his way around these people! And that was wrong…
Wasn’t it?
Or should she relax and just let the buildings be torn down?
“Quinn…” Suzy called out, poking her head through the open doorway. “There’s another delivery here for you.”
Quinn looked over at the woman, astounded. With Suzy’s announcement, her confusion regarding the issue dissipated, replaced by anger at his continued taunts. “That man…!” she grumbled and stood up, taking the papers with her as she walked out of the conference room. Sure enough, there was another box on her desk. And flowers. And a smaller box.
“You’re not going to open these are you?” Mike asked.
Suzy and Mike both looked over at Quinn while Harry sauntered out of his office, a chuckle coming from their boss. “Looks like you’ve acquired an admirer,” he observed and opened the big box that had been delivered about a half hour ago. Everyone gasped when he pulled a beautiful, red pashmina out of the box.
“Oh, that’s cashmere isn’t it?” Suzy gushed, taking the soft shawl out of Harry’s hands. “If you don’t want this, can I have it?”
Mike laughed. “I can be bought too. These chocolates are amazing!” he gushed as he popped another one into his mouth.
“Stop it! All of you have to stop because I can’t accept these gifts. It wouldn’t be ethical.”
Harry shrugged. “Case is closed, from what I understand. All of the residents have now accepted offers from Steele Industries, some even signing them and delivering them to the headquarters,” he said as he took one of the chocolates himself. “I also suspect that none of these gifts were meant to entice you as a lawyer, but were more to entice you as a woman.”
Quinn stared as all three of them looked at her, obviously agreeing with that pronouncement. “No.”
All three nodded their heads.
Quinn cringed, ignoring the excited bubble that formed in her chest. She wasn’t excited at the possibility of Bryce Steele being interested in her. He wasn’t. He was just trying to goad and torment her. The kiss the other day had been…more manipulation. It hadn’t meant anything. Nothing at all.
Thinking about all the sleep she’d lost because of that kiss, she pressed her lips together, her temper spiking even higher. “No. And what’s more, this is going to stop!”
She picked up the recent gifts, including the box of chocolates that were now half gone since everyone in the office had snatched one. She resisted the urge to try a piece herself. She absolutely loved chocolate. She loved the cheap kind and the expensive kind, except for that crazy dark chocolate stuff, there really was no bad kind of chocolate!
Swinging her purse over her shoulder, she paused only long enough to nod succinctly to her co-workers and boss before spinning around on her heel with a determined stride.
She was unaware of the three people standing in her wake, Mike’s mouth hanging open with a piece of chocolate in his hand, frozen halfway to his mouth.
Finally, Suzy chuckled. “Think she’ll finally get it?”
Harry laughed as well. “No. That woman is pretty stubborn.”
Mike didn’t care. His eyes moved down to the last piece of chocolate, then back to the empty doorway. “Damn, she’s not going to give the chocolate back, is she?”
Suzy rolled her eyes and, with a bit of mischief, snatched the chocolate out of Mike’s weak hold and popped it into her mouth. “Do you really think that Bryce Steele is going to let her win this battle?”
The three of them glanced at each other then burst out laughing as they shook their heads, heading back to their work areas. All of them knew that Quinn would eventually give in. And all of them knew that it was going to be a constant battle until she did.
All of them also knew that the war between the two of them was going to be extremely entertaining, and probably delicious, as the two of them waged their passionate battle.