James

“I’ll sent for the rest,”

He nodded and then gestured towards his driver, who had pulled the car around and was walking towards them. “This is Thomas,” he told her.

As the two got acquainted, James took care of her bag, and by the time he joined them in the car, Katherine had managed to thoroughly charm Thomas as she appeared to do with every male she encountered. The old man was smiling at her like proud grandfather.

Grinding his teeth, James put up the partition, effectively stopping their lively conversation so he wouldn’t have to listen to all that yapping the whole ride home.

Finally, they were on their way.  

Nobody said anything, there was no music playing, and for the first couple of minutes the peace and quiet was nice, but after fifteen minutes, the silence seamed loud, the awkwardness almost tangible, and he was acutely aware that beside him sat a woman who’d made his mind go completely haywire with her mere presence.

Good God, he’d been ready to turn himself into a stalker for her.

She had completely bewitched him, and the thought that they might not be compatible hadn’t even crossed his mind, when in reality, she was everything he wanted to avoid in his life, a complete disaster. In his defense, he didn’t know that at the time.

Even so, her age should have been a caution. Normally he wouldn’t even entertain the idea of pursuing someone so much younger than him. He was thirty-six years old and she was what, twenty?

Would she even be interested in someone older? Was she even available?

“Who is Paul?” James blurted out the question.

“What?” she turned to look at him.

“He your boyfriend?”

“No,” she said looking at him curiously.

“Your dad seemed to think his opinion mattered,” he explained, as if that was the only reason he wanted to know.

“It doesn’t,” she said matter-of-factly.

“So, who is he?” Good lord, why couldn’t he just get an answer to that question?

“Paul Westmore. Dad thinks he hung the moon.”

“Westmore huh?” probably not a coincident that one of John’s firm’s most important clients was The Westmore group.

“Yeah,” she said. “Thinks he’d be sure to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

“Hmm.” James could see why John and a lot people would make such an assumption based on a name. The Westmores had an impeccable reputation, unlike the Reed’s, and they’d maintained an unblemished image for generation.

Certainly couldn’t say the same about his family. It had been one scandal after another. Affairs, divorces, associations with questionable characters, the list went on. These things had a way of hurting business. Reed Industries had suffered a lot because of that in the past, unlike the The Westmore Group.

James looked back over at Katherine. “Was he at that…um…rave?” he asked.

“What?” she asked, frowning, then she rolled her eyes, “Ugh...It wasn’t a rave. We were just toasting one of our sister had just handed in her thesis. A few people came over to congratulate her, and yeah, Paul was one of them.”

“Must have been one hell of a toast,” he mused.

She sighed, “I don’t know what happened. I only planned to go down real quick, say hi, and then go back up to bed. I had something important to do the next morning. Anyway, I remember being downstairs and then suddenly waking up to a lot of angry people, and a nurse drawing my blood. I guess someone must have brought me home after that. I was pretty out of it and felt like shit. Then dad came and accused me of deliberately try to get caught.”

“And you didn’t want that?” James had to ask.

 “Why would I want that?”

“Well, I don’t know why someone with so many options as you have would want to pursue a career in stripping either, but you did that too.”

“Ugh, I can’t live that down.” She shook her head sighing. “Look, it was a one-time thing, and if you must know, I never even made it on stage…I…I sort of…um fell.”

“Fell?”

“Yes…could have happened to anyone.” She sounded awfully defensive for some reason.

“Hmm…let me guess, of a barstool?”

“Well yes, it was actually. Anyway, because of that they didn’t think I was elegant enough for the job, so...” she waived a hand in the air.

Seriously? What the hell kind of strip club would pass up on having this beauty swaying her hips on their stage? They might have put her in a schoolgirl uniform or nurse’s outfit perhaps. “What were you wearing?” Jesus Christ, did he just say that?

A slow smile crept up on her beautiful face. “Maybe I’ll show you sometime.”

Yes please! “No, no, I…um…I…No, I didn’t mean…” Ah shit, there was no coming back from that, was there? He cleared his throat, “I have some work I need to look at.” He quickly brought out the laptop he always kept in the car.

Nice save.

Fuck, he was in trouble, had been since the moment he saw her. And when her eyes had finally met his, he had been sucked in like…

Wait a minute…

Oh hell, it finally dawned on him. He hadn’t recognized her but she? Oh, she knew exactly who he was. She knew from the start and had been messing with his head the entire time.

He glanced at her, sitting there beside him with that innocent look on her face. An act, it was all an act...but Christ, she smelled good.

Shit, he need to get his head straight.

Maybe this date Barbara had sprung on him wasn’t actually such a bad idea after all. Sure, he’d been avoiding her advances for a while now. Didn’t think there was any chemistry between them, but now that she’d caught him off guard, maybe he should give it a chance. he thought, putting on his reading glasses and turning on his laptop.

He looked at her again. She was watching him, her mouth slightly parted, her eyes hooded, and her lips…oh God. She was messing with him again, he knew it…but fuck him, he was hard as a rock.