CardsNeverLie (12 page)

Rob let out a breath and stepped in front of her, blocking
Melanie from Huntley’s view. “You’ve seen all you’re ever going to of this
woman, Huntley. Now get the hell out of here before I forget I’m civilized and
give you the beating you deserve.”

Huntley sneered. “She’s trash, Black, just like they all
are.” He turned and walked away.

Coward
, Rob thought.
It doesn’t matter if you get
the last word, as long as you leave her alone.
He felt a hand on his arm
and turned to Melanie.

She smiled at him. “Thanks for protecting me again. We
liberated types aren’t supposed to appreciate it, but I do.”

He grinned but felt the smile drop from his lips as he
remembered his beef with her. “I’m glad you’re free of Huntley, but I might
wish the same for myself.”

“Why?” she asked, dropping her hand from his arm. She
hunched slightly.

Two for two, Rob thought. This had to be his all-time worst
day for interacting with and hurting the feelings of beautiful women.
“Professional Massage,” he answered.

Melanie frowned. “My company?”

Rob waited for her to admit that she was in Las Vegas to
meet with him. But she continued to look at him, confused.

“Why are you down here?” he said patiently.

“I’m here to save my company,” Melanie said. “And what a
joke that is. We have trouble with the quality of our main product line, so the
execs decide the solution is for me to come up with something new to sell
instead of fixing the old reliables. And I lose my job if I fail, instead of
them.”

“I don’t believe you,” Rob said, though she certainly
sounded convinced herself. She was a good actress.

“Why not?” Her pretty blue eyes widened. “It’s the truth. I
just got a promotion a few months ago so I’m an easy scapegoat.”

“Melanie, your company is trying to buy mine. You must be
down here to check me out.” Rob put his hands on his hips then dropped them,
feeling like an idiot using an authoritarian business pose in swimming trunks.

Melanie laughed. “That would be better than what I’ve been
doing. Sitting in my hotel room, racking my brain for something to knock their
socks off. And that’s when I can get into my room.”

“What do you mean?”

“I left my purse in your booth last night, remember?” She
colored slightly. “I got read the riot act by a security guard when I tried to
get through the checkpoint to my room. You know, I thought you might have been
a security guard when we met. You put on that same godlike arrogance act they
have when you think you’re right about something.”

“You’re just trying to confuse the issue,” Rob said, trying
to get the conversation back on track. He crossed his arms across his chest.
Melanie crossed hers in response. Rob bit back a groan as her full breasts were
plumped together by her arms. She could spill out at any second, he was
convinced of it. He hadn’t seen them yet either. Just her thighs.

“No,” Melanie said. “I don’t know anything about my company
buying yours.” She tilted her head. “What will you do with yourself when you
don’t have anyone to order around anymore? I’m surprised you would sell.”

Rob sighed, wishing like anything they were back in the
stairwell enjoying each other for a few stolen moments. “My grandfather is the
one who is selling, not me.”

“Then aren’t you glad to escape? Maybe start something of
your own?”

Rob shook his head. What was she trying to do? Talk him into
giving up the fight? “I guess not. It’s not so bad. There are a lot of good
people in the business, but the ones who aren’t ruin it for everyone. And
besides, LeatherWorks is a family business, over fifty years old now. We have
multiple generations working there now. Like my assistant Tim?”

Melanie nodded.

“His mother Dagmar works with us too. I don’t know what we’d
do without her.”

Melanie shrugged and dropped her arms to her side. “I hope
everyone gets what they want.”

She stepped past him on the slippery edge of the pool.
“Including me. Thanks again for the white knight routine. It suits you.”

Rob’s jaw nearly dropped. He wasn’t sure if it was a result
of her words or the sight of her round bottom swaying in the teeny bikini as
she walked past the sandstone sculpture of an enthroned King Arthur and into
the hotel.

What a cool customer. She made him crazy and hard too.
Shaking his head, he dove into the deep end of the pool to distract himself.

* * * * *

Melanie’s knees were still shaking as she turned off the
shower and reached for a towel. What a mass of contradictions Rob Black was. He
didn’t stop to think before rescuing her at every turn, or giving her the most
intense orgasm of her life, but then he accused her of lying or spying on him.
As if she had such high rank in her company that she’d know about a proposed
sale or merger. But Rob hadn’t worked his way up from the bottom like she had.
He probably didn’t understand that workers, or even first-level managers,
didn’t always know executive secrets.

She rubbed briskly at her hair. Who knew what Rob would come
up with next? That Tida chick, getting Brisa’s job. She would pay him back for
that. He should fix his company’s problems instead of letting good employees
quit. If only he hadn’t such heat in his eyes when he looked at her. Any
revenge she got would have to be from a distance. Up close she melted and only
thought of his good qualities.

She should concentrate on her job. Security was the answer
to everything. And her cousin, a single mother, had lost it. Melanie rubbed the
hotel lotion all over her body, her heart hurting at the idea of Brisa, young
and abandoned, acting in porn movies to support herself. Melanie knew Brisa had
followed some hippie guy to Los Angeles in the early nineties. That he’d
impregnated and abandoned her. At least, this was the story Brisa told. At
nineteen, she had dropped out of college during her sophomore year and
disappeared. No one in the family had heard from her until she showed up at her
paternal grandmother’s home in Texas, seven months pregnant and broke. She
never spoke about that time and seemed to have shrugged it off like it never
happened. The child had stayed with her grandmother, then when he was four
years old, the grandmother had contracted breast cancer and he was sent to live
with Brisa, who had just graduated with a nursing degree and could support her
child.

Melanie assumed she was Brisa’s best friend, but
nonetheless, her cousin kept a lot of things close to her heart. After she got
home to Seattle tonight she would have to track Brisa down and warn her about
Drew Huntley. She hoped her contact with him didn’t hurt her cousin in any way.
This had to have been one of the wildest business trips she had ever been on.
She’d been mistaken for a porn star, had kissed two men in the space of an hour
and had practically been with one of them, had been accused of plagiarism by
her boss while simultaneously coming up with a fabulous new product. Oh yeah.
And she might have said she had met her dream guy on this trip…if he wasn’t
such an untrusting, arrogant devil of a man.

As she dressed, she thought about that devil word. The Devil
card. Who was capable of turning her life in another direction? She shook her
head. That could be Al, if he fired her. But he wasn’t her soul mate. Could she
safely rule out Tommy Joe? She hoped so, after last night. He had good
qualities, along with being tall, dark and handsome and occasionally
supportive. But, and it was a big but, she had a sense he would be even more
controlling than Gerald, and his morals were questionable. And now she had to
go to a seminar. The job, always the job.

She grabbed her program and went downstairs to her next
session, which was Advances in Microcircuitry, Practical Applications. When she
entered the room, the first person she saw was Tommy Joe. She checked her
program to make sure she had found the right room.

“Tommy Joe,” Melanie whispered as she sat down next to him.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in The Modern Bath 101?”

“I wanted to talk to you. To apologize for last night.” He
swallowed. “For going into your room.”

Melanie rolled her eyes and gestured at him to leave the
presentation. She hoped he hadn’t looked into her purse other than to grab the
key. That condom burned a hole into her memory. When would she have a chance to
use it?

Outside the door, when they were in the deserted corridor,
pungent with old coffee from the leftover breakfast urns, she said, “I’m glad
you put my purse in my room, Tommy Joe. It was the rest of it that alarmed me.”

“What?” He looked blankly at her.

Tommy Joe genuinely didn’t seem to be concerned with his
behavior. She folded her arms. “You know, stealing the oil, practically pulling
me on top of you in front of all those people. And enjoying it!” Her voice had
risen to the point where a hotel worker clearing away the crumbs from the
morning pastries stared at her.

“You didn’t have a good time?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. Oh there had been a good time last night,
but not with him. “It was a little much for me,” she said, nodding for emphasis
while she spoke. “Are you always so wild?”

He grinned. “Vegas isn’t real life.”

“You can say that again.” She shook her head. Only a few
short days ago she had felt like the experienced one as they had left for his
first business trip and Tommy Joe the novitiate. How a few days can flip your
viewpoint around.

“Enough about that,” Melanie said, remembering that no
matter what Tommy Joe’s habits, he was a coworker and she couldn’t be one
hundred percent honest with him about her feelings if she didn’t want it to
affect their working relationship. “Did you know that we are trying to buy
another company?”

“We are?” Tommy Joe’s forehead creased. “You mean
Professional Massage?”

“Of course,” Melanie said. “Do we work for another company?”

Tommy Joe laughed weakly, no doubt an embarrassed reaction
to his stupid remark, Melanie thought. “No, no. Who are we buying?”

“LeatherWorks, if the sale goes through.”

Tommy Joe shrugged. “Who are they?”

“Oh c’mon. We were in the booth last night?” He still looked
confused. “The manacles?”

“Oh yeah!” Tommy Joe rubbed at one wrist as if remembering
pleasure. “I meant to get some of those.”

Melanie took an involuntary step back. He grinned defiantly.
“I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy yourself.”

Melanie experienced a ghost of a memory of Gerald behaving
the same way and saying the same thing back at the beginning of their sex life.
She was so glad her marriage was over. “Everything will be back to normal
tomorrow,” she said tightly. “We go home this afternoon.” And not a minute too
soon.

“I hope not everything,” Tommy Joe said. “We are friends
now, right?”

“Sure,” Melanie said, trying to sound agreeable. Whatever
that meant. At least she would be unlikely to betray any secrets regarding his
personal habits. That was a kind of friendship. “Now go hear that session,
Tommy Joe. I came up with a great new idea, but we need all the help we can
get, okay?”

He nodded, but Melanie saw something unhappy flash in his
eyes. “Would you rather hear the microcircuitry presentation?”

He shook his head. “No, I’ll get going.” He kissed her on
the cheek and walked off without speaking.

At least he was polite. Which was more than she could say
about a certain stud of a CEO.

* * * * *

An hour later, Tommy Joe took advantage of the
fifteen-minute break between sessions to run up to his room. He kept an eye out
for Melanie and saw her engrossed in a conversation with the microcircuitry
speaker. She didn’t look his way.

Dear Melanie. Such a sweetheart and so innocent for someone
who had been married for nine years. He knew she had enjoyed their adventure
the night before until she had caught sight of the camera. She was too shy for
the limelight. He wondered who the crowd had been calling for. At any rate, it
wasn’t for them. They had merely been a titillating sideshow.

Good, she still hadn’t seen him. He glanced at his watch.
Only thirteen minutes until The Modern Bath 102, so he needed to hurry. He blew
her a mental kiss and rushed to the elevator, crowding in against a bunch of
suits much more expensive than he could afford. Yet. With every tidbit he
learned, he was one step closer to making Billy Joe accept him as a partner.
His brother was rolling in cash and soon he, Tommy Joe Harriman, would have a
big pile of the bling bling himself.

At his door, he shoved his keycard in and twisted the
doorknob. At least this was one bit of news that wouldn’t hurt Melanie if it
got out. How could it possibly affect her to have a different company purchase
LeatherWorks?

He picked up the phone dialed his brother’s number in Texas.
“Billy Joe? It’s me.”

Tommy Joe heard the rapid clicks of typing, then a duller
clink as his brother pushed the enter key. “Got some more of your girlfriend’s
ideas?”

“Not this time.”

“Too bad. She’s good. Maybe we can find a position for her.”

Tommy Joe smiled. “That would be great. For a little while
at least, until we have children. Pregnant women aren’t supposed to be around
essential oils, you know.”

“Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself?”

“Nah. I didn’t tell you last night, but we kissed
yesterday.”

“Well good for you, little brother,” Billy Joe drawled.

“I’d love to chat but I have some important news,” Tommy Joe
said, glad to be able to impress his brother for once. He savored the
anticipation for a moment.

“Oh yeah?”

“Melanie just told me an interesting bit of news. I don’t
know how she found out about it though.”

“Do tell.”

“There’s a company named LeatherWorks based in Seattle. They
sell S and M stuff—whips, manacles, costumes. You get the idea. Nice stuff.
Good workmanship.”