Hypnotic Seduction (The Seduction Series) (16 page)

“I’m sorry.” She sighed, taking the sales catalog back from Jordan. “As I’ve told you before, when it comes to the opposite sex, I’m not exactly the most secure woman in the world.”

“Well, there’s no reason for you to feel insecure. If you were any more attractive, I’d have to sprinkle salt peter on my breakfast cereal.” He sucked in a shuddering breath. “I’m not just some low-level manager, Hannah. As CEO, I had no choice but to call a halt between us the other night.”

So much
for ever
seeing the inside of his bedroom. Her throat closed up, making it difficult to speak. “Thank you seems so inadequate. It was extremely nice of you to book this trip, but I don’t think I should—”

“You’re welcome.” He ignored her protest. “I also got you something else.”

Did his generosity never cease? “Really, Jordan, the cruise is already too much. I really can’t accept—”

“This is for me,” he cut her off again “I don’t want to worry about you alone in the parking lot at night. So when you leave this evening, you’ll notice you now have a reserved parking space by the front entrance.”

Only the vice presidents had that perk. What would all the other employees think when they saw it? Obviously, Jordan didn’t want a repeat performance of Friday night.

“You don’t trust me not to attack you in the parking lot again?”

His mouth curved in an abashed smile. “I’d say it’s more like I don’t trust myself.”

She would gladly accept the parking space, but the cruise was a whole different matter. Somehow she’d have to convince him to take the trip himself.

~*~

“What did you do with the list of registrants for the pediatric symposium?” Jordan called out to Hannah’s office on Thursday afternoon after hearing the suite’s outer door open and close. Now that she was back, maybe he could get some work done.

“Excuse me?” A sultry feminine voice that didn’t belong to his assistant jerked his attention to his open door. “Someone told me I could find Hannah Oliver in this office?”

He blinked twice, stunned to find every teenage boy’s fantasy in the flesh posed seductively right outside his office with a visitor’s pass tucked in her cleavage.

On Friday night, when Hannah had confessed Candace Oliver had given birth to her, he’d nearly choked. The woman lounging in his doorway, wearing a frothy scrap of a halter-top and a matching frilly skirt that barely covered her crotch, bore no resemblance to anyone’s mother.

His pal Bobby had spent so many hours drooling over Cotton Candy’s naked body while they were kids, Jordan half expected to see a staple in the woman’s navel instead of a belly ring.

“
H-Hello
.” He pushed his chair back and stood.

He hadn’t had the nerve to ask Hannah if she knew Mommy had posed for dozens of layouts in porn magazines over the years. Or if she was aware Candy’s nickname had come from a magazine layout in which her pubic hair
had been dyed
light pink to resemble sweet cotton candy. That magazine spread had every man who looked at it drooling for a taste of the centerfold.

Undoubtedly Hannah must know all about it. It wouldn’t surprise him if her mother was half the reason she needed hypnosis to relax around men.

“Do I have the right office?” the woman asked in the same breathy voice she used in all her commercials.

As popular as Candy Oliver was in the skin magazines, it hadn’t been just her willingness to bare it all that had made her famous. She’d also made a name for herself as
a top
lingerie and swimsuit model as well as a spokesperson for products ranging from high-end sports cars to designer jeans.

She’d even appeared in several minor roles in television series and movies, the most notorious of which was
Immortal Sin
. Bobby and he had snuck into the R-rated horror film—
which bordered on X
—numerous times when they were thirteen.

In the movie, Cotton Candy had eagerly ridden some ill-fated actor in a disturbingly graphic, simulated sex scene right before they were both murdered. The thirty-second close-up of her bouncing boobs ended in a splatter of blood marring her perfect breasts. The gruesome shot became a classic in cinematography of erotic horror scenes and a favorite of every man in America—especially two horny adolescents from Princeton.

The thing that gained Candy the most notoriety, however, had been her moaning and squealing during her on-screen orgasm before her character died. The realism of her pleasure caused more than a few men to swear she’d made herself come for the camera. Her so-called acting left a lot of husbands wondering about their wives performances in the bedroom. Some even began referring to a faked orgasm as a
Candy climax
.

Following the sex scene, Candace’s wet-dream body
had been featured
in half a dozen other shots throughout the movie, either depicting the dead woman’s naked corpse during the police investigation or in lurid photos of the victim.

The director had pushed the R-rated limits with how long and often he let the camera zoom in on the centerfold’s nude form. Even now, twenty-plus years later, the erotic movie had the distinction of being one of the most frequently rented films by high school and college-aged
guys
.

“So does Hannah work here?” Candy asked, yanking him out of his memories.

“Yes. Yes, she does,” he said, his voice rasping. “But she’s at lunch right now.” He crossed his office to greet her. “I’m her boss, Jordan Calder.”

“Lucky girl.” Candy batted her thick lashes and smiled like a coquette, extending her hand. “How do you do. I’m Candace Oliver.”

“I know. I recognized you.”

“Even with all my clothes on? I’m flattered.”

No one would guess the woman was in her mid-forties. She looked closer to his age.

“
Uhh
—Hannah should be back soon. You’re welcome to wait for her in my office.” He swept his hand toward the sofa on the other side of the room. “Can I get you something?”

“What are you offering?” she asked in a sex-kitten whisper, dropping her gaze to his fly.

“A drink from my bar? A cup of coffee? A few of Hannah’s cookies?”

“Keep going.” She smiled, taking a slow visual inventory of his body. “I’ll stop you when you get to something I want.”

Predatory women turned his stomach. He backed away. “Please, Miss
Oliv
—”

“Candy.” She advanced on him until he bumped into his desk. Chuckling, she settled in the armchair and then crossed her mile-long model’s legs. “Hannah didn’t tell me she’d taken a new job or that she had such a delicious boss. I had to call her grandmother to find out where she was working.”

Small wonder. From what Hannah had said, he suspected she didn’t hear from her mother very often. “Your daughter’s an invaluable asset to Calder.”

“I’m sure Hannah is,” Candy emphasized her daughter’s name, making it clear she didn’t like the reminder of their relationship. “She’s always been competent and reliable.”

“Candace? What are you doing here?” Hannah stood in the open doorway.

Candy rose and glided across the room, her hips
wiggling
and shoulders swaying as if she were primping on a runway. “I was in town and hoped I could take you to lunch.”

“I’ve just come back from having lunch.”

“Yes. Jordan told me.” Candy turned to him and flashed a dazzling smile. “Thank you so much for, uhh....
entertaining
me. I hope we can become better acquainted
someti
—”

Hannah yanked Candy out of Jordan’s office before she could finish her sentence. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked softly, although her proximity to his open door still allowed her lowered voice to travel back to him.

“I’m just being friendly.” Candy rubbed her forearm where Hannah had grabbed her. “Why? Are you jealous? Or do you already have something going on with him?”

“It’s just like you to think every woman in the world is sleeping with her boss.”

“Well, if you don’t want him, I wouldn’t mind—”

“Mother, stop it!” Hannah snapped.

“You know I hate it when you call me that.”

Jordan cleared his throat, reminding them there’d be a witness if blood
was shed
.

~*~

“He probably thought I was a total bitch not to be thrilled to see my mother.” Hannah closed her eyes and sighed, lying on Diana’s therapy couch early that evening. “But he has no idea how much Candace has embarrassed me ever since I was in the sandbox and realized other parents were whispering about her.”

“You’re a grown woman now, Hannah. You’re not your mother, and you didn’t choose her. You can be embarrassed
for
her, but there’s no reason to be embarrassed
by
her since you have no control over her behavior.”

“You’re right. I
didn’t
choose her. But she
chose
to have me. Why couldn’t she just be like any other normal mother? It’s almost like she’s in competition with me. I don’t understand it. If a mother loves her child, how can she resent or be jealous of her? If she didn’t want me, why didn’t she just abort me?”

Diana reached over and squeezed Hannah’s arm. “I’m sure your mother does love you in her own way. But how could she be what you consider a
normal
mother when the circumstances of your birth weren’t typical?”

“You mean because she was only fifteen when she got pregnant?”

“Exactly. Think about what it must’ve been like for her. She was still a child having a baby. Your grandparents raised you, so in her eyes, you’re more like a sister than a daughter. What you’re experiencing is classic sibling rivalry.”

She’d never thought about her relationship with Candace that way, but it made sense.

“All the years you were growing up, your mom was the wild child, thumbing her nose at convention and thwarting your grandparent’s values. And there you were, the good child, lapping up their approval and love.”

All of the arguments between Candace and her grandparents over the years replayed in Hannah’s head. She shuddered at recalling the way her grandfather had constantly called Candace a cheap tramp. “Right. It’s like she blames me for messing up her life.”

“Do you feel responsible for causing her to be the way she is?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “I guess possibly a little. So, are you saying I tried to be the opposite of her so my grandparents would love me?”

“You tell me.”

“Maybe I did.” But as much as she’d disapproved of her mother’s choices, Hannah had also envied Candace’s beauty, glamorous lifestyle, and most especially her self-confidence.

“And maybe you carried it to the extreme,” Diana suggested. “What do you think was so wrong about your mother posing for men’s magazines? She has a beautiful figure, doesn’t she? She’s not ashamed of her body.”

“You’re talking about it as if she posed for a nude painting hanging in the Louvre. There’s a bit of a difference.”

“Is there? Many people consider the naked body a work of art.” Diana tipped her head and studied Hannah a moment. “Did your mother appear in hard-core, X-rated movies and have sex with a lot of different men on camera?”

“N-no. But she pretended to be doing it.”

“And you’re equating the two, aren’t you? Even though she’s not really sleeping with every man she meets.”

“She acts like she wants to. You should see the way she came on to Jordan. She’s forty-six. He’s eight years younger than her.”

“A lot of men find older women wildly exciting,” Dianna pointed out, obviously playing the devil’s advocate to force Hannah to examine her anger. “And at forty-six, your mother is hardly past her prime. Do you know for a fact she sleeps with all these men she flirts with?”

“No.” Hannah shook her head. “Not really.”

In her entire thirty years, she’d never seen a shred of evidence that Candace had actually slept with anyone—unless of course, she counted her father. There’d never been so much as a whisper in the tabloids of her even dating anyone seriously.

“So your mother’s seductive behavior has convinced you she must be doing something more—something immoral.”

“Well, isn’t it immoral for a woman to take her clothes off so men can get turned on by looking at her body?”

“It depends on a person’s code of values, Hannah. Your mother is obviously comfortable with it. Maybe she considers what she does a public service to lonely men who can’t get a date. Your grandparent’s morality tells you it’s wrong. And you’ve taken it
one step
further and become inhibited about dressing in a way that might arouse a man. You told me you were so self-conscious being naked you couldn’t relax during sex with your ex. Do you believe undressing for a man you care for makes you slutty?”

“No.” Hannah bit her lip. “Not when I think about it intellectually. But I guess maybe, deep down, I feel a little ashamed of doing it, anyway.”

“Exactly. So that’s what we’ll focus on in your hypnosis session today, and I’ll record it so you can listen to it at home and hopefully banish those guilt feelings.” Diana scribbled something on her pad. “How’d you leave things with your mother?”

“I’m having dinner with her on Monday.”

“Good. If you could convince her to come to a few sessions with you, I’d be able to help the two of you learn to communicate with each other more effect—”

“She’d never agree to that.” Hannah levered herself halfway to a sitting position. “My grandparents forced Candace to go for counseling when she was a teenager. She’s got a chip on her shoulder toward the entire mental health community.”

“That’s a shame. Still, you need to get to know your mother better—as a sister, instead of as your mom.” Diana rested a hand on Hannah’s shoulder, encouraging her to lie back down. “I think if you stop expecting her to turn into Claire
Huxtable
and try to understand why she’s made the choices she has, maybe the two of you could become closer.”

“I’d like that. But we always end up pushing each other’s buttons.”

“A little unconditional love goes a long way toward changing other people’s attitudes. If you could accept your mother and love her in spite of her lifestyle, it might give you a more forgiving view of your own sexuality and help you relax in the bedroom.”