The Seduction Plan (3 page)

Victor’s eyebrows went up at her adamant declaration. “Why not?”

Taking a deep breath, she spilled out the whole awful truth to this gorgeous man. “Because I hate sex,” she explained, leaning forward and almost whispering to him, as if saying it any louder would bring down the building. She even glanced to the right and left to make sure no one else had overheard her admission. Thankfully, the restaurant was still relatively empty so the tables near theirs were empty.

Victor blinked, unable to take in the ferocity of her statement. She was simply too beautiful and sexy for that to be true. It went against the laws of nature in his mind. “Hate sex?” he chuckled. “Is that possible?”

Lana rolled her eyes, amused at his reaction rather than offended. “Of course it’s possible.”

Victor looked at the beautiful woman and shook his head. “You’re going to have to explain that to me because I’ve never met anyone who hated sex. Some might not appreciate sex, or they might not be particularly good at it, but no one of my acquaintance actually hates it. That’s a pretty strong emotion for something so pleasurable.”

Lana laughed slightly and nodded. “Believe it. I hate sex. And if I don’t like something, I can’t write about it.”

 

“Why do you hate sex?” he asked.

Lana shrugged and leaned back, avoiding his eyes now. “Because its boring, painful, inconvenient and messy.” She was stunned that she’d actually admitted something so personal and couldn’t keep her eyes downcast. She looked back up at him quickly, trying to judge his reaction to her bold statement.

She watched in fascination as his eyes traveled up and down her body. When other men had done that in the past, she’d shrunk away from the look. But with Victor’s dark eyes roving over her figure, she felt something different. There was a tingling that started deep in her belly and fluttered outward. She couldn’t define it, but it wasn’t abhorrent which was a novelty.

“I think you’ve just been having sex with the wrong men.”

 

“Man,” she corrected and glanced back down at the linen tablecloth. “And I don’t doubt that you’re right but it doesn’t matter,” she stated firmly.

 

Victor looked at her askance. “You mean you’ve only had sex with one man and you’re rejecting the whole concept?”

Lana shrugged and took another sip of her martini, really enjoying the harsh concoction now that she’d gotten used to the burning sensation it created each time she took a sip. “It was pretty bad sex.”

“And so you’ve sworn off men forever?” “Basically.” She was starting to wish she’d never been so honest. She now felt foolish. Of course this man, who could get any woman he wanted and had probably had sex with a large percentage of the extremely beautiful people of the world, wouldn’t understand her abhorrence of the act of sex. He probably liked it just fine. It didn’t work for her though.

He eyed her skeptically. “You don’t look like the kind of woman who would go her whole life without children.”

 

That brightened her eyes. “Oh, I’d love to have children,” she said, then her eyes saddened. “But that’s not in the future for me either.”

 

Victor was silent for a long moment, his eyes looking over each of her features. He was quiet for a long time until he finally said, “Divorced?”

 

Lana was surprised. “Yes, but…”

 

“And he left you for another woman?”

 

That hurt. “Yes. How did you know?”

 

There was no expression on his face as he said, “I can see it in your eyes,” he answered. “Don’t you think the best revenge is to live better than he is?”

If he’d had even an ounce of pity on his face, she would have broken down and cried, left the restaurant or maybe even slugged him in the arm. Thankfully, his face was impassive which gave her the strength to continue the conversation. She was grateful and relieved. Lana shrugged and sighed. “It would be. And I thought I had things all figured out.”

“How so?”

A soft smile formed on her face and a fingernail traced a pattern on the linen tablecloth as she worked through the details in her mind. “When he left me, he said some really horrible things.”

“And that made you hate sex?”

Lana laughed softly, shaking her head and unaware of his gaze which watched the silken strands of her hair as they moved across her shoulders with the movement of her head. “No. I’d already hated that before he said anything. In fact, not having to have sex again was one of the good things his leaving did for me. It was a relief.” She couldn’t believe she was admitting all of this to a relative stranger. Or maybe it made more sense for her to admit it to him. Since he was a stranger, perhaps she could reveal things to him that she’d never tell another soul.

His eyebrow went up again with her statement and she watched in fascination as his eyes surveyed her peculiarly. “Why did you marry a man you didn’t like having sex with?” he asked, curiosity overriding his instinct to let her tell the story in her own way.

Lana shrugged again and looked out the window but she didn’t see the people as they passed by. She only saw her tear stained face as Drew criticized her sexual performance on their wedding night. It had been horrible and painful and he’d sneered at her as she’d lain in the bed trying to recover from the ordeal. “We didn’t have sex before the wedding of course.”

“Of course,” he repeated as if that were the oddest thing in the world. Shaking his head slightly as if her comment was completely out of the realm of his knowledge, he continued, “Okay, so you didn’t like sex, he had an affair and walked out on you. What did he say?”

Lana waved that aside. “It wasn’t what he said. He’d already said those things too many times so they were just the words. By the time he was walking out the door, I’d learned to become immune to his accusations. It was afterwards that was really bad.”

“What did he do?”

 

Her hand trembled as she lifted the martini glass to her lips one more time. Liquid courage she thought cynically to herself. “It was what he didn’t do.”

Victor held his patience as she slowly worked her way to explaining her predicament. “And that was?” he prompted gently when it looked like she wasn’t going to answer his question.

She glanced at her hands clenched in her lap, the happy haze she’d been in for the past couple of hours dissipating as she ventured back to that horrible time in her life. “He left me without any support.”

Victor swore under his breath. “So you were homeless?”

Lana shivered, but shook her head. “It wasn’t quite that bad. He left the apartment to me and went to live with his new girlfriend. But I didn’t have any way to support myself; no way to pay the rent or buy food. When we’d gotten married, I’d stayed home and took care of things while he worked. I’d graduated from college right before our wedding but I’d never held a job. Drew had always said he wanted a traditional marriage where he was the bread winner and the wife stayed home and took care of the house and children.” She looked out the window, unaware of the hard glint her eyes had taken on as she thought back to those horrible days after he’d left her alone, terrified and confused. “I was stupid and trusting and went along with it, never imagining a time when he would discover I wasn’t enough for him.”

Her statement infuriated him. He wanted to find the ass who had done this to her and knock him flat. It was one thing if both were working but for him to have asked her to stay home and be a wife, then to leave her without any support, the idea was unconscionable. “First of all, I can only imagine that the guy is an idiot on so many levels but secondly, after only talking with you for one afternoon, I can guarantee that you’re enough for any man.” His voice was firm and his eyes glared at her, daring her to contradict his emphatic statement. “Besides,” he looked at her nice clothes and smiled slightly, “You don’t look like you’ve suffered much.”

She smiled and smoothed her wool skirt over her knees. “That’s because I immediately got a job. It was a secretarial job which was slow enough that I could write while my boss didn’t need me. He was very sweet and encouraged me to write out my dreams. I was published three months after I finished my first book. That was a year ago and I’ve published three more since then.”

His eyes widened slightly. “You’re a prolific writer,” he said, impressed with how she’d creatively picked herself back up.

She grimaced. “They’re potboilers but I love them. They take me out of my world and into a new world where I can make life exactly how I want it to go. No bad men, no horrible endings and everyone is happy when they reach the last page. I hope that my readers think the same thing and find an escape outside of whatever reality is bothering them while they’re reading my stories.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Sounds unrealistic. There’s always a bad guy, or girl and rarely do people find happily ever after. More often, two people can find good enough for the moment.”

She laughed at his cynical expression and nodded, immediately understanding his view point. “Spoken like a true mystery novel reader,” she challenged.

Victor chuckled back. “Guilty.” He leaned forward again. “So far, you’ve explained the idiot of an ex-husband and an impressive career path. I still don’t understand the problem.”

She sighed and put her chin in her hand which was propped up by her elbow on the table. “My editor wants me to add sex scenes to my stories.” She grimaced and looked up at him, trying to gauge his reaction to her awful statement.

“Are you morally opposed to writing sex scenes?” He knew the policy well, since he’d established it and even announced it to his executive team only last week once the takeover had been announced.

Lana thought about that for a moment. “No. Not at all as long as the scenes enhance the story and help the plot.”

 

“But you can’t write about something you don’t believe.”

“Exactly.” She was impressed that he’d grasped the situation so easily. No one of her acquaintance would have put the pieces together so quickly. Weren’t gorgeous men supposed to be stupid as well? This man sitting in front of her definitely broke all the rules, she sighed.

“Well then find another lover and learn to like sex.”

That made her laugh out loud. “That’s not my style,” she answered and pushed her now-empty glass away. “I really should get back home. I have to figure out what I’m going to do for a career now.”

Victor stood up with her, tossing several bills down onto the table to cover the tab. “I’ll drive you home,” he said and steadied her with his hands at her waist when she swayed.

Lana had had no idea how potent the drinks had been until she stood and couldn’t seem to get a good grip on the room. Everything seemed a little off center. “Goodness!” she laughed lightly. “I guess I can’t really handle martinis very well, can I?”

He smiled down into her tipsy face, amused at her surprised expression. “You handled them just fine. Come along,” he said.

He put a hand to her back and led her out of the relatively empty restaurant. Since it was mid-week, there would only be a few small groups of people stopping by for happy hour cocktails. More than likely, the restaurant would fill up with high powered executives on power dinners. Or did they only have power lunches, she wondered. She had no idea how to gain or maintain power, so she simply enjoyed the feeling of Victor’s hand at her back, the heat spreading through her body that had nothing to do with alcohol and the bubbly feeling inside her tummy was excitement, a feeling so new, she almost had trouble identifying it.

It was late afternoon by now and the autumn air was starting to cool down significantly. She pulled her sweater closer around her, not having a coat since she’d been assuming she’d be home well before the afternoon sunshine had faded.

“Cold?” he asked and pulled his soft cashmere coat off to wrap around her shoulders.

She looked at the expensive coat, immediately engulfing her in warmth but couldn’t accept it from him. “No, you’ll be cold now,” she said and tried to shrug the coat off her shoulders and hand it back to him.

Victor laid both his hands on her shoulders, effectively stopping her from taking the coat off. “Hold on to it for just a moment,” he said and guided her forward. “You look sexy as hell in my jacket,” he said and winked before pulling open the door to a long limousine for her.

Lana stared at the splendid car and stepped back. She was suddenly intimidated by this obvious sign of wealth. The thought of getting into that gleaming car terrified her suddenly. “Thank you but there’s no need to drive me home. I can catch a cab. We’re probably heading in opposite directions.” She didn’t want to admit, even to herself, that she was intimidated by this latest example of his wealth. She preferred to think of this dynamic, amazing man as more on her level. Him being wealthy only put him out of her league. Not that she would do anything about her attraction to him anyway, but it was nice to dream.

He wouldn’t allow her to step back from the curb. His hands held onto her waist and he moved in slightly as he shook his head. “I can guarantee that we’re not. Get in. I won’t take no for an answer. I don’t get a beautiful woman tipsy and then leave her to the potentially cruel New York City streets and subways. It isn’t safe.”

Lana couldn’t argue with that. She really was feeling the effects of the drinks since she couldn’t find a coherent argument against getting into the car besides being intimidated by this kind of wealth and not wanting to inconvenience him. Besides, she wanted to spend as much time with this man as possible. He made her feel pretty and she could have sworn he just said she looked sexy. She liked that. No man had ever told her she looked sexy. What a novel experience.

She stepped into the back of the limousine and immediately handed his jacket back to him, smiling with her gratitude. He took it and tossed it to one of the seats in front of them and turned to face her.

“I have a proposition for you,” he said and waited until he had her full attention once again.

Lana felt giddy being this close to him. Her body tingled and she felt those fluttery things in her stomach once more. She thought it was the equivalent of being inside a bottle of champagne.

“What’s that?” she asked, her eyes dropping to his lips, wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Her cheeks heated and she forced her eyes to look at his, not wanting him to know what she’d been thinking. It was too embarrassing.