The Ceo's Little Surprise

Her toes automatically curled inside her shoes as heat swept over her skin. “I didn’t wear them for you.”

Why had she thought taking care of this in her office was a good idea? She should have gone to her board meeting and had Melinda tell Gage to take a hike.

But he would have just shown up over and over again until she agreed to an appointment.

So she’d get rid of him once and for all.

Two (#ulink_198052be-ba02-5865-b65d-9bd90059333f)

When she halted by her open office door, Gage raised a brow as he read its deep purple placard. “Chief enhancement officer?”

His amused tone rankled but she just smiled and silently dared him to do his worst. “Branding. We put incredibly careful thought into every single aspect of this business. Seems like I had a mentor once who taught me a few things about that.”

He grinned in return and didn’t acknowledge her sarcasm. Nor did he say a word about her outstretched arm, choosing to humor her and enter first as she’d meant him to, but he didn’t miss the opportunity to brush her, oh, so casually. She pretended the skin he’d just touched wasn’t tingling.

“Yeah, we did have a few lively discussions about business strategies,” he mused. “Branding is why I drive a green Hummer, by the way.”

Cass had decorated her office with the same trademark Fyra deep purple hue, down to the glass-topped desk and expensive woven carpet under it. He took it all in with slightly widened eyes.

“Because you want everyone to see it and think GB Skin has zero environmental consciousness and its owner is obnoxious?” she asked sweetly before he could make a crack about her decor.

Sleek and modern, the offices had been decorated by an expensive, trendy uptown firm. It had cost a pretty penny, but the results had been worth it. This company was hers, from the baseboards to the ceiling and she loved it. They’d moved to this building three years ago, once Fyra posted its first annual revenue of fifty million dollars. That was when she knew they were going to make it.

She’d do whatever she needed to do in order to keep her company alive.

He laughed as he slid into a purple chair and then swept her with a pointed once-over. “You know the name of my company. I was starting to think you didn’t care.”

How did he manage to make understanding the competitive landscape sound so...personal? It was a skill he’d clearly bargained with the devil to obtain.

“I’m good at what I do. Of course I know the names of my competitors.” Cass remained standing near the door. Which she pointedly left open. “You’ve got your appointment. And about three minutes to tell me why you didn’t take the no I gave you earlier and run back to Austin.”

Casually, he swiveled his chair to face her and waved a hand to the empty chair next to him. “Sit and let’s talk.”

She didn’t move. There was no way she could be in close quarters with him, not on the heels of their earlier encounter when he’d barely breathed on her and still managed to get her hot and bothered. At least by the door, she had a shot at retaining the upper hand. “No, thanks. I’m okay.”

“You can’t keep standing. That tactic only works if you inflict it on someone other than the person who taught it to you,” he said mildly.

The fact that he saw through her only made it worse.

“Really, Gage,” she snapped. “Fyra’s executives are waiting in a boardroom for the CEO to arrive. Cut the crap. Why are you here?”

His expression didn’t change. “The rumors about your formula are true, right?”

She crossed her arms over the squiggle in her stomach. “Depends on what you’ve heard.”

“Revolutionary is the word being thrown around,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve heard the formula works with your natural stem cells to regenerate skin, thus healing scars and eliminating wrinkles. Nanotech at its finest.”

She kept her expression schooled, but only just. “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

Her lungs hitched as she fought to draw a breath without alerting Gage to her distress. The leak was worse than they’d assumed. When Trinity had stormed into Cass’s office yesterday to show Cass the offending blurb in an online trade magazine, she’d read the scant few lines mentioning Fyra’s yet-to-be released product with horror. But it could have been so much worse, they’d assured each other. The trade magazine had few details, especially about the nanotechnology, and they’d hoped that had been the extent of the information that had traveled beyond their walls.

Apparently not.

It was a disaster. Full-blown, made even worse by Gage’s arrival on the scene.

Gage watched her carefully, his sharp gaze missing nothing. “But if my intel is correct, a formula like that might be worth about a hundred million or so. Which I’m prepared to pay.”

Oh, no, he had not just dropped that sum on her. She shut her eyes for a blink. Money like that was serious business, and as the CEO, she had to take his offer to the others for due consideration.

But she knew her friends. They’d agree with her that the formula was priceless. “I told you, the formula isn’t for sale.”

He stood suddenly and advanced on her, clearly over the power play she’d instigated by standing by the door. The closer he got, the harder her pulse pounded, but she blinked coolly as if lethally sexy men faced her down on a daily basis.

“It’s smart business to consider all opportunities,” he said as he leaned against the doorjamb not two feet from her. “If you sell, you don’t have to worry about little things like FDA approval and production costs and false-claim lawsuits. You just roll around in your millions and leave the hard work to someone else.”

The scent of clean forest and man wafted in her direction.

“I’m not afraid of hard work,” she stated firmly as she fought to keep from stepping back, out of the line of his masculine fire. It was a battle of wills, and if she fled, he’d figure out how much he truly affected her.

The man was a shaman, mystical and charismatic. One glance, and she’d follow him into his world of hedonistic pleasure. Or at least that had been true in college. She’d learned a few tricks of her own since then, along with developing a shield around her fragile interior.

His gaze held her captive as he reached out and tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering far longer than they should have.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked softly, his expression morphing into something almost...warm.

You. She swallowed. Where had that come from? Gage didn’t scare her. What scared her was how easily she forgot to control her emotions around him.

This cat-and-mouse game had veered into dangerous territory.

“Taxes,” she muttered inanely and ignored the way her pulse raced.

When was the last time she’d been touched? Months and months. She’d developed a reputation among single men in Dallas as a man-eater and unfortunately, that just made her even more popular as men vied for her attention so they could claim victory. Mostly she just shut them down because the whole scene exhausted her.

And she couldn’t lose sight of the fact that the reason she chewed up men and spit them out was staring her in the face. He was very dangerous indeed if she’d forgotten for a second the destruction he’d caused.

And that’s when it hit her. She was handling Gage all wrong.

This wasn’t college and Gage wasn’t her mentor. They were equals. And he was on her turf. That meant she called the shots.

If he wanted to play, she’d play.

* * *

Once Gage had tucked the errant lock of hair behind her ear, he’d run out of legitimate excuses to have his hands on her. Which didn’t keep him from silently running through a litany of illegitimate excuses.

“Gage,” she murmured throatily and the base of his spine heated. “The formula’s not for sale. I have a board meeting. Seems like we’re done here...unless you’ve got a better offer?”

Her eyelids lowered to half-mast and she didn’t move, but the sensual vibe emanating from her reached out and wrapped around him, drawing him in. Those cutaway panels at her waist would fit his palms perfectly and with any luck, the mesh inserts would allow him to feel her while fully clothed. The thought sent a rush of blood through his veins and the majority of it ended up in a good, solid erection that got very uncomfortable, very fast.