How to Seduce a Billionaire

She smiled brightly. “So that’s why I’ve decided to get him back.”

“What? Get him back?” Why in the world would she want that scumbag back? Hell, Brandon didn’t even know Roger and he already hated him.

“Yes.” She spread her arms out. “And that explains the makeover.”

And with that, she made a show of checking her watch, effectively ending the conversation. Probably a good idea.

“So,” she said, changing the subject, “do you want me to order lunch from catering?”

He wasn’t finished talking about this, but clearly Kelly needed a time out. So he’d let it go. For now.

“Yeah, that would be great. I’ll have the steak sandwich.”

“Sounds good. I’ll call it in.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “Listen, Kelly, if you need any help or advice, anything at all, you’ll come to me. Promise?”

“Really? You mean it?”

“Absolutely.”

She studied his face as if she were weighing the depth of his sincerity. “You’re sure?”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.”

She seemed to carry on a short debate with herself, then said, “Okay, there is one tiny thing you could help me with. If you wouldn’t mind.”

“You name it,” he said, reaching for his coffee mug.

“I’ll be right back.” She rushed out to her desk and was back in less than twenty seconds, holding a shopping bag from a well-known and expensive lingerie shop. Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she pulled some wispy scraps of sheer material from the bag and dangled them for him to see.

“Which do you like better, the black thong or the red panties?”

Two

He choked on his coffee.

Dismayed, Kelly ran around and pounded his back. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he managed to say. “I’m fine.” He’d be even better once she backed off and her curvaceous breasts were no longer rubbing against his arm. He was only human, for God’s sake. And hard as granite.

He’d been tackled by some of the biggest linebackers in football history, but nothing had ever rendered him apoplectic before now. As he took a deep breath and let it out, the thought entered his mind that maybe she was trying to kill him. Could Roger have treated her so badly that she was going to take it out on every man she knew?

It wasn’t enough that she’d changed the playing field with her hot new look, but now she was shoving her panties at him. Didn’t she know that those little scraps of silk would be forever imprinted on his fragile male psyche? Now he would be forced to spend the next millennium imagining her in that black thong. Was she really that clueless?

“I didn’t mean to shock you,” she said. “But you said you would help.”

“Didn’t shock me,” he insisted, his voice sounding as if a frog had taken up residence in his throat. “Coffee went down wrong. Just… give me a minute.”

She finally moved back to her side of the desk and quickly shoved the bits of lace into the shopping bag.

“They’ll work just fine,” he said softly, not trusting his voice yet.

Her eyes glittered with hope. “Really?”

“Believe it,” he said with a nod. “Any normal guy would be grateful to see you in either pair.”

“You mean it?” Her eyes cleared and she smiled. “Thank you, Brandon. Oh, and I apologize again for springing them on you.”

“No problem.”

“To make this work, I really need to know what guys consider sexy.” She frowned, then admitted, “Roger never thought I was.”

“Never thought you were what?”

“Sexy.”

Brandon sat forward in his chair. “Does Roger have some kind of learning disability or something?”

She laughed. “Thanks for that. I’ll go order lunch now.”

“Good idea,” he said, thankful his voice had returned to full volume. “Oh, and Kelly?”

She stopped at the door. “Yes?”

“Go with the black thong.”

Later that afternoon, Brandon hung up the phone from a two-hour teleconference with his brothers and their lawyer.

“That guy never stops talking,” he said, shaking his head at the sheer immensity of the lawyer’s convoluted vocabulary.

“I was thinking you must pay him by the word,” Kelly said, flexing her fingers. She had taken notes during the entire meeting and now she stood and stretched her arms. The movement caused the knit fabric of her dress to stretch so tightly across her perfect round breasts that Brandon had to look the other way to stifle the first stages of another rock-hard erection.

“I’m getting more coffee,” she said. “Would you like some?”

“No, thanks. Will you have a chance to type up your notes and analysis this afternoon?”

“Definitely. I’ll get right on them.”

“I appreciate it.”

She closed the door and Brandon gritted his teeth. He needed Kelly to rethink this new wardrobe situation if he was going to survive the week. Hell, even her ankles were causing him palpitations. There was something about those high heels she was wearing that did awesome things to every inch of her legs.

An hour later, after the rest of his team had gone home, he walked out to Kelly’s area to find a property file and caught her pouting at herself in her compact mirror.

“Oh.” She blinked in surprise and quickly slapped the mirror closed and threw it in her drawer.

He rested one hand on the doorjamb. “I know I’m going to be sorry I asked, but what were you doing?”