Surely she’d also regret seeing Kam Reardon walk away in that moment as well.
You were right before. I was heating up. I shouldn’t have brought up Ian. That’s not for us to think about now.
“What I don’t get,” Kam said as he drew on his shirt, taut muscles flexing in a jerky, impatient motion, “is the limit.”
“The limit?” Lin asked slowly, his words interrupting the flow of her mental rehearsal for talking him into staying. His flashing, furious gaze made her pull the sweater tighter over her naked torso.
“Yeah. Weren’t you up for working overtime?”
It took a moment for his meaning to settle in. When it did, hurt and fury flooded her.
“How dare you say something like that to me! This,” she glanced back at the mussed bed, “had nothing to do with work.”
“Really? Nothing to do with Ian?” he bit out, shoving his arms into the sleeves of his jacket so forcefully she heard the seam protest with a ripping sound. “Everyone is always saying you’d do anything for him.”
“No,” she exclaimed, standing. She couldn’t believe he’d just said that. But then a thought occurred to her, and she paused in her heated defense. Her uncharacteristic behavior tonight did relate to Ian, didn’t it? To her secret, buried feelings for him? Too late, she realized Kam had noticed her sudden distraction.
“Did Ian ask you sleep with me? Soften me up a little? Make the stubborn country relation a bit more malleable? Palatable?” he demanded quietly, taking a step toward her.
“No! Of course not. You realize you’re practically calling me a prostitute, don’t you?” she almost shouted, anger and disbelief and confusion twining and beginning to roar in her blood. “Is that what you think? That Ian sends me out to sleep with his business associates? His family members?”
His features darkened. “Of course I don’t think you’re a prostitute. What I do think is that you’re a woman who would do just about anything for her job. For her boss. Everyone in the family is always going on about how loyal you are to him.”
Her mouth fell open in shock. Oh my God. She’d been so idiotic. How could she have ever thought this rough, savage jerk was attractive? He didn’t even vaguely resemble the men she usually favored, but her libido just had to be appeased, didn’t it? This was the stupidest mistake she’d ever made.
She drew herself up to her full height, refusing to be cowed by the fact that she was standing half-dressed in front of such a complete, astronomical son of a bitch. He’d just burned her to her very core, and then had the nerve to call her a whore and Ian’s bowing minion in one fell swoop. She’d let him burn her.
“Get the hell out of my house,” she said quietly.
A strange expression broke over his face, as if her response had been disappointing, but also precisely what he’d expected of her.
She was almost as furious with herself as she was at Kam Reardon for giving a good goddamn one way or another what the bastard thought. He stalked out of the room without a backward glance, his backbone as stiff as hers. She still stood in the exact same position when she heard the front door close with a brisk click.
It slowly settled on her like a creeping chill that Kam wasn’t the only person who was disappointed in her behavior tonight. She’d let herself down. She’d never before backed down or failed at an assignment Ian had given her. There was a first time for everything, though. She’d have to break the truth to Ian.
There was no way in hell she was going to work with his insolent brother.
• • •
Morning sunlight poured into Ian’s corner office when she entered it three days later. She was jumpy from nerves, but knew she looked calm on the surface. It had taken a lot of energy to stifle her anxiety over what had occurred with Kam, but she’d had several days focusing on business in New York to do it. She’d carefully constructed a lie for why she couldn’t work with Kam, but her story seemed full of holes. Surely Ian, of all people, would never believe it.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to convince him after all, she reasoned as she approached Ian’s desk. She’d spoken to Ian last evening before her flight back to Chicago. Their discussion had been a practical rundown of her meetings in New York. Ian had only mentioned Kam in regard to his personal visits with family. Nevertheless, Kam might have told Ian in the interim what had happened between them Monday night. Perhaps Kam had already suggested he was the one who didn’t want to work with Lin?
Not knowing the lay of the land only amplified her barely restrained anxiety.
As usual, Ian sat behind his massive carved hardwood desk, talking to someone on his earpiece, his fingers moving fleetly over a keyboard placed in front of him. Despite his multitasking, his blue eyes met hers as she handed him the latest numbers from Tyake, one of his subsidiaries. She immediately recognized the glance of significance at a chair before his desk, her heart sinking a little. He wanted her to wait.
Residual anger, hurt, and humiliation crowded her consciousness when she considered the possibility of Kam spilling the dirty details to Ian. How could she have been so stupid? Her impulsivity shocked her to the core. She sunk into one of the upholstered chairs before his desk, a nauseating feeling of dread rising in her belly.
“We’ll wait and see how the Nikkei opens tonight and go from there,” Ian was saying, glancing over the contents of the file she’d handed him. Lin had known who was on the other end of line almost immediately by their topic. His typing fingers paused as he signed off from his conversation with Alexandra Horowitz, one of his vice presidents.