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What did it say about him that the clipped, cold tones just made him all the more eager to see her splayed out on her desk for him? He imagined miss prim and proper Katherine Callahan would be utterly embarrassed by the images running rampant through his imagination. Then again, maybe a little humiliation was just what she needed. In his experience, it went a long way toward helping stubborn little subbies learn their place.
Even if she wasn’t a submissive—and wouldn’t that be a damn shame—he couldn’t seem to keep his brain from conjuring up an image of what she would look like with an embarrassed flush covering her entire luscious body. His foul mood vanished as his imagination went into overdrive.
“Katherine,” he conceded, pushing aside his bad mood and turning up the charm with an apologetic smile.
“Thank you.” Taking her seat, she opened the file Donna had handed her. When she gestured to the guest chair, he sat with a silent prayer of gratitude for the opportunity to stretch out his knee.
“I had your agent send over your current portfolio,” she began, her eyes glancing down to scan the contents of the file he had a sneaking suspicion she already knew by heart. It was a power play, meant to let him know she didn’t consider him any more important than any other client. And he couldn’t help but respect the hell out of it. No doubt she had more than one client who needed to be knocked down a peg or two on a regular basis.
“And?” he prompted when she paused.
“It’s not bad.” Flipping the file closed, she looked up, her lips curving up in a fierce, damn near predatory smile. “I can do a hell of a lot better.”
“You don’t need to sell yourself to me. Mary said you’re the best, so you’re the best.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence. Would you like me to explain what I have in mind?”
“Sure.” Not that he’d understand a single word of it. He just liked listening to her talk. She had a voice like good whiskey—smooth with a hint of a bite.
“To start with, you’re a little stock-heavy at the moment. Which was a good move at the beginning of your career, when you could reasonably expect a steady income for a while. You’ve had decent growth the past few years, so now I’d like to look at preserving your current capital.”
The implication pricked at his pride—and his temper. “I’m not retiring.”
She raised a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow in his direction. “I didn’t say you were. But you will be, and relatively soon, all things considered.”
Leaning forward in his chair, he jabbed a finger at her from across the desk. “I’ve got a good five years left in me, at least.” Maybe. If his goddamn knee would cooperate.
“Which, in the world of financial planning, is relatively soon,” she replied without so much as blinking. Turning to face him more fully, she folded her hands on top of the file and pinned him with that ice-queen stare. “You may be a big shot out on the field, Mr. Barrick. But in here, I’m the all-star. You can either listen to me and I can give you a nice, comfortable life once you are inevitably forced out, or you can take your money and your business elsewhere. I have neither the time nor the patience for clients who throw hissy fits in my office.”
If she hadn’t had a damn good point, he might have walked out then and there. But she was right, and he was wrong, and he was man enough to admit it. Leaning back again, he flashed her another smile. “Fair enough. In here, you’re the boss.” Points to her for not so much as blinking when he deliberately emphasizedin here.
Instead, she just inclined her head and gave him a polite, “Thank you.”
Donna chose that moment to return with a small silver tray laden with a pale blue pitcher and two matching glasses. She silently poured water into one of the glasses and placed it on a coaster in front of her boss before offering him the second glass.
“Thanks,” he said, toasting her with the tumbler. Apparently, the two women were cut from the same cloth as Donna barely acknowledged him.
“Do you need anything else, Ms. Callahan?”
“No, that’s all for now. Thank you, Donna.” Katherine took a sip of her water as her assistant slipped silently out of the room. “All right, Mr. Barrick. Where were we?”
The desire to see if he could ruffle her won out over any desire to hear more about stocks and bonds and whatever the hell else she wanted to talk about. “You were about to agree to have dinner with me.”
It worked. For the first time since he’d walked into the office, she looked flustered. Pink crept up her neck from under the collar of her stuffy business suit and her eyes widened slightly. “I’m sorry?”
“What are you apologizing for?”
The color on her neck rushed to her cheeks. “I wasn’t. You—” She took a deep, deliberate breath, and he tried valiantly to ignore the way her breasts rose and fell beneath the curve-hugging blazer. “We never discussed meeting outside the office, Mr. Barrick.”
“Then let’s discuss it now. What are you doing tonight, Katherine?”
“Working.”
“Come on. Even a woman as dedicated as you has to eat sometime, right?”
“I—well—yes. I suppose.” Little wrinkles of confusion appeared along her brow, delighting him in a perverse way. Throwing her off balance was the most fun he’d had with a woman in… hell, he couldn’t remember how long, in or out of the bedroom. Even the eager submissives at Black Light hadn’t captivated him the way she had in the past few minutes.
“Then eat with me. We’ll go wherever you want. We can talk money or whatever makes you happy that isn’t turning great big piles of cash into bigger piles of cash.”
