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She heard the amusement in his voice. “You’re not serious about this at all. You’re just getting even with me for letting those women into your motor home.”
“I’ve never been more serious. Today was only a sample of what’s in store for me for the next few months unless I have a gen-u-ine fiancée standing at my side. The only person besides us who has to know the truth is my mother.” The noise at the door had finally stopped, and he walked over to the telephone. “I’m gonna call her now to make sure she plays along.”
“Stop! I didn’t say I’d do this.” But she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. She had so little time with him that every second was precious. And she had no delusions about his feelings toward her, so she wasn’t in danger of confusing reality and illusion. She remembered the promise she’d made to herself to give and not take, and for the second time that day, she decided to spread her wings and free-fall.
He was giving her that cocky look that said he knew he’d won, and she reminded herself that she cared about him too much to contribute to his character flaws by letting him dictate all the terms. She stalked over to him and crossed her arms.
“All right,” she said in a low, determined voice. “I’ll go along with this. But you are not, under any circumstances, to refer to me again as ‘the future Mrs. Bobby Tom,’ do you understand? Because if you say that just once, just once, I will personally tell the entire world that our engagement is a fraud. Furthermore, I will announce that you are—are—” Her mouth opened and closed. She’d started out strong, but now she couldn’t think of anything terrible enough to throw at him.
“An ax murderer?” he offered helpfully.
When she didn’t reply, he tried again. “A vegetarian?”
It came to her in a flash. “Impotent!”
He looked at her as if she’d gone crazy. “You’re going to tell everybody I’m impotent?”
“Only if you call me that obnoxious name.”
“I seriously advise you to stick with that ax murderer idea. It’ll be more believable.”
“You talk big, Bobby Tom. But from personal observation, I’d say that’s about all you do.”
The words slipped out before she had time to think about them, and she couldn’t believe what she’d said. She, a thirty-year-old virgin with no experience at flirtation, had issued a sexual challenge to a professional libertine. He gaped at her, and she realized she had finally rendered him speechless. Although her knees were showing an alarming tendency to tremble, she stuck her chin up in the air and marched out of the bedroom.
By the time she reached the front hallway, she had begun to smile. Surely a competitor like Bobby Tom wouldn’t let a remark like that go unchallenged. Surely, even now, he was planning some appropriate form of retaliation.
10
“Mr. Sawyer will see you now, Mrs. Denton.”
Suzy rose from the leather couch and crossed the well-appointed reception area toward the office of the CEO of Rosatech Electronics. She stepped inside and heard a soft click as Wayland Sawyer’s secretary shut the carved walnut door behind her.
Sawyer didn’t look up from his desk. She wasn’t certain whether he had made a calculated decision to put her in her place or if he simply had no more manners than he’d had in high school. Either way, it didn’t bode well. The city and the county had already sent a flock of important representatives to talk with him, and he had been maddeningly noncommittal. She knew that she, as the female president of the Board of Education, was considered a rather pathetic last-ditch effort.
The office was decorated much like a gentleman’s library, with richly paneled walls, comfortable furniture up-holstered in deep burgundy, and hunting prints. As she walked slowly across the Oriental carpet, he continued to study a folder of papers through the lenses of a pair of half glasses that looked very much like the ones she, after a lifetime of perfect vision, had recently been forced to buy.
The cuffs of his blue dress shirt had been turned twice, revealing surprisingly muscular forearms for a man of fifty-four. Neither the dress shirt, the neatly knotted navy-and-red-striped tie, nor the half glasses could disguise the fact that he looked more like a roughneck than a captain of industry. He reminded her of a slightly older version of Tommy Lee Jones, the Texas-born actor who was a favorite of her bridge club.
She tried hard not to let his silence rattle her, but she wasn’t like these talented young women who functioned better in a boardroom than a kitchen. Growing an herb garden interested her far more than competing for power with men. She was also from the old school and accustomed to common courtesy.
“Perhaps this isn’t a good time,” she said softly.
“I’ll be with you in a minute.” His voice was impatient. Without looking at her, he jerked his head toward one of the side chairs in front of his desk, just as if she were a dog he was ordering to lie down. The offensive gesture forced her to realize exactly how futile her mission was. Wayland Sawyer had been impossible in high school, and obviously nothing had changed. Without another word, she made her way back across the carpet toward the door.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
She turned to-him and spoke quietly. “My visit is obviously an intrusion on your time, Mr. Sawyer.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He snatched off his glasses and motioned toward chair. “Please.”
The word was barked out as a command, and Suzy couldn’t remember when she’d taken such an instant dislike to someone; although, as she thought about it, she realized it wasn’t all that instant. Way had been two years ahead of her, the biggest hood at Telarosa High, and the kind of boy only the fastest girls had gone out with. She still had a vague memory of seeing him standing behind the gym with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and his hard eyes slitted like a cobra’s. It was difficult to reconcile the teenage hoodlum with the multimillionaire businessman, but one thing hadn’t changed. He had terrified her then and he still did.
She swallowed her trepidation and made her way to the chair. He studied her openly, and she found herself wishing she’d ignored the blistering summer heat and worn a suit instead of her chocolate silk wrap dress. The garment tied loosely at the side and fell in soft folds over her hips as she sat. She had brightened the simple neckline with a chunky matte gold necklace and small, matching earrings. Her sheer, chocolate-tinted stockings were the same shade as her designer pumps, which were embellished around the sides of the square polished heels with a parade of tiny gold panthers. The outfit had been ridiculously expensive, she was certain, a birthday gift from Bobby Tom after she’d refused to let him buy her a condo on Hilton Head.
“What can I do for you, Mrs. Denton?”
His words held the trace of a sneer. She could deal with the more aggressive male members on the board because she’d known most of them all her life, but she was clearly out of her element with him. As much as she wanted to leave, however, she had a job to do. The children of Telarosa were going to lose so much if this awful man had his way.
