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She gritted her teeth. “Forty million eight hundred thousand.”
“Did you notice that he didn’t even hesitate to leave you here with me? I mean, what kind of guy leaves their girlfriend alone with a Beaumont?”
She stood on her tiptoes and leaned in his face. “The kind of guy who trusts me—even with an obvious womanizer.” She tapped him in the chest with her finger. “Forty million seven hundred thousand.”
“What does womanizer mean, anyway? If it means that I go around making women feel like women, than I guess I am a womanizer.” He reached out and caressed Olivia’s cheek with his finger before running his thumb over her bottom lip. “Are you saying you don’t like to feel like a woman, Livy?”
With heat coursing through her veins, it was hard to disagree. But it wasn’t hard to step away. “Forty million six hundred thousand and counting. And I don’t like the name Livy.” She brushed past him.
He followed her to the desk, and for a second she thought there was going to be a fight over who got the chair. Instead he pulled it out and waited for her to take a seat before leaning on the edge of the desk far too close for comfort.
“You haven’t even thanked me for saving your crazy designer and putting her to bed.” he said.
“Oh, you put her to bed all right. How could you seduce a mentally unstable woman?”
“I did not seduce Babette.”
“Then how do you explain all those breathy moans?”
His eyebrows popped up. “Eavesdropping, Olivia?” The sexy smile slipped into place. “Want to try a little of what I gave Babette to make her moan?”
Before she could decline, he stepped behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. Then, with a technique that would make an experienced masseuse envious, he massaged the tense muscles in her shoulders and neck.
“Good Lord, woman,” he said as he used his thumb to roll out a lump, “you’re as knotted as pine flooring. You need to relax.”
She tried to keep from moaning like Babette, but it was hard when the man had such talented fingers. “I need you to sign the contract.”
He released her shoulders and swiveled the chair to face him. “You can’t save French Kiss with men’s underwear, Olivia. Especially when you have enemies in your camp that don’t want you to succeed.”
“What do you mean?”
“This morning before you got here, I discovered Anastasia Bradley talking on the phone in this very office. It seems she doesn’t mind breaking and entering.”
Olivia should’ve been surprised, but she wasn’t. She wouldn’t put anything past Anastasia.
“I guess I’ll have to fire her,” she said.
“You guess?”
“Okay.” She lifted her chin. “So I need to fire her.”
“You can’t.” Deacon leaned on the desk, so close that if Olivia moved an inch, her knee would be brushing his. Didn’t the man have any spatial boundaries? “She’s working with someone, and you won’t be able to find out who it is if you fire her.”
Olivia pulled her gaze away from the faded fly of his jeans and looked in his serious eyes. “She’s working with someone? What do you mean—?”
There was a tap on the door before Jason peeked his head in. Upon seeing them, he entered the office and closed the door. “I’m glad you’re both here.” Rather than hand the printouts he carried to Olivia, he handed them to Deacon. “You were right. Someone is skimming money. But I won’t know how much or where it’s going until I have the passcodes.”
“Skimming money?” Olivia felt as if she were in a bad Wall Street movie. Except Deacon and Jason weren’t acting. Deacon studied the sheets as Jason leaned over his shoulder and used his pencil as a pointer.
“Here’s the discrepancy. Here it is again. And again.” He pointed out a few more places on the sheets. “So I talked with her this afternoon at lunch and did what you said. I looked her straight in the eyes and told her that I wanted to take her to dinner.”
Olivia sat there stunned, not only because someone was taking money from her company but also because Jason was talking to Deacon as if they were best friends.
“So what did she say?” Deacon asked as he continued to scan the sheets.
“That she wouldn’t go to dinner with me, but she’d have sex with me—not at the office, though, because you might fire her.”
The phone rang, and Deacon reached down and pressed the speaker button. “Deacon Beaumont speaking.”
