Tess
“I’ve been thinking about your problem,” Teyana said on Monday when she called. “And I think I know what you need to do.”
I had a semi-good idea what she was referring to as my problem. I’d spent the previous day with her, and pretty much all I’d talked about was Scott. How confusing he was, how much I still wanted him, how worried I was that I was going to fuck the DRF over because of my silly obsession.
I was eager to accept any help she could give.
I pulled my phone away to check the time. Fifteen minutes until I had to leave for the Sebastian Center. I’d have to multitask. After turning on the speaker, I set my cell on the bathroom counter and went back to applying my mascara. “Give it to me.”
“So. You want to keep this deal with the DRF on the level. I get that. But let’s be honest here.
You’re already there under false pretenses.
You’ve already banged the guy in charge.
You’ve already crossed the ethics line. There’s a better chance than not that you’ll end up messing around with him again the minute you’re alone with him today. ”
“That’s a fairly accurate summary of the circumstances.” And explained my current state of self-loathing. “Is this supposed to be helpful?”
“Extremely. Hear me out.”
“Still listening.” I blinked a couple of times and studied myself in the mirror, making sure my eye makeup looked even.
“Instead of fighting the attraction, you use it.”
With a frown, I stared down at my phone. She couldn’t mean what I thought she meant. “Are you suggesting that I pimp myself out in order to get this contract signed?”
“I wasn’t going to be that crass, but…”
I switched off speaker mode and put the phone back to my ear. “I am not going to offer sex in exchange for this, Teyana. Not only is that demoralizing and anti-feminist, it’s also completely unethical—”
“Already crossed that line, remember?”
I ignored her interruption. “And if anyone found out that’s what I’d done, any progress I made would be null and void. Why would I do that to the DRF? Why would you want me to risk that?”
“Calm your tits, Tess. I’m not saying you exchange sex for anything.
Just, don’t fight against the desire. Lean into it.
We both know Kendra certainly does. She’s probably slept with half of the men she’s sold to, and everything has worked out fine.
So Scott wants to fool around more, right?
Go in, flirt a bit, then tell him the clothes stay on until you get the business out of the way.
You’ll both be motivated to the task if there’s a reward at the end, a reward that is going to happen regardless of any contract being signed. A reward you’ve already received.”
I opened my mouth to argue more, then closed it again when I realized it was a lost battle.
I truly wanted to keep to the moral high ground, but I’d already wandered off that path so long ago, I could barely see it in the distance.
Would I be able to have a conversation with him that didn’t end with our mouths locked?
Past experience said that it would take both of our resolve if I wanted to even give my pitch before we fell into each other’s arms.
The more I thought about it, the more Teyana’s suggestion seemed like the only way to go, whether I liked it or not.
With a sigh, I looked down at the pantsuit I was wearing, chosen specifically because it would be hard to get out of. “In that case, I’d better change into something less restrictive.”
An hour later, wearing a flowy skirt and no panties, I checked in with Sadie outside Scott’s office. “I have an eleven-fifteen appointment. Tessa Turani.”
I winced as soon as I said it. Now I was referring to myself as Tessa? What was this man doing to me?
The woman hadn’t bothered to look up from her computer screen until I’d given my name. Now, she scanned me up and down, her mouth tight while she appraised me. “He said to send you on in when you arrived,” she said with a hint of curiosity.
“Uh, okay.” I failed to see why it was such an odd request.
“He never does that,” she explained. “He’s a ‘buzz me when they arrive’ type of guy. Makes me think you must be special.”
It was tempting to believe that. It was my favorite fantasy—pretending that the current player I was attracted to thought I was more than just a notch in his bedpost. Tey referred to it as my romance-colored glasses, saying that I always saw love in what was very clearly lust.
Knowing this about myself didn’t stop my yearnings, but it did make it easier for me to separate fact from fiction. The fact here was that I was most definitely not special to Scott Sebastian.
“He just knows we’re on a deadline,” I assured Sadie, though to be honest, I wasn’t sure why Scott had given her that direction, especially when I’d made it clear when I’d made the appointment that this was to be a business meeting.
Actually, I did know why. Because he knew as well as I did how well we did business together. Because he was eager to fool around.
All the more reason that Tey’s plan of approach had been the best. Now I just had to figure out how to put it into action. Standing here looking like a fool while I stared down his office doors wasn’t getting me anywhere.
“I’ll, uh, go on in then,” I said to Sadie.
“Yes. I think you should do that.”
With a burst of courage, I pushed into his office.
He was on the sofa, listening intently to someone on the phone, but he looked up and nodded when he saw me.
Quietly, I closed the door behind me and set my briefcase down next to it after taking out the expanded booklet I’d made for the DRF from the outer pocket.
Then, when he gestured for me to come closer, I crossed the room to him.
Yep. That’s all it took. A little crook of his finger, and I was on my way.
God help me.
When I actually made it over and sat down across from him, I realized I was doing better than I’d thought.
This wasn’t going to be as hard as I’d imagined.
He was breathtaking (as always) and stupid sexy as he typed something into his laptop and spouted off something in Spanish to the person on the phone, but there was a coffee table between us, and the air of professionalism cloaked the room.
Was it possible I didn’t need to use my wiles after all?
Then Scott finished his call, set his laptop aside, and pinned his attention on me, and with his blue eyes boring into me with that devilish glint, I was undone.
“Tessa.” His voice was heated. “I’ve been told this meeting is, much to my dismay, of a business nature, and so I’ve promised myself I’ll be on my best behavior. But you should know—my best behavior is still pretty bad.”
I was pretty sure I purred.
So back to Tey’s plan. Sort of. “Good thing, then, that I’m here to try to manipulate you with sex.”
His mouth curled up into a wicked half-grin. “I’m intrigued. What exactly are you after?”
Ugh, this felt wrong. In a bad way.
But there was no going back now. I handed him the booklet.
“I presented the team with the organization that I am convinced is the best choice for SIC sponsorship. Everyone unanimously agreed. It’s outlined here in detail for you to look over, which I hope you do, but I’m also hoping that you will green light it immediately so we can go on to the next phase.
I know we’re both eager to get this deal moving along, and if you approve the coordination meeting right now, well.
Then we still have forty minutes before the team meeting to, uh, play. ”
It was official. I was not very good at using sex as a weapon.
That thought was confirmed when he didn’t react at all to my proposal, his expression instead growing serious as he opened the booklet and began skimming the material. “Dysautonomia,” he said after a few seconds. “Is that what Teyana has?”
I hadn’t expected him to be that astute, or for him to even think about a woman who he’d met for a handful of minutes. “Um. Yeah. It is.”
“I thought it might be when I read through the previous materials you provided.” He shut the booklet. “All right. It’s approved.”
It couldn’t be that easy.
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re that eager to get to the, um, playing, that you’re really just going to say yes without thoroughly thinking it through?”
“I am eager, but I’m not saying yes without thinking it through. I’ve read the materials you have given us. I’ve done some extra research on my own. The DRF was the one I was leaning toward myself. You say it’s the best one for us, I trust you. I’m glad the team has come to the same conclusion.”
“But you’ve been super thorough. You made me go through all those meetings discussing organizations you weren’t interested in, asking a million questions.”
“And you already called me on that. I was dragging it out, and now I’m not.” He leaned back against the leather sofa and crossed one ankle over his other knee.
He looked laid back and in charge because he was.
He didn’t see how he demonstrated his power, but that’s what all this had been—a big power trip.
All of this could have been decided in one meeting.
He’d turned it into five. Six if we counted this one.
And I did. It was frustrating enough to make me pissed. And I would be.
If it weren’t for the fact that he’d clearly done all the power playing because he was attracted to me.
And, damn, if I weren’t a sucker for that shit.
I also really, really cared about this sponsorship. “You mean it? I can tell the team today that we’re moving forward, and I can schedule a coordination meeting?”
“I mean it.” He picked up his laptop. “I’ll order the background check right now. It should be back by Wednesday. You can schedule a meeting as early as Thursday. I’ll make sure Sadie knows to work around whatever time you give her.”
That wasn’t going to help to discredit her notion that I was special, but what did I care?