It Happened in Manhattan: Affair with the Rebel Heiress / The Billionaire's Bidding / Tall, Dark & Cranky

She barely had time to school her panic into a semblance of calm before the door to the conference room swung open and there he was. Fate had pulled a much crueler trick on her than merely giving two men the same name. No, fate had tricked her into selling her beloved company to the same man to whom she’d already given her body.

What had he expected?

Okay, he hadn’t thought she’d jump up, run across the room and throw her arms around him. But he sure as hell hadn’t expected the complete lack of response. The coolly dismissive blank stare. As if she didn’t recognize him at all. As if he were beneath her notice.

Her gaze barely flickered over him as she looked from him to Jonathon. Then she glanced away, looking bored. Someone from Biedermann’s had stood and was making introductions. Ford shook hands at the right moment, filing away the name and face of Kitty’s CFO.

She looked good. Lovely, in fact. As smoothly polished as the one-dimensional woman in the Nagel painting poster he’d had on his wall as a teenager. Beautiful. Pale. Flat.

Gone was the vibrant woman he’d danced with in The Well two months ago. By the time the introductions were done, one thing had become clear. She was going to pretend they’d never met before. She was going to sit through this meeting all the while ignoring the fact that they’d once slept together. That he’d touched her bare skin, caressed her thighs, felt her body tremble with release.

Which was exactly what he should do, too. Hell, wasn’t that what he had planned on doing?

Just as Jonathon was pulling out his chair, Ford said, “Before we get started, I wonder if I could have a word alone with Ms. Biedermann.”

Jonathon sent him a raised-eyebrowed, do-you-know-what-you’re-doing? kind of look. Kitty’s CFO hovered by her side, like an overly protective Chihuahua.

Ford gave the man his most reassuring smile while nodding slightly at Jonathon. He knew Jonathon would back him up and get the other guy out of there. Jonathon wouldn’t question his actions, even if Ford was doubting them himself.

Something was up with Kitty and he intended to find out what it was.

Kitty watched Marty leave the conference room, fighting the urge to scream. An image flashed through her mind of herself wild-eyed and disheveled, pulling at her hair and shouting “Deserter! Traitor!” like some mad Confederate general about to charge into battle and to his death, all alone after his men have seen reason and fled the field.

Clearly, she’d been watching too many old movies.

Obviously her time would have been better spent practicing her mental telepathy. Then she could have ordered Marty to stay. As it was, she couldn’t protest without Ford realizing how much the prospect of being alone with him terrified her.

The moment the door shut, leaving them alone in the room, he crossed to her side. “Hello, Kitty.”

She stood, nodding. Praying some response would spring to her lips. Something smart. Clever. Something that would cut him to the bone without seeming defensive.

Sadly nothing came to mind. So she left it at the nod.

“You look …” Then he hesitated, apparently unsure which adjective best described her.

“I believe ‘well’ is usually how one finishes that sentence.” Oh, God. Why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut?

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“Well, you seem to be having trouble finishing the sentence,” she supplied. “Since I’m sure I look just fine and since I’d much rather get this over with than stand around exchanging pleasantries, I thought I’d move things along.”

He raised his eyebrows as if taken aback by her tone. “You aren’t curious why I’m here?”

That teasing tone stirred memories best left buried in the recesses of her mind. Unfortunately, those pesky memories rose up to swallow her whole, like a tsunami.

As if it were yesterday instead of two months or more, she remembered what it had felt like to be held in his arms. Cradled close to his body as they swayed gently back and forth on the dance floor. The way he’d smelled, musky yet clean against the sensory backdrop of stale smoke and spilled beer. The way her body had thrummed to life beneath his touch. The way she’d quivered. The way she’d come.

She thrust aside the memories, praying he wouldn’t notice that her breath had quickened. Thankful he couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart or see the hardening of her nipples.

Hiding her discomfort behind a display of boredom, she toyed with the papers on the table where she’d been sitting. She couldn’t stand to look at him, so she pretended to read through them as she said, “I know why you’re here. You came here to take control of Biedermann’s.” Thank God her voice didn’t crack as she spoke. It felt as if her heart did, but that at least she could hide. For the first time since he walked into the room, she met his gaze. “You can’t honestly expect me to welcome you. You’re stealing the company I was born to raise.”

His expression hardened. “I’m not stealing anything. FMJ is providing your failing company with some much-needed cash. We’re here to keep you in business.”

“Oh, really. How generous of you.” She buried all her trepidation beneath a veneer of sarcasm. As she always did. It was so much easier that way. “Since that’s the case, why don’t you just write out a nice hefty check and leave it on the table on your way out. I’ll call you in a decade or so to let you know if it helped.”

“A big, fat check might help if all you needed was an infusion of cash. But the truth is, Biedermann’s needs a firm hand at the helm and you can’t have one without the other. You know that’s not how this works.”

His words might have been easier to swallow if he’d sounded apologetic instead of annoyed. No, wait … there wasn’t really any way that anything he said could be easier to swallow.

“No. Of course that’s not how it works. You’ll go over the company with a fine-toothed comb. You’ll tear it apart, throw out the parts you don’t like and hand the rest back in pieces. In the end, everything my family’s worked for for five generations will be gone. All so you can turn a quick profit.”

“Tell me something. Is that really what’s bothering you?”

Of course it wasn’t what was really bothering her. What was really bothering her was that he was here at all. Her safe, what-the-hell-I’m-stuck-in-Texas fling hadn’t stayed where it was supposed to. In Texas. What was the point of having a fling with a stranger if the man ended up not being a stranger at all?

But she couldn’t say that aloud. Especially given the way he was looking at her. With his expression so intense, so sexual, so completely unprofessional, it sent a wave of pure shock through her system.

“W-what do you mean?”

“Come on, Kitty. This anger you’re clinging to isn’t about Biedermann’s at all. This is about what happened in Texas.”

She quickly buried her shock beneath a veneer of disdain. “Texas. I’m surprised you’d have the guts to bring that up.”

“You are?”

“Of course.” She strolled to the other side of the conference table. “I’d think you would be the last person to want to hash that over. But since you brought it up, maybe you can answer a question for me. Was anything you told me true or was it all pretense?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know. That whole charade you put on to pick me up back in Texas. That aw-shucks, I’m just a simple cowboy trying to make a living act.”

“I never said I was a cowboy.”

“No. But you had to know that’s what I thought.”

“How exactly was I supposed to know that?” His facade of easy charm slipped for a moment and he plowed a hand through his hair in frustration. He sucked in a breath and pointed out in a slightly calmer tone, “You weren’t exactly forthcoming about who you were, either.”

“I did nothing wrong.” True, she hadn’t exactly presented him with her pedigree when they’d first met, but surely it didn’t take a genius to see she didn’t fit in at that bar. If there had been an obvious clue he didn’t, either, she’d missed it entirely. She refused to let him paint himself the victim. “I don’t have anything to apologize for. I’m not the one who pretended to be some down on his luck cowboy.”

“No, you’re just the one who gave me a fake phone number instead of admitting you didn’t want to see me again.”

“If you knew I didn’t want to see you again,” she asked, “then why did you go to the trouble of hunting me down?”

“I didn’t hunt you down. What happened in Texas has nothing to do with FMJ’s offer.”

“Then how exactly did the offer come about anyway?” she asked. “If you didn’t go back to work and say, ‘Wow, that Kitty Biedermann must be really dumb to have fallen for my tired old lines. I bet we could just swoop in and buy that company right from under her.’”

His gaze narrowed to a glare. “You know that’s not how it happened.”