The Couple who Fooled the World

“Would you do that to a male colleague?” she asked once they were through the double doors of his home and in the spacious antechamber.

“Can’t say that I would. But you are not a man, so stop asking me to treat you like one.”

“I want to be treated like an equal.”

“Was that somehow not treating you like an equal?”

“I…well…you were treating me differently.”

“Different is unequal in some way?”

“Did you ask me here to debate gender politics or are you going to show me to your study and give me your spiel?”

“The latter.” He walked down the marble halls, appreciating the opulence of his home with each step he took. Appreciating that it was his.

He’d spent too many nights on cold cobblestone not to appreciate it. And too many other nights in soft beds that belonged to other people. And honestly, in the end, he wasn’t certain the cobblestone wasn’t the better option.

The hall opened up into another room with a broad arched doorway, one that reminded him of old buildings in Italy. Places that were far too grand to allow him admittance. So he’d built them for himself, now that he could afford them.

Antique furniture that cost more simply because it was old decorated the room, another possession he’d acquired simply because he could. Same with the marble busts and old vases. Things he’d bought because, before, they were things that museum docents and shopkeepers wouldn’t even let him look at.

Now he owned them. Now he owned whatever he wanted. The cost of it had been high enough that he felt entitled to reminders.

Julia sat in the biggest chair in the room, maroon and wingback. She crossed one slim, leather clad leg over the other and leaned back, tapping her patent black stiletto heel on the hard floor.

“Spill it, Calvaresi.”

“I want to partner with you and present our plan to Barrows. We can land the account together. And, I have it on good authority, we will easily remove Hamlin from the equation forever if we play our cards right.”

“What?”

“To which piece of the statement?”

“All of it. But start with Hamlin.”

“He’s on the downward slide. He’s in so much debt that the only thing that could possibly save Hamlin Tech at this point is a major new account. Barrows. If we don’t partner on it, odds are, he gets it. And the bigger picture here, Julia, is not so much you or I getting the account as it is being able to get rid of a key player in our industry.”

“That’s…well, it’s dastardly, is what it is.”

“I’d twirl my mustache if I had one,” he said, his tone dry.

“I’m serious, why bother to take Hamlin out?”

“Is it your goal to be more successful than him? To steal his customers and cut into his market share?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Well, it’s my goal, too. It’s my goal to do it to you, too, but I can put that on hold because I see an opportunity here. Frankly Hamlin is a bastard, and while I’m not the nicest guy I don’t have sweatshops throughout Asia, or harass my female employees.”

“So you’re just going to play like you’re swooping in and saving the world from Hamlin Tech and all the evil it commits?”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, “but it’s another reason he’s an enticing target. The main reason is that I want to be the last man standing.”

“And why should I enable you to get one step closer to your goal?”

“Because it takes you one step closer, too.”

“So we charge in together, then when the enemy is destroyed we turn our weapons on to each other?” She uncrossed her legs and tilted her head to the side, finely groomed eyebrows arched.

“Exactly. Is that a problem?”

“I’m not sure.” She folded her hands on her lap and leaned forward, resting her chin on them. She was an interesting woman. All limbs and pale skin and hair, brimming with a kind of uncontainable energy that always seemed to vibrate beneath the surface.

“As long as we’re working together, we’re working together.”

She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and Ferro felt a strange, answering jolt in his gut. She was a lovely thing. The sort who had no idea just how lovely. She would need a lot of flattering words, a lot of touch, nonsexual touch, in order to open up. In order to enjoy an encounter with a man.

He mentally castigated himself for the direction of his thoughts. This wasn’t the time. And assessing women like that, figuring out what they really wanted, how he might go about fulfilling that, wasn’t part of his life anymore.

He hadn’t looked at a woman like that in years and he wasn’t sure why he did it now. He wasn’t after a girlfriend, mistress or woman-for-hire which meant there was no point. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel attraction, simply that it registered in his body and nowhere else.

Maybe because she was a puzzle. Something about her didn’t fit. The energy, for one. She worked so hard to play it down, but she could hardly sit still. Then there was the don’t-touch-me black clothes. He imagined they were meant to make her look confident, but in his mind, it only betrayed the fact that she wasn’t. She was wearing armor that was far too easy to recognize as such.

But no matter how intriguing, he wasn’t going there with her. He would not revert to the man he’d been trained to be. He’d escaped that. He used it when it suited him, not when it didn’t. He wasn’t on a leash anymore.

“Meaning you won’t stab me in the back during this…caper?”

“I wouldn’t call it a caper. Although, it will require a bit of…finesse.”

“Meaning?”

This was the part she wouldn’t like. The part that would have been easy with another woman. But Julia wasn’t easy. She didn’t respond to his flirtation. Didn’t respond to his charm. Charm he knew was lethal in most cases.

But not in this one. Interesting. It made her so very interesting. It always had. No one else went toe-to-toe with him. No one, not even Scott Hamlin, would dare pull such public stunts the way she did. She’d pushed him to start doing the same. She’d forced him to act. So very interesting to meet someone who had that kind of power.

But it was in his control now.

“We’ll have to make it look like our…merging—”

“This is not a merger,” she bit out.

“For the project,” he said.

“Fine,” she said, barely civil. “Go on.”

“We’ll have to make our merging look organic.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”