Take On Me

She bristled at the proprietorial way he handed out the compliment—as if he’d handpicked the team and trained them up personally, not her. As though he was telling her something she didn’t know.

“Yeah, they’re a great team. Very experienced. I’m surprised Claudia didn’t consider getting one of them to step up, actually.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d made a tactical error. For starters, none of the team was really at the stage where they could step up and take over the show at the drop of a hat. And he’d know that after a week with them. The bastard.

Second—and more importantly—she’d tipped her hand. He knew she didn’t want him here. She could see it in his eyes—along with the fact that he didn’t give a damn how she felt.

“Guess you’d have to talk to Claudia about that.” He shrugged, supremely cool.

She swallowed the swearword that sprang instinctively to her lips.

“Since you seem to have landed on your feet so well, we’d best get straight down to business,” she said tightly, determined not to give him another inch.

“Sure. You want me to recap last week’s episodes, or did you get a chance to read them before you came in?” he asked.

She resisted the urge to respond defensively by blaming her late flight for her lack of preparation. She was his boss, not the other way around.

“Just walk me through the salient points,” she said calmly.

“Sure.”

Tilting her chair back a little, Sadie steepled her fingers and tried to look confident and in control.

Anything to survive this first encounter with some dignity intact.

DYLAN TOOK A MOMENT to gather his thoughts before launching into a summary of last week’s stories. Not easy when his eyes kept drifting to the neckline of Sadie’s tight T-shirt.

“Basically, we picked up on the six strands you guys had going—Gabe and Hannah’s romance, Kirk and Loni’s divorce, Garth’s malpractice suit, Honey’s pregnancy, Luther’s machinations regarding the family business and Angel’s high-school dramas. Going over the previous few weeks’ worth of story lines, I thought we’d pretty much milked the divorce scenario as much as we could. So last week we got Kirk to the point of agreeing in principal to a settlement, and signing the papers,” Dylan said.

Sadie’s eyes narrowed as she processed what he’d said. Dylan waited and watched, his eyes drifting of their own accord over her face. She had great skin—sun-kissed, clear. Glowing was probably the way the cosmetic companies would describe it. Except it didn’t look as though she was wearing a lot of makeup to him.

“Future planning for Kirk and Loni is that they reconcile. We don’t want them getting a divorce,” she said.

“I saw your forward-planning stuff,” he said. “I thought we could get a few more twists and turns in there before we got them back together. So, Kirk’s signed the papers—but he hasn’t sent them anywhere yet.”

She stared at him, that muscle flexing in her jaw again. Good skin, and great eyes. Why hadn’t he remembered her eyes? She must have had those back in high school, even if the breasts that thrust up beneath her T-shirt had been conspicuously absent back then.

“And what’s going to stop him from handing the papers over to his lawyer?” she asked.

“This week, I figure Loni’s going to have a visit from an old flame. Someone to turn the heat up,” he said. He grinned cockily, daring her not to like it.

“And next week Kirk learns his brother has died?” Sadie asked, carefully not passing comment yet.

“Maybe. If we can’t find any more twists and turns before we get there,” Dylan said noncommittally.

Her eyes flashed once, briefly, then the calm, unreadable mask was back in place.

“That all sounds very interesting,” she said. “Rather than you going through it all verbally, though, I think I’d prefer to read the episodes, so I can really absorb the nuance.”

Her lips thinned for a moment, but nothing could disguise their plump poutiness for long. She had a very sexy mouth, he judged. Belatedly, he became aware of what he was doing: checking Sadie Post out.

Wrenching his brain back on track, he focused on the main event.

“Sure. You’re the boss, after all,” he said.

She’d been making a note on her pad, but her head shot up at that. They stared at one other for a long moment, then her gaze shifted to something over his shoulder.

“The rest of the team is here,” she said. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

He could have sworn she sounded relieved. The suspicion was reinforced when she stood, signaling the meeting was over. She was rattled. He relished the realization, even as he made himself a promise—he planned on shaking her cage a lot more than this over the next few months.

Instead of responding to her cues, he remained seated, wanting to see how far he could push her. Slowly, deliberately provocative, he slid his eyes over her body.

What was supposed to be a goad quickly turned into a pleasure tour. It wasn’t exactly a hardship looking at her, he admitted to himself as his gaze lingered on the firm, uptilted mounds of her breasts. She had the sort of lithe, elegant body that would look amazing naked. His eyes dropped to her hips. He hadn’t seen her butt yet, but he bet it was peachy. He wondered what kind of underwear she wore, whether she was a believer in the thong.

“You know, I would have walked past you in the street,” he said once he’d lifted his eyes back to her face. He was satisfied to see that she was blushing, her eyes sparkling with anger. “You sure have changed a lot.”

“Yes. You’re still pretty much the same, though,” she said.

She didn’t mean it as a compliment, he knew.

He stood, taking pleasure from looking down on her, even if he only had the advantage of an inch or two.

“You’d be surprised.”

He drilled her with his eyes before he delivered his parting words.

“I’m really looking forward to the next few months, Sadie.”

SADIE CLUTCHED at her desk as he exited her office, allowing herself to at last register how weak her knees were, and that her entire body was trembling with reaction.

Automatically her eyes followed his rangy body as he walked away, dropping to catalog his strong back and lean, trim hips. Well-worn denim sculpted the perfect male ass she remembered from all those years ago. It was still extremely grabbable, she decided dispassionately, the kind of perky male butt that made most women drool.

Every woman except her, of course. She was forever immune to any so-called charm Dylan Anderson had to offer.

She sank into her chair and stared at the notes she’d taken. Jumbled words and a messy, violent doodle filled the page. A pretty accurate depiction of her mindscape at present.

She felt blindsided, overwhelmed. He was the enemy. She didn’t want him at Ocean Boulevard. How could Claudia have done this to her?

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she wiped it out. This was not Claudia’s fault. If Dylan Anderson wasn’t who he was, he’d be the find of the year. A huge feather in their caps, in fact. He’d been nominated for a number of awards for his work on The Boardroom. As much as it galled her, she knew he was well respected. Admired, even.

“Gag me with a cheese grater,” she said out loud, reverting to one of her favorite high-school phrases. For some reason, it felt appropriate.

“Talking to yourself. Second sign of madness.”

It was Grace, already sliding into her visitor’s chair. Sadie felt pathetically pleased to see her, and had to bite back the overwhelming urge to blurt the whole sad saga out on the spot.

“I’m not even going to ask what the first sign is,” she said, hiding the revealing doodle in a desk drawer.