Beth Kery - Since I Saw You

She ripped the piece of paper off the pad with a vicious swipe.

“Meet me at this address at noon. Bring your credit card,” she said, handing Kam the slip of paper. She turned to Ian and flipped her hand open in a succinct demand. “If you’re finished with the Tyake numbers, I need them back.”

Ian handed her the file wordlessly. They both watched Lin sweep out of the office.

“I’ve never seen her this way,” Ian said a moment after his office door shut briskly behind Lin. He stared at Kam looking a little sideswiped. “What in the world did you say to her when you two met?”

“Nothing,” Kam said laconically as he stood. He noticed Ian’s skeptical glance. “I just told her I thought she took her job way too seriously.”

“You told Lin Soong that?”

“Yeah,” Kam muttered under his breath as he walked over to study the view. “I didn’t realize at the time it was a dead-on poke at the hornet’s nest.”

She circled the tailor’s podium like a sleek cat on the prowl, examining every detail of the tailor and his assistant’s work, occasionally calling out adjustments she wanted.

“No, the sleeve is too short,” Lin said.

Kam glowered at her display of cool efficiency in the mirror, but she was impervious. He felt very much like an elephant in the center ring as the tailors poked and prodded at him. He’d purposefully goaded Lin into guiding him through the next few weeks. He’d realized too late she’d issued a return challenge when he saw that the address she’d given him was a high-end men’s haberdasher. Knowing what a big deal he’d made in Ian’s office, it was too late to back down. Now that he stood here with one man kneeling before him and another poking at his arm and back, however, he wished he’d turned tail and run while he had the chance.

The assistant’s hand brushed against his balls as he measured his inseam.

“Merde,” Kam muttered heatedly. The young tailor’s assistant’s hand jerked back guiltily. “Watch where you put that tape measure!”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

The boy looked too anxious to continue. Kam glanced up in the mirror and noticed the amusement in Lin’s expression.

“You’d better get on with it,” she said from behind them. “We have three more suits to go plus a tuxedo.”

“Can’t they just go by the measurements from this one?” Kam demanded.

“Each suit is slightly different in the cut.”

“Why so many?”

“We have more than just the meeting with the Gersbachs. I told you that Monday night. There are other parties interested in your product. I have other meetings lined up for you,” Lin said, her focus returning to watching Mr. Marnier’s actions. “And I want you to be perfect for each one. Besides, it’s not as if you won’t need the suits for future business.”

He snorted in derision. Still, he couldn’t pull his gaze off her face. Or her legs. Or her anything, really. A man could make a meal out of looking at her. He couldn’t deny his appreciation at being granted access to look his fill. She glanced up and met his stare in the mirror. He went rigid in awareness and was suddenly glad Junior had stopped poking around his privates.

“You are bound to be disappointed,” he told her point-blank. His gaze sunk over her lithe body. “I’m not the perfect one in this scenario.”

Her nostrils flared slightly as their gazes clung. “It’s a relative term,” she replied softly. “I meant to perfect what you already are.”

“You make me sound like I’m a doll you’re trying to make pretty for tea. It’ll never work.”

Her chin tilted up in a subtle dare. “We’ll see.”

Her heart leapt an hour later when he caught her elbow on the way out of the store. She honestly couldn’t say if it did so in panic or in acute anticipation.

“Where are you running off to so fast?” Kam asked when Lin glanced over her shoulder as she finished buttoning her coat.

“I have a thing called a job.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I think we established that the other night.”

He grabbed her elbow again, when she turned irritably and started out the door.

“Why are you so prickly about my job?” she hissed over her shoulder. Immediately, she felt guilty. She was the one who was so prickly about her job today . . . about what Ian had told her about relocating to London . . . about Kam’s insinuations about her doing anything for her work . . . about everything.

“Because I don’t like being one of your job duties,” he replied in a hushed tone, glancing around the luxurious store. A man holding up two ties looked their way, obviously hearing their tense hisses. Kam nodded to the sunny street and sidewalk and followed Lin out the revolving door.

“I told you. Monday night was not a job duty. Not the end of it, anyway,” she said succinctly when they faced off on the sidewalk. “Monday night was a mistake. And everything we do together from here on out? Definitely work, and tedious work at that,” she added with a hard glare. She started to walk away.

He cursed in French under his breath. “I’m sorry,” he called out baldly.

She halted abruptly and glanced back at him, her mouth falling open in surprise.

“I’m sorry for suggesting that you were acting on Ian’s orders to have sex with me to soften me up,” he said in a muted tone, glancing from side to side to make sure no one was in hearing distance. “I wasn’t thinking straight at the time.”

“I’ll say you weren’t. You were acting like a bully.”

His eyes flared with anger, but then he briefly closed them and inhaled.

“You’re right. I deserve that,” he said stiffly.

Her gaze narrowed as she stepped toward him. “It would have been one thing if you were just being an oaf. But you were being intentionally rude. You were trying to be hurtful. Why?”

He blinked, grinding his jaw, looking like he was “chewing metal” as Richard had put it. “When I saw you getting dressed that night when I came out of the bathroom, I realized you were done with me,” he suddenly bit out.

Her expression went flat. A tingling sensation swept along her limbs. A car horn beeped loudly as traffic passed, but it barely penetrated Lin’s awareness.

“It suddenly hit me how truly unlikely it would be that a woman like you would have initiated something with me,” Kam said.

“So you accused me of going to bed with you on Ian’s orders?” she clarified quietly.

He shrugged and glanced uncomfortably out at the street. “I knew I was wrong almost the second I walked out your door. But if I hadn’t fully guessed how wrong I was then, I would have this morning.”

Lin took another step closer. For the first time since they’d slept together she looked straight into his eyes. He noticed and glanced down at her. She thought she really did see regret mixing with irritation in the light-infused, silvery depths. She got the distinct impression the frustration she witnessed was with himself. “What do you mean?” she asked. “What happened this morning?”

“Ian seemed genuinely put off by your . . . presentation in his office earlier. There’s no way in hell he could have asked you to tango with me purposefully,” Kam scoffed. “If he had, he wouldn’t have seemed so stunned by the way you acted. He seemed completely out of the loop for once in his life.”

“Tango with you?” she clarified, amused despite her determination to keep him at arm’s length.

“Face it. I set you off balance,” he said, leaning down slightly, a small smile tilting his lips.

She blinked, unsteadied yet again. “Your cockiness is epic,” she said in mixed amazement and irritation, forgetting momentarily that he’d just admitted point-blank a weakness to her. He’d been as vulnerable as she had been after they’d had sex.

“Only if it works,” she thought she heard him mutter under his breath in a thick accent. “Will you have lunch with me?” he asked, his gaze sinking slowly to her mouth in a familiar way that she recognized from the other night. Heat rushed through her, testing her straining defenses.

“I told myself I was going to steer clear of you, Kam.”

“Why?” he asked, taking a step closer, so that the placket of his open shirt brushed against her coat. She found herself staring up into those magnetic eyes. She was nearly as close as she had been Monday night when they lay side by side, both of them turned inside out by thunderous climaxes. “I apologized, didn’t I?” he reminded her quietly. “I know when I make a mistake. Or are you one to hold a grudge?”

“No, it’s not that. I appreciate your apology,” she admitted. “It’s just . . . you’re trouble.”

“As a rule?” he murmured. “Or for you in particular?”

She hesitated. “Both, I think.”

“Best news I’ve had all day.”

Something hitched in her chest when she saw the smile in his eyes.

“At least have lunch with me. It’s boring in that hotel room all alone.”

“You said you wanted to be alone. You’ve lived in isolation for almost all of your adult life,” she reminded him.

“But always with something to do. I don’t like being bored.”

“There’s a fantastic workout facility at the Trump Tower hotel.”

“I already used it today.”

“You could take a tour of the city. Or I could plan a tour for you at a Noble Enterprises manufacturing plant.”

“Ian is going to take me out to a plant next week to show me around. We planned it today during the tour downtown. But if you know of any other technology or telecommunication sector companies I might visit while I’m here, I’d be interested,” Kam said, surprising her. He leaned in and said with mock confidentiality, “And you don’t even have to hold my hand during the tours if you don’t want to.”