Free Wilde Magic (Wilde Women Book 3) by Suzanne Halliday Page B

her best fuck-with-me-at-your-peril tone. “If,” she arched an eyebrow at him, “and I do indeed mean if, I take this assignment, I expect you to do what you’re told.”
    Shit, shit, shit and double shit. The slight curl of his lip let her know she’d just said that in the most clumsy and inarticulate way possible. Do what he’s told? Holy crap. Where the hell was her common sense hiding?
    “What I mean by that,” she added starchily with a hair flip over her shoulder, “is that you’ll be paying me for my services, not…”
    Shit, shit, shit and triple damn shit. Universe , she silently begged. Please stuff a sock in my mouth or something . Do what you’re told and now stating that he’d be paying for her services.
    Charlie silenced a groan, but not before he heard the telltale sound. Hello. You have reached 1-800-Get-Your-Act-Together.
    Throwing her hands up in exasperated frustration, she spared him a fierce glare. “You know what? Screw it. This is ridiculous. You make me nervous with all this,” she gestured dismissively with her hand at the way he was crowding her with his sea-faring macho man posture. All he needed was a deck beneath his feet, rolling and swaying with the ocean’s waves and the look woulda’ been complete. “With this … argh!”
    She was getting more and more agitated by the second, and all he did was stand there and smile at her—with his damn crotch almost smashed against her face.
    Some kind of seasonal madness must have taken over because in the space of two heartbeats, she swung from being tempted to smack the wicked grin off his handsome face to making mental calculations about how best to wrap around him and climb Mr. Sexy Pants like a tree. She bet he’d be fun to crawl all over.
    Seriously?
    It didn’t help her frame of mind one bit that he seemed to have the inside track on her every thought and reaction. When he chuckled softly and moved away, she worried it was because he knew she’d reached her limit and chose that moment to ease off and step back. At this rate, her triple-shit quickly became a snarling quadruple-shit punctuated with a mental grimace.
    Remember who you are.
    Right. Gotcha. Charlie nodded her head. She could do this. After all, he was only messing with her. Staying in control meant not playing his game.
    “You’re right, ‘tessa. Mi dispiace. ” The husky growl in Italian, and the suave nodding apologetic bow of his head, plus the way he splayed a hand on his chest, almost gave her a whiplash case of the giggle-swoons.
    The warmth in his smile made her insides all mushy. The man was a contradiction wrapped up in a spectacularly sexy package. One minute, he seemed larger than life and overwhelmingly dominant—giving off a worldly and slightly jaded air. And the next, almost like the view seen between swaying and fluttering sheets hung on a clothesline, she saw a glimpse of something else. Something quite different. Unless she was imagining things, Cal Tyler was lonely and all of this was a sham.
    “It’s just that you’re so cute when you’re trying to be all big and bad.”
    “What? I mean,” she stuttered. “Yeah, well, I am big and bad.” There! She told him.
    Rising from her seat she mindfully cursed that her composure wasn’t anywhere near normal and shot him a scathing glare. With just a couple of steps, she went to her satchel and reached inside, pulling out her daily planner. Hoping to buy enough time to mentally regroup, Charlie opted for business and steeled herself against further temptation.
    Slamming the overstuffed planner onto the conference table, she flipped it open and paged to the section with her calendar. Trying not to look at him was harder than she thought and since she didn’t intend to give him the satisfaction, she kept busy by gathering her long hair into a manageable tail, swirled, flipped and tucked a couple of times until a big knot hung against her nape. She generally made it a rule to keep her neck