Free Sweeter Than Revenge by Ann Christopher Page A

office. Once in the hall, he grabbed Maria’s upper arm and marched her through the secretaries’ cubicles and down the hall to the nearest empty office. Pushing her inside, he shut the door behind them.
    “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snarled. Maria’s wide-eyed, Who, me?expression, as authentic as a Rolex purchased from the trunk of someone’s car, only pissed him off more. “Don’t think this little charade is going to work.”
    Blinking at him, she crinkled her brow as if she couldn’t possibly begin to understand what in the world he was talking about. “Charade? What do you mean?”
    “This.”Waving a hand at her dress, he jerked the filmy material at her shoulder. “This.”He grabbed the pearl necklace and let it drop. “Your whole ‘Anastasia, I love you, you’re soooo wonderful. Oh, Uri, when will Jupiter be in Neptune’ routine,” he said, fluttering his eyelids and speaking in a high-pitched voice. “It’s not going to work.”
    She laughed triumphantly. “It didwork, David—in case you didn’t notice. Anastasia wants me to work on her campaign.”
    “Yeah, well, shedoesn’t get the final word.”
    “Oh, I think she does.”
    Toe to toe, he glared and she grinned, but then something shifted between them and the air became hot and charged. Dangerous. Her smile slipped away, leaving behind a bright, intent light in her eyes.
    Lust suddenly made him crazy, heating his blood and his skin, and making him want to slip his hands underneath her fluttery dress and caress her bare thighs. He shuddered and choked back the groan, but not the serrated exhalation. Thinking always became impossible when she was this close, but right now he couldn’t see why that mattered. Smelling her faint, delicious scent of lemon and flowers seemed far more important. Still, if he had half the sense God gave a squirrel, he’d move away—far away—from Maria.
    He didn’t move a muscle.
    She did things to him, this woman. Always had, damn her. Her simplest looks and touches, the merest whiff of her fragrant skin, did something to him, and he didn’t like it one little bit. Maria—only Maria—regressed him and turned him into a fumbling fool with no more control over his body than an eleven-year-old with his first erection.
    Touch her, touch her,his body chanted. He shifted closer.
    “Surely you remember she was about to fire you before I came in,” Maria said.
    “No, she wasn’t.”
    Her cheeks flushed with hot, pretty color. Worse, her gaze flickered down to his mouth as he spoke, lingering.
    Kiss her, kiss her,became the chant, and he wondered what those dewy, pouty lips would taste like, and if they’d be as sweet as he remembered.
    Enough was enough. He’d wanted to stand where he was and fight, but the flight response won out. Better to retreat while he could and live to fight another day. What sane man could withstand this kind of attraction for more than ten seconds? Shrugging, he slid his hands into his pants’ pockets and sauntered over to look out the window.
    “Maria, Maria,” he said over his shoulder, trying to sound as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “Devious, aren’t you?”
    She stared, not answering.
    “Well, it’s not going to work.”
    Angry suddenly, she threw her arms wide. “Don’t let your stupid pride—”
    “I’m not stupid or proud.”
    “—stop you from doing what’s right, David. I can help you.”
    “I don’t want or need anything you have to offer, Maria.”
    Her startled, hurt expression told him she knew—as well as he did—that they weren’t talking about work. Swallowing hard, she seemed to regroup.
    “She’ll tattle on us to the publisher if you make her mad,” she said, looking uncertain. “And then Essex House will fire us, and we’ll lose a huge client.”
    Unwilling to call her bluff and needing a graceful way off the battlefield, he decided to act like he’d won the point. Like he’d been in charge the whole