An Offer from Mr. Wrong, page 4
Phillip Junior took a step in Lincoln’s direction prompting him to calmly rise to his feet.
“Assez!” Nicolette snapped with a sharp clap of her hands, letting them know it was enough.
Phillip Junior stopped his forward motion and walked away from Lincoln to pace.
Lincoln released a heavy breath as he reclaimed his seat. He wasn’t quite sure this whole scenario wouldn’t play out like the script of an ITV mystery where one brother killed another to avoid sharing a hefty inheritance.
Phillip Junior better not try me. I would snap him in half.
Like a dried twig.
“I think it’s very clear that Lincoln must spend time with all of his brothers and forge a relationship with them. War is not an option,” Nicolette said.
“And anyone hoping to one day become CEO of a company built for the family by the family should feel the same,” Phillip Senior finally spoke up. “Lincoln is family now. And he deserves the same opportunity to step into my shoes as any of my sons.”
“Listen,” Lincoln began. “I appreciate how welcoming most of you have been. But I have a life back in England. My mother. My restaurant. I need to—and will—return home in two weeks.”
Phillip Senior looked grim while his namesake could barely contain his pleasure at Lincoln’s announcement.
* * *
Bobbie freed her hair from its topknot as soon as she climbed behind the wheel of her blacked-out electric SUV parked in the underground garage in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She wove her fingers through the strands and shook them loose as she massaged her scalp, glad to have it unrestrained once again. The hair and the black gabardine evening dress she wore were for undercover surveillance at a charity gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. As soon as she got home, the laced stilettos would go next.
She opened her laptop sitting on the mount attached to the passenger seat bolt and logged into her encrypted account. Her fingers flew as she updated the file on the tech CEO suspected of selling intel to the company’s competitors. She was uploading surveillance photos from her sequined clutch that was a camera in disguise.
She paused to cover her mouth with the back of her hand as she yawned.
Private investigative work was exhausting at times, but she loved it. Even as she had stepped into the role of the owner upon her father’s retirement, she had not lessened her workload. Instead, she relied heavily on her team for needed support.
And the work she did was good.
No matter what anyone thinks.
Especially him.
Lincoln Cress.
Her fingers paused as his words of scorn echoed.
Find another occupation where you’re not paid to lie, pretend and exploit people who did not choose to have you in their lives...
“Bully,” she muttered, resuming her typing.
What a waste of a sexy man.
Bobbie paused again with her fingers floating above the keyboard at the surprising thought. He was handsome. And fit. And attractive. She arched a brow and pressed her hand to her throat. Her pulse pounded a bit harder than before.
Bzzzzzz.
She looked down at her phone sitting in the lap of her voluminous skirt. She gasped to see THE BRUTE calling. Lincoln. That’s how she’d saved his number in her contacts as she left the restaurant last night. It was unnerving for him to call just as she thought of him. With her heart pounding, she answered the call and placed it on Speaker.
“B. Barnett,” she said crisply.
“This is Lincoln. Lincoln Cress.”
His voice was deep and his British accent made it intriguing.
“I need to hire you,” he continued.
Bobbie chuckled sarcastically. “Nooooooo. Not me,” she said in a singsong fashion. “Not my exploitive work that you disdain, Mr. Cress.”
He released a breath that echoed throughout the car. “Have your moment,” he said stiffly.
“Gladly,” she smirked as she sat back against the red leather driver’s seat and tapped her nails against the steering wheel. “I told you to be careful that you might need my services.”
Lincoln remained quiet.
“Isn’t this something?”
“Are you done?” he drawled.
Bobbie inhaled sharply and released an exhale with a moan. “Am I?” she asked.
“Listen, can we meet? Tonight,” he said.
“It’s pretty late, Mr. Cress,” she said, eyeing the time on the dash of her vehicle.
“It’s urgent,” Lincoln stressed.
Curiosity was her downfall. Always was. Always would be.
“Can you meet me in front of The Met on Fifth Avenue?” she asked, already closing her laptop and easing the mount down until it was under the passenger seat.
“On the way,” he said, before ending the call.
“Rude,” Bobbie muttered as she opened the glove compartment and removed her high-voltage Taser to slide inside her camera clutch.
Just in case.
She left her car and locked it with the key fob before taking long strides across the garage to ride the elevator up to the street. The sounds of New York were activated and loud as ever. The blare of car horns. The grind of motors of vehicles. The laughs, shouts and other noises of those revving up for nightlife. The blare of music from cars and businesses.
New York.
She loved the pulse and the energy.
“Sweet God! Marry me!” someone shouted with a thick Italian accent as a car whizzed past her.
Bobbie just smiled and continued her stride.
As she paused at the corner of East Eighty-Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue she eyed the towering structure with French Beaux-Arts architecture now in existence for over a century and a half. The steps of one of the country’s largest museums of art were regal and beautiful, particularly at night with the illumination.
Bobbie crossed the walkway once the light permitted.
People still loitered on the many steps leading up to the main entrance of The Met. Some were jean-clad tourists and others like herself were there for the event and dressed as such. As she came to a stop in front of the building, she pulled her ostrich feather shawl closer around her shoulders because of the crisp winter air.
“Ms. Barnett.”
Bobbie turned at Lincoln weaving amongst the pedestrians on the street to reach her. He wore a camel overcoat that looked to be quality cashmere. She didn’t miss that several women looked him over as he moved past them with long strides.
He’s bowlegged.
As he came to a stop before her, his eyes gave her a hard assessing up-and-down look. “That’s quite a getup,” he said.
“I was undercover,” she explained, fighting her annoyance with him.
His mouth was always his downfall.
“As what?” he asked.
She imagined how she looked to him. Her dress had a full A-line skirt that rested above her knees and the thin straps of the bodice came down to a deep vee to the strap around her waist, pushing her cleavage forward daringly. Her makeup was more dramatic than when he last saw her with a smoky eye, blush and her gloss now a shimmery pale pink.
“Have you nothing nice to say? Ever?” she asked in exasperation.
Lincoln looked surprised. “What did I say that wasn’t nice?” he asked.
She widened her eyes and looked down at the tips of his tailored shoes as she allowed herself a five-count—before she whipped out her Taser. A gust of chilly wind blew and she felt her hair raise from her shoulders, and back from her face. She looked up at him.
Lincoln looked startled.
She turned to see what caused the expression. “Something wrong?” she asked, glancing back at him.
His handsome face was back to its normal sternness. “No,” he said.
Whatever.
“How can I help you, Mr. Cress?” she asked, ready to be free of him.
“I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend while I’m in New York,” he said without hesitation.
“Say what?” Bobbie asked, knowing her face was a mask of confusion.
“Look. The Cress family is a bit much for my taste. It’s all too much. And they want me to take part in a bunch of family events while I’m here,” he said brusquely.
She knew from her investigation that Lincoln was an only child of an only child and there was no other family. She could understand how a large bunch like the Cress family could take getting used to.
Especially for this guy, she thought, considering his perpetual bad mood.
“Why me?” she asked him.
“You’re the only other person I know in the country,” he said.
“No girlfriend?” she asked, shifting to the left a bit to avoid a group of women laughing and walking in her direction.
“Here?” he asked as if she was foolish.
“Anywhere,” she countered.
He shook his head. “No. Definitely not.”
Surprise. Surprise.
“By choice,” he added as if instantly thinking back to her assertion that he needed great sex in his life.
She guessed there were idiotic, self-love-starved women in the world who went for the rough and rude type. She wasn’t one of them. For work or play. “Mr. Cress, we don’t mix and I think it’s best we stick to staying out of each other’s lives because—”
“Isn’t this the type of thing you do as PI? Pretend?” he asked, his eyes searching her face.
She shook her head. “Uhm. No. Not for this type of scenario—”
“Fifty thousand,” he said, his tone clipped.
“Dollars?” Bobbie shrieked.
“No, buttons,” Lincoln said with sarcasm. “Of course, dollars.”
Bobbie wasn’t lacking money at all, but fifty grand was nothing to balk at. She studied him. Was it worth risking an assault charge to use self-defense moves to strangle him until his sarcastic tongue rolled out of his mouth?
He checked the time on his watch before sliding his hands into the pockets of his overcoat.
“Is it that bad?” she asked, her soft tone surprising her.
And from the look on his face, him as well. “Yes,” he admitted with obvious reluctance.
And that did it. Bobbie always rooted, cheered and helped the underdog.
Even one who was a tool.
“Okay,” she agreed, instantly feeling she would regret it.
He nodded. “The first get-together is tomorrow,” he said.
“Thus, the urgency tonight,” she assumed.
“Right.”
“Let’s meet up beforehand to get our story straight,” she recommended.
“I’ll call you in the morning,” he said, before turning and striding away.
Am I really doing this?
She stood there on the steps of The Met and watched his tall figure until he disappeared amongst the crowd.
Three
Lincoln climbed from the back of the chauffeured SUV. He stood on the street looking up at the two-story brick warehouse as the sun slowly began to set. The bronzed placard on the building read B. BARNETT INVESTIGATIONS. Established 1981. He looked up and down the street in what he discovered to be the Tribeca section of Manhattan.
It was more than he expected, particularly since Bobbie had always met him outside an office up until that day and there was nothing about her that implied an affiliation with corporate America. Nothing.
Her hair was constantly the epitome of windblown.
As he opened the tinted glass door, he paused at the image of her hair splayed atop a bed as she arched her back in passion. Clearing his throat at the impropriety of his thoughts, he entered. To his right was a glass-enclosed waiting room with leather club chairs and a wall-mounted flat-screen television. Twenty glass cubicles lined both sides of the exposed brick walls of the more than two-thousand-square-foot warehouse. A dozen or more people occupied the offices. Up the middle of the space a long wooden conference table that could seat twenty people was lined with lily floral arrangements in bronze vases. And at the other end of the table, against the far wall, was a glass-enclosed office with Bobbie sitting behind her large desk on the phone.
“Welcome to B. Barnett’s. May I help you?”
Lincoln looked to his left at a reception area where a woman in her sixties with freckles and a pink-tinted silver bob was looking over the rim of her thick black spectacles at him. He walked over to the desk. “Lincoln Cress. I have an appointment with Bobbie Barnett,” he said.
The lady pierced him with her hazel eyes. “Good morning,” she said pointedly.
Lincoln frowned as he looked down at her. “Excuse me?” he asked.
She lowered the stylus she was holding poised above a tablet where she appeared to be playing a game. “Good. Morning,” she repeated. “I thought the British were the epitome of propriety? Good morning is a greeting used when you first interact with someone.”
Lincoln’s back stiffened. “Lessons on manners, as you sit at work with pink hair, game playing and incorrectly attempting at reraising a grown man here to do business?” he asked.
The woman’s mouth fell open into an O and her eyes widened. “No, you didn’t,” she gasped.
“Yes, I bloody did,” he assured her.
“Well, I refuse to announce you until I am greeted properly,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
He waved his hand at her as if to shoo her. “Don’t be absurd,” he snapped.
She only leaned back in her conference chair, crossed her legs and arched a silver brow.
Lincoln returned her glare.
They stared at one another.
Lincoln leaned forward a bit with his eyes still locked on hers.
She did the same.
Oh, bloody hell!
“Good morning,” he chewed out.
Her smile revealed her satisfaction. “Good morning,” she said pleasantly before leaning forward to press a button on her office phone with their eyes still locked.
“Yes, Ms. Pott?” Bobbie said via intercom.
“Mr. Cress is here,” the woman said.
Lincoln looked down the length of the warehouse to see Bobbie look up at him.
“I’ll be right out.”
He continued to eye her as she rose and came from around the desk. She looked stunning in a tailored bright pink pantsuit with peaked lapels and structured shoulders. The slim fit captured her wide hips. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek low bun exposing her ever-present large and slender gold hoop earrings. Her long strides in her gold heels seemed in slow motion—like on a catwalk.
“Ready?” she asked with a husky voice and polite smile.
“Are you?” he asked.
Her smile faded and her brown eyes sparkled with annoyance. “What?” she stressed.
“It’s dinner, not a business meeting,” Lincoln explained.
She forced a smile that did not reach her eyes. “You better be glad your transfer cleared this morning,” she said through clenched teeth as she turned. “Follow me, Mr. Cress.”
“Lincoln,” he said, causing her to turn back around.
“Huh?”
“Shouldn’t you call me by my first name?” he asked.
Bobbie chuckled—it was rich. “There are many things I would like to call you,” she said.
“Me too,” Ms. Pott said dryly from behind them.
Lincoln gave the other woman one last glare over his shoulder before following Bobbie down the length of the conference table and to the door of her office where she pressed her thumb against a biometric lock to open it.
He was impressed—and fighting like crazy not to watch the back-and-forth sway of her bottom as she moved over to a large elevator against the rear of the side wall. Another press of a biometric lock and the chrome doors slid open. She stepped inside and turned.
“Come,” she bid.
The simple request caused his heart to quicken its pace as he stepped on beside her and the doors closed.
“This is quite a setup,” he admitted.
“Oh. Oh my. A compliment?” she said in mock surprise.
“There are not many opportunities to provide one,” he lied, admitting to himself that he enjoyed trading barbs with her.
The elevator slid to a stop. “When I took over from my father, I invested a good bit of company funds to purchase the building. My father had been leasing it for years and I thought it was a good investment,” she explained as the doors opened, revealing a loft apartment with glass ceilings that was inviting and warm.
“Stay here,” she said, turning a key in the panel that left the elevator doors open.
He looked on as she kicked off her shoes, taking four inches off her height, and picked up a tray from the bronze-and-glass table against the wall by the entry. She used a mini torch to ignite a bundle of light green leaves wrapped into a roll with white thread. Smoke began to funnel up from it as the flame died out and the bundle smoldered.
She stepped back onto the elevator and began to wave the bundle up and down the length of his body.
He coughed from the acrid smell. “What is that?” he asked as she moved to circle him.
“Sage,” she said from behind him. “You have a lot of negative energy and I don’t want you shedding it in my home.”
Lincoln released a breath heavy with his exasperation. “You can’t be serious,” he balked, turning to lightly grab her wrist and remove the sage from her hand. “The smell will get in my clothes...and my lungs.”
Bobbie took it back from him and used the tray to snuff out the embers before setting it back down on the table. “Let me change. Have a seat,” she said, before walking away.
Lincoln remained standing as he continued to look around her space. He was surprised she invited him inside it even though they were working together.
Even if she gave me a smoke shower.
“Assez!” Nicolette snapped with a sharp clap of her hands, letting them know it was enough.
Phillip Junior stopped his forward motion and walked away from Lincoln to pace.
Lincoln released a heavy breath as he reclaimed his seat. He wasn’t quite sure this whole scenario wouldn’t play out like the script of an ITV mystery where one brother killed another to avoid sharing a hefty inheritance.
Phillip Junior better not try me. I would snap him in half.
Like a dried twig.
“I think it’s very clear that Lincoln must spend time with all of his brothers and forge a relationship with them. War is not an option,” Nicolette said.
“And anyone hoping to one day become CEO of a company built for the family by the family should feel the same,” Phillip Senior finally spoke up. “Lincoln is family now. And he deserves the same opportunity to step into my shoes as any of my sons.”
“Listen,” Lincoln began. “I appreciate how welcoming most of you have been. But I have a life back in England. My mother. My restaurant. I need to—and will—return home in two weeks.”
Phillip Senior looked grim while his namesake could barely contain his pleasure at Lincoln’s announcement.
* * *
Bobbie freed her hair from its topknot as soon as she climbed behind the wheel of her blacked-out electric SUV parked in the underground garage in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. She wove her fingers through the strands and shook them loose as she massaged her scalp, glad to have it unrestrained once again. The hair and the black gabardine evening dress she wore were for undercover surveillance at a charity gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. As soon as she got home, the laced stilettos would go next.
She opened her laptop sitting on the mount attached to the passenger seat bolt and logged into her encrypted account. Her fingers flew as she updated the file on the tech CEO suspected of selling intel to the company’s competitors. She was uploading surveillance photos from her sequined clutch that was a camera in disguise.
She paused to cover her mouth with the back of her hand as she yawned.
Private investigative work was exhausting at times, but she loved it. Even as she had stepped into the role of the owner upon her father’s retirement, she had not lessened her workload. Instead, she relied heavily on her team for needed support.
And the work she did was good.
No matter what anyone thinks.
Especially him.
Lincoln Cress.
Her fingers paused as his words of scorn echoed.
Find another occupation where you’re not paid to lie, pretend and exploit people who did not choose to have you in their lives...
“Bully,” she muttered, resuming her typing.
What a waste of a sexy man.
Bobbie paused again with her fingers floating above the keyboard at the surprising thought. He was handsome. And fit. And attractive. She arched a brow and pressed her hand to her throat. Her pulse pounded a bit harder than before.
Bzzzzzz.
She looked down at her phone sitting in the lap of her voluminous skirt. She gasped to see THE BRUTE calling. Lincoln. That’s how she’d saved his number in her contacts as she left the restaurant last night. It was unnerving for him to call just as she thought of him. With her heart pounding, she answered the call and placed it on Speaker.
“B. Barnett,” she said crisply.
“This is Lincoln. Lincoln Cress.”
His voice was deep and his British accent made it intriguing.
“I need to hire you,” he continued.
Bobbie chuckled sarcastically. “Nooooooo. Not me,” she said in a singsong fashion. “Not my exploitive work that you disdain, Mr. Cress.”
He released a breath that echoed throughout the car. “Have your moment,” he said stiffly.
“Gladly,” she smirked as she sat back against the red leather driver’s seat and tapped her nails against the steering wheel. “I told you to be careful that you might need my services.”
Lincoln remained quiet.
“Isn’t this something?”
“Are you done?” he drawled.
Bobbie inhaled sharply and released an exhale with a moan. “Am I?” she asked.
“Listen, can we meet? Tonight,” he said.
“It’s pretty late, Mr. Cress,” she said, eyeing the time on the dash of her vehicle.
“It’s urgent,” Lincoln stressed.
Curiosity was her downfall. Always was. Always would be.
“Can you meet me in front of The Met on Fifth Avenue?” she asked, already closing her laptop and easing the mount down until it was under the passenger seat.
“On the way,” he said, before ending the call.
“Rude,” Bobbie muttered as she opened the glove compartment and removed her high-voltage Taser to slide inside her camera clutch.
Just in case.
She left her car and locked it with the key fob before taking long strides across the garage to ride the elevator up to the street. The sounds of New York were activated and loud as ever. The blare of car horns. The grind of motors of vehicles. The laughs, shouts and other noises of those revving up for nightlife. The blare of music from cars and businesses.
New York.
She loved the pulse and the energy.
“Sweet God! Marry me!” someone shouted with a thick Italian accent as a car whizzed past her.
Bobbie just smiled and continued her stride.
As she paused at the corner of East Eighty-Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue she eyed the towering structure with French Beaux-Arts architecture now in existence for over a century and a half. The steps of one of the country’s largest museums of art were regal and beautiful, particularly at night with the illumination.
Bobbie crossed the walkway once the light permitted.
People still loitered on the many steps leading up to the main entrance of The Met. Some were jean-clad tourists and others like herself were there for the event and dressed as such. As she came to a stop in front of the building, she pulled her ostrich feather shawl closer around her shoulders because of the crisp winter air.
“Ms. Barnett.”
Bobbie turned at Lincoln weaving amongst the pedestrians on the street to reach her. He wore a camel overcoat that looked to be quality cashmere. She didn’t miss that several women looked him over as he moved past them with long strides.
He’s bowlegged.
As he came to a stop before her, his eyes gave her a hard assessing up-and-down look. “That’s quite a getup,” he said.
“I was undercover,” she explained, fighting her annoyance with him.
His mouth was always his downfall.
“As what?” he asked.
She imagined how she looked to him. Her dress had a full A-line skirt that rested above her knees and the thin straps of the bodice came down to a deep vee to the strap around her waist, pushing her cleavage forward daringly. Her makeup was more dramatic than when he last saw her with a smoky eye, blush and her gloss now a shimmery pale pink.
“Have you nothing nice to say? Ever?” she asked in exasperation.
Lincoln looked surprised. “What did I say that wasn’t nice?” he asked.
She widened her eyes and looked down at the tips of his tailored shoes as she allowed herself a five-count—before she whipped out her Taser. A gust of chilly wind blew and she felt her hair raise from her shoulders, and back from her face. She looked up at him.
Lincoln looked startled.
She turned to see what caused the expression. “Something wrong?” she asked, glancing back at him.
His handsome face was back to its normal sternness. “No,” he said.
Whatever.
“How can I help you, Mr. Cress?” she asked, ready to be free of him.
“I need you to pretend to be my girlfriend while I’m in New York,” he said without hesitation.
“Say what?” Bobbie asked, knowing her face was a mask of confusion.
“Look. The Cress family is a bit much for my taste. It’s all too much. And they want me to take part in a bunch of family events while I’m here,” he said brusquely.
She knew from her investigation that Lincoln was an only child of an only child and there was no other family. She could understand how a large bunch like the Cress family could take getting used to.
Especially for this guy, she thought, considering his perpetual bad mood.
“Why me?” she asked him.
“You’re the only other person I know in the country,” he said.
“No girlfriend?” she asked, shifting to the left a bit to avoid a group of women laughing and walking in her direction.
“Here?” he asked as if she was foolish.
“Anywhere,” she countered.
He shook his head. “No. Definitely not.”
Surprise. Surprise.
“By choice,” he added as if instantly thinking back to her assertion that he needed great sex in his life.
She guessed there were idiotic, self-love-starved women in the world who went for the rough and rude type. She wasn’t one of them. For work or play. “Mr. Cress, we don’t mix and I think it’s best we stick to staying out of each other’s lives because—”
“Isn’t this the type of thing you do as PI? Pretend?” he asked, his eyes searching her face.
She shook her head. “Uhm. No. Not for this type of scenario—”
“Fifty thousand,” he said, his tone clipped.
“Dollars?” Bobbie shrieked.
“No, buttons,” Lincoln said with sarcasm. “Of course, dollars.”
Bobbie wasn’t lacking money at all, but fifty grand was nothing to balk at. She studied him. Was it worth risking an assault charge to use self-defense moves to strangle him until his sarcastic tongue rolled out of his mouth?
He checked the time on his watch before sliding his hands into the pockets of his overcoat.
“Is it that bad?” she asked, her soft tone surprising her.
And from the look on his face, him as well. “Yes,” he admitted with obvious reluctance.
And that did it. Bobbie always rooted, cheered and helped the underdog.
Even one who was a tool.
“Okay,” she agreed, instantly feeling she would regret it.
He nodded. “The first get-together is tomorrow,” he said.
“Thus, the urgency tonight,” she assumed.
“Right.”
“Let’s meet up beforehand to get our story straight,” she recommended.
“I’ll call you in the morning,” he said, before turning and striding away.
Am I really doing this?
She stood there on the steps of The Met and watched his tall figure until he disappeared amongst the crowd.
Three
Lincoln climbed from the back of the chauffeured SUV. He stood on the street looking up at the two-story brick warehouse as the sun slowly began to set. The bronzed placard on the building read B. BARNETT INVESTIGATIONS. Established 1981. He looked up and down the street in what he discovered to be the Tribeca section of Manhattan.
It was more than he expected, particularly since Bobbie had always met him outside an office up until that day and there was nothing about her that implied an affiliation with corporate America. Nothing.
Her hair was constantly the epitome of windblown.
As he opened the tinted glass door, he paused at the image of her hair splayed atop a bed as she arched her back in passion. Clearing his throat at the impropriety of his thoughts, he entered. To his right was a glass-enclosed waiting room with leather club chairs and a wall-mounted flat-screen television. Twenty glass cubicles lined both sides of the exposed brick walls of the more than two-thousand-square-foot warehouse. A dozen or more people occupied the offices. Up the middle of the space a long wooden conference table that could seat twenty people was lined with lily floral arrangements in bronze vases. And at the other end of the table, against the far wall, was a glass-enclosed office with Bobbie sitting behind her large desk on the phone.
“Welcome to B. Barnett’s. May I help you?”
Lincoln looked to his left at a reception area where a woman in her sixties with freckles and a pink-tinted silver bob was looking over the rim of her thick black spectacles at him. He walked over to the desk. “Lincoln Cress. I have an appointment with Bobbie Barnett,” he said.
The lady pierced him with her hazel eyes. “Good morning,” she said pointedly.
Lincoln frowned as he looked down at her. “Excuse me?” he asked.
She lowered the stylus she was holding poised above a tablet where she appeared to be playing a game. “Good. Morning,” she repeated. “I thought the British were the epitome of propriety? Good morning is a greeting used when you first interact with someone.”
Lincoln’s back stiffened. “Lessons on manners, as you sit at work with pink hair, game playing and incorrectly attempting at reraising a grown man here to do business?” he asked.
The woman’s mouth fell open into an O and her eyes widened. “No, you didn’t,” she gasped.
“Yes, I bloody did,” he assured her.
“Well, I refuse to announce you until I am greeted properly,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
He waved his hand at her as if to shoo her. “Don’t be absurd,” he snapped.
She only leaned back in her conference chair, crossed her legs and arched a silver brow.
Lincoln returned her glare.
They stared at one another.
Lincoln leaned forward a bit with his eyes still locked on hers.
She did the same.
Oh, bloody hell!
“Good morning,” he chewed out.
Her smile revealed her satisfaction. “Good morning,” she said pleasantly before leaning forward to press a button on her office phone with their eyes still locked.
“Yes, Ms. Pott?” Bobbie said via intercom.
“Mr. Cress is here,” the woman said.
Lincoln looked down the length of the warehouse to see Bobbie look up at him.
“I’ll be right out.”
He continued to eye her as she rose and came from around the desk. She looked stunning in a tailored bright pink pantsuit with peaked lapels and structured shoulders. The slim fit captured her wide hips. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek low bun exposing her ever-present large and slender gold hoop earrings. Her long strides in her gold heels seemed in slow motion—like on a catwalk.
“Ready?” she asked with a husky voice and polite smile.
“Are you?” he asked.
Her smile faded and her brown eyes sparkled with annoyance. “What?” she stressed.
“It’s dinner, not a business meeting,” Lincoln explained.
She forced a smile that did not reach her eyes. “You better be glad your transfer cleared this morning,” she said through clenched teeth as she turned. “Follow me, Mr. Cress.”
“Lincoln,” he said, causing her to turn back around.
“Huh?”
“Shouldn’t you call me by my first name?” he asked.
Bobbie chuckled—it was rich. “There are many things I would like to call you,” she said.
“Me too,” Ms. Pott said dryly from behind them.
Lincoln gave the other woman one last glare over his shoulder before following Bobbie down the length of the conference table and to the door of her office where she pressed her thumb against a biometric lock to open it.
He was impressed—and fighting like crazy not to watch the back-and-forth sway of her bottom as she moved over to a large elevator against the rear of the side wall. Another press of a biometric lock and the chrome doors slid open. She stepped inside and turned.
“Come,” she bid.
The simple request caused his heart to quicken its pace as he stepped on beside her and the doors closed.
“This is quite a setup,” he admitted.
“Oh. Oh my. A compliment?” she said in mock surprise.
“There are not many opportunities to provide one,” he lied, admitting to himself that he enjoyed trading barbs with her.
The elevator slid to a stop. “When I took over from my father, I invested a good bit of company funds to purchase the building. My father had been leasing it for years and I thought it was a good investment,” she explained as the doors opened, revealing a loft apartment with glass ceilings that was inviting and warm.
“Stay here,” she said, turning a key in the panel that left the elevator doors open.
He looked on as she kicked off her shoes, taking four inches off her height, and picked up a tray from the bronze-and-glass table against the wall by the entry. She used a mini torch to ignite a bundle of light green leaves wrapped into a roll with white thread. Smoke began to funnel up from it as the flame died out and the bundle smoldered.
She stepped back onto the elevator and began to wave the bundle up and down the length of his body.
He coughed from the acrid smell. “What is that?” he asked as she moved to circle him.
“Sage,” she said from behind him. “You have a lot of negative energy and I don’t want you shedding it in my home.”
Lincoln released a breath heavy with his exasperation. “You can’t be serious,” he balked, turning to lightly grab her wrist and remove the sage from her hand. “The smell will get in my clothes...and my lungs.”
Bobbie took it back from him and used the tray to snuff out the embers before setting it back down on the table. “Let me change. Have a seat,” she said, before walking away.
Lincoln remained standing as he continued to look around her space. He was surprised she invited him inside it even though they were working together.
Even if she gave me a smoke shower.
