Relentless - By Cherry Adair Page 0,4
strangely compelling. He smelled delectable. Not cologne, but clean skin and some kind of outdoor-scented soap. Feeling an irrational need to touch him, she wished he’d offered her a handshake. He wasn’t her type at all, but that didn’t prevent her from feeling the tug of attraction. Either that, or it was the taco she’d hastily consumed for lunch before coming to the Lodestone office.
Having the window at his back was probably strategic, because it cast his face in shadow and spotlit her. He gave the appearance of strength without being muscle-bound. He was a large man, broad shouldered, probably tall although he hadn’t fully stood up so she wasn’t sure. Isis preferred men on a smaller scale, and a little easier to handle. He didn’t look like he could be handled at all.
His eyes were hazel, more on the green side; his dark hair, close-cropped in an almost military style, looked as soft and sleek as a seal’s pelt. Unlike his hair, his features appeared to be carved from granite. His mouth was bracketed by twin grooves. Isis doubted the man ever smiled. The expensive-looking dark suit he wore accented the breadth of his chest, emphasized by a crisp, pale blue open-necked dress shirt. The charcoal suit had probably cost as much as her car. Or would have, if she still had it.
He had a beautifully shaped mouth, and Isis had to use concerted effort to maintain eye contact. Just looking at him elevated her pulse to pleasant levels of anticipation. “First, what should I call you?”
His mouth thinned as he surveyed her out of cool, dispassionate eyes. “Thorne.”
Boy, was that an accurate description of the man or what? “Just Thorne?” The placard beside his office door said CONNOR THORNE. Connor suited him nicely, but then, so did Thorne. He was very prickly, and they’d barely exchanged a dozen sentences.
“Just Thorne; let’s not mix it up.”
“Right.” Having people calling him Thorne was just giving him positive reinforcement to be so prickly. But since she wasn’t in charge of his psyche, Isis let it go. She settled back and recrossed her legs.
He looked, so he wasn’t totally unaware of her.
Isis considered herself fearless. Spiders and snakes had never bothered her, but she wouldn’t want to bump into Connor Thorne in a dark alley.
“Assuming that’s fine…” he prompted after a long moment, and she shook her thoughts back into the present. Her predicament, not whatever shadows her own psyche wanted to paint around him.
“Several months ago my father put together a team of the best archaeology students and interns he could find.” Selling everything of any value to finance the dig. Nobody had wanted to fund him. He’d jumped ahead of himself one too many times, leaving himself without any allies other than the Earl of Kilgetty and herself.
Isis didn’t have any money to give him, and Thorne’s father, the Earl, had cut off funds when he realized his patronage was going into a deep, dark hole. The money had been like pouring millions of gallons of water onto the Egyptian desert.
Isis watched Thorne’s eyes to see if he was truly listening. The tears had worked, but she could tell he wasn’t a man who would fall for that more than once. The waterworks hadn’t been hard to pull off. She was at the end of her emotional rope, and a good, cleansing cry would be terrific right now. Some women thought crying was a sign of weakness, but Isis considered it a release valve for pent-up emotional pressure.
She’d save that indulgence for when she left his office.
Thorne leaned slightly to the side, resting an elbow on the arm of his chair. The light behind him cut a dark shadow over one slashing cheekbone, and she suddenly wanted desperately to get a shot of him backlit by the runnels of rain hitting the window, the Seattle skyline a hazy backdrop. The whole scene was soft and gray and rather melancholy.
But not him. Thorne was right in the middle, vibrant and larger-than-life.
His green eyes boring a hole through her façade.
There was no law to say—even in the middle of her crisis—that she couldn’t enjoy the view. And the fact that the attraction didn’t appear to be reciprocated didn’t lessen her enjoyment looking at him. That just made it easier.
Everything she’d owned now belonged to Lodestone International; the price of Thorne’s help. But they were just things. And things were replaceable.
The only item of value she hadn’t liquidated was her three-year-old Canon 5d