swing at Bennett.
Bennett put his arm around the woman and gave the man a look. Try it. I fucking dare you. Because I’ll have you in the fetal position so fast that your girlfriend here will never look at you like you’re a real man ever again.
The man, average height with blond hair, suddenly looked like he might wet himself.
Good choice, my friend. Just snap your picture.
He did and handed the phone back to his girlfriend. “Th-thank you, Mr. Wade.”
Bennett gave a nod and headed through the crowd in the other direction. That man wasn’t the first—more like the twentieth this evening—and he wouldn’t be the last to instantly assume that men like Bennett were pussies in suits who wanted nothing more than to hide behind their money and take their girlfriends. But not all rich bastards were alike, and he hadn’t grown his multibillion dollar empire by backing down from a fight. That, and hard work. Lots of it. His company was his life and the only thing he did with his time aside from exercising—which had become his primary form of stress relief these days, given he hadn’t been able to get it up for over a year, except for Taylor. It seemed his dick was smarter than he was and had gotten tired of the shallow women like Kate who had only been after his money. But the minute the real deal showed herself, his dick knew.
Oh yes. It knew.
Taylor had entered that conference room in Phoenix in her tight little suit, her face flustered and flushed, and it wanted her. Not because his “friends” were lined up around the block pining for the woman, betting to see who could get her in the sack first, but because she had this fire in her sultry brown eyes—the same fire he’d seen in a picture when one of his “buddies” told him about the bet after a game of golf (a necessary evil for doing deals in his world). The moment he heard she’d turned them all down, it piqued his interest. Because she was single, beautiful, a hard worker from what the guys said, and couldn’t be won over with a few cheap pickup lines and a big bank account.
They’d all tried. Repeatedly.
They’d all crashed and burned. Repeatedly.
He had to meet her.
And as luck so happened, he was headed to Phoenix to golf with an executive from Japan who was there on business and interested in selling the patent he needed.
So he made a few calls and set up the meeting.
Yes, just to meet her.
Silly, a guy like him, who could have any woman he wanted, going out of his way just to get in a room with Taylor Reed, a woman he’d never met.
But he’d been right about her. She couldn’t be fooled or charmed. She could see through ten feet of bullshit from a mile away, and that, that was why everyone failed to seduce her.
The moment she chewed his ass out in Phoenix, he knew he wanted her because she might just be the only woman on the planet capable of seeing him for what he truly was: fucked up. The tailored suit is a deceptive tool, indeed. However, each time he thought of calling her, he’d pathetically lost his nerve. She had to hate him after the way he behaved, after losing her job, so he convinced himself to let it go, that he had no interest in her, that she wasn’t his type because a woman like that couldn’t be happy with what he had to offer: a mess inside a suit. And then one day, her name came up again in a round of golf, his “buddies” making fun of her efforts to start her own company, and it set him off. He might not be interested in her, but he’d be damned if he was going to let those assholes put her down simply because they all failed to get in her pants. So he’d decided to hire her. Yes, to snub those bastards. He also figured it couldn’t hurt to get her help with Lady Mary. Of course, the moment he saw Taylor again in Seattle, that same fiery look in her big brown eyes, well…he began to get the feeling that he might actually need her. Really need her.
As he looked up, Bennett spotted Ms. Luci’s approach through the crowd. She had a scowl on her face. Not a good sign. That woman frightens me.
“Mr. Wade!” she barked