Escape for Valentine's: Beauty and the Billionaire / Her One and Only Valentine / The Girl Next Door. Caroline Anderson

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      He pulled it out of his suit pocket.

      She dialed Amber’s number.

      The whole chain. She could barely believe it. The whole damn chain.

      Hunter was sorry now that he’d even told Sinclair about Crystal Spas. The meeting hadn’t gone well, and she was clearly disappointed as she climbed into the jet for the return trip to New York.

      “We knew it was a long shot,” she said bravely, buckling up across from him.

      “I’m sorry.”

      “It’s not your fault. Some people can’t make quick decisions.”

      The whole thing had frustrated the hell out of Hunter.

      “At his level, the man had better learn to make quick decisions. He had a chance to get in on the ground floor in this.”

      “His loss,” said Sinclair with conviction.

      “They’re superior products,” replied Hunter.

      “Of course they’re superior products,” she agreed.

      Hunter did up his own seat belt. “We say emphatically as two people who’ve never tried them.”

      She smiled at his joke.

      “We should try them,” he said.

      “I’m not trying the wax.”

      He chuckled. “I’ll try the wax.”

      “Yeah, right.”

      “Right here.” He pointed to his chest. “I’ll be a man about it. You can rip my hair out by the roots if I can massage your neck with the lavender oil.”

      She stared into his eyes as the jet engines whined to life. “You don’t think we’d end up naked within five minutes?”

      “I don’t think your ripping the hair from my chest would make me want to get naked.”

      She obviously fought a grin. “Waxing your chest is probably the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

      “But it cheered you up.”

      She sighed, and some of the humor went out of her eyes. “Crystal Spas would have been perfect.”

      He reached for her hand. “I know.”

      The jet jerked to rolling, and he experienced a strong sense of déjà vu. It took him a second to realize it was Kristy, Kristy and Jack on this same airplane. During their emergency landing in Vegas, Jack had held Kristy’s hand to comfort her.

      Right now, Sinclair’s hand felt small in Hunter’s, soft and smooth. The kind of hand a man wanted all over his body.

      “You want to go see your sister?” he asked.

      Sinclair looked startled. “What?”

      “She’s in Manchester. It’s on the way.”

      “We’d be too late.”

      She had a point.

      “Maybe not,” he argued. A visit with Kristy might cheer Sinclair up.

      “Thanks for the thought.”

      Hunter wished he had more to offer than just a thought. But then she smiled her gratitude. Hunter realized that was what mattered.

      Business deals would come and go. He’d simply find another way to make Sinclair happy. Even as the thought formed in his mind, he realized it was dangerous. But he ignored the warning flash.

      “You don’t need to worry about me,” she told him. “I’m a big girl. And I still have the ball to plan.”

      “The ball’s going to be fantastic,” he enthused. “It’ll be the best Valentine’s ball anybody ever put on anywhere.”

      “I hate it when people humor me.”

      “Then why are you still smiling?”

      “Because sometimes you can be very sweet.”

      “Hold that thought,” he teased, and he brought her hand to his lips.

      “I’m not going to sleep with you.” She retrieved her hand, but the smile grew wider. “But, maybe, if you’re very, very good, I might dance with you at the Valentine’s ball.”

      “And maybe if you’re very, very good, I might bring you flowers and candy.”

      “Something to look forward to.”

      “Isn’t it?”

      They both stopped talking, and a soft silence settled around the hum of the engines as they taxied toward the runway.

      “It’s just that we’ve worked day and night on this product launch,” she said, half to herself.

      “I can imagine,” he responded with a nod.

      “All of us,” she added. “The Luscious Lavender products are strong. The sales force is ready. And marketing showed me a fantastic television commercial last week. I really want to make sure I do my part.”

      “You are doing your part.” He had no doubt of that. “There’s still the ball.”

      She gave a shrug and tucked her hair behind her ears. “The ball’s pretty much ready to go. I know it’ll be fine. But I wanted that something extra, that something special from the PR department.” Then she sighed. “Maybe it’s just ego.”

      “Contributing to the team is not ego. Taking all the glory is ego.”

      “Wanting recognition is a form of ego,” she countered.

      “Wanting recognition for a job well done is human.”

      Her voice went soft. “Then I guess I don’t want to be human.”

      He watched her for a silent minute, trying to gauge how deep that admission went. For all her bravado, he sensed an underlying insecurity. What Sinclair presented and who she really was were two different things. She was far more sensitive than she showed.

      In the privacy and intimacy of the plane, he voiced a question that had been nagging at him for a while. “Why did you sleep with me?”

      She startled and retrieved her hand. Then her shell went back into place. “Why did you sleep with me?”

      “Because you were funny and smart and beautiful,” he said. Then he waited.

      “And, because I said yes?” she asked.

      He didn’t respond to her irreverence. “And because when I held you in my arms, it СКАЧАТЬ