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“…can see that I’ve incorporated your wish toprinciples of the future…”

Was he stillsense? Evidently The directors’ attention was still fixed on him

But not Lara’s

She sat next to Edwin Dobbs, her hands folded neatly on the polished surface of the conference-rooh Slade’s blood She atching hiravesite with a shovel in his hand

“…a reflecting pool, here, in the atriuarden…”

Her face was a perfect blank

What in hell was going on here?

He flashed back, again, to that moment he’d first seen her in the doorway The shock of it had smashed into him like a hot poker and, yeah, the pleasure, too There’d been other wo was, there’d been nobody quite like her

And he’d thought, I’ll tell her that, after this ether again, what are you doing this weekend?

Until he saw her looking at him as if she were a cat and he was a portion of breast of sparrow He didn’t like it, not one bit This was the wo to advise the Beaufort bank directors on the reliability of his figures?

It wasn’t going to happen

He wanted to tell her that, to say, I see that look in your eyes, Sugar, and believe me, you are the very last person on the planet I’d ever trust You ht be a firecracker in bed but…

Man, she surely was

He could remember the heat of her, in his ar she eet and innocent, that she’d never done anything like shacking up with a stranger before Those little moans of hers, and the way she’d touched hi…

Hell

Slade caught himself, frowned and took a quick look around the conference table He half expected to see Dobbs and the others staring at him as if he’d lost his mind but they were all intent on the pictures on the screen

Thank God for small favors

His libido ht have been in a Denver hotel room but the part of his brain that mattered was on autoone well He could tell by the pleased expression on Dobbs’s face, and by the little buzz around the table

Lara’s face was still a polite mask

“Thank you very ”

Might as well cut straight to the chase, Slade thought, and looked at Lara

“I’lad to hear it,” he said “But Ms Stevens looks as if she has some questions”

“Yes,” Lara said, “in fact, I do”

She didn’t just have questions, she had stateures Slade had read her right She had an agenda all her own She wanted hi to accomplish it

Within minutes, the conference table was buried under piles of paper Articles Clippings Printouts She had docun of the Pyra the financial disasters that could befall a project between its plan and its completion She had more stuff in her briefcase than he had in his office back in Boston, and she distributed it with the gusto of a clerk handing out free cereal samples in a supermarket

Slade could s into the air Furrows appeared in the foreheads of theat him only moments before And, in the ave hi smile

He sht back

It was either that, or kill her

What ith this woh and dry in that hotel room? Did she need to make him look like a jerk here, too?

He could see hi her until her teeth rattled…or, better still, backing her against the wall, thrusting his hands into that silkythat irritating little smile off her mouth He could almost feel the smoothness of her jacket, the silkiness of her blouse and then the hot satin of her flesh as her breasts filled his hands