A Touch of Confidence (7 page)

Hopefully because she’d been thinking about him fucking her. “I think it would be great. In the heart of Mosman. Foot traffic all around, and just your kind of customer living in the area.”

Her gaze could have frozen water in the tropics. “That’s why you brought me here? To check out the property?”

He didn’t bother denying it. What surprised him was that it had taken so long for her to realize as much. “It’s the best shop on my grandfather’s books. The most sought-after area, newly renovated and almost the same size as the shop in New South Head Road.”

“I’m confused.” She pushed her hair off her face. “Do I have
idiot
tattooed on my forehead?”

Oh, he liked her feistiness. Altogether too much. “I don’t for one minute think you’re an idiot. I’m just asking you to explore all your options before settling on a location.”

Fury ignited in her eyes. “We explored our options in depth before choosing Rose Bay. We didn’t settle for it on a whim. We took our customers’ statistics and data into account and made the best choice for our business. What do you think? That three women running a retail outlet are incapable of making logical decisions? That we chose to rent in Rose Bay on an emotional whim?”

“My actions have nothing to do with you not knowing your business and everything to do with me broadening your horizons. I’m simply showing you that you have choices outside the limits of the Eastern Suburbs.”

“Thank you, Mr. School Teacher, for your concern and willingness to help us explore different horizons. We could never have done that without your innovation.”

Ouch
, again. She’d just hit him where it hurt. In his inexperience with the property market. “I fucked up, Claire. I leased the shop you’d been promised. I’m trying to make reparations. I’m doing this as much for me as for you. Hoping to find something else that’ll suit you.”

She shook her head in distaste. “So tell me, how much are you asking for the Mosman shop.”

“Eighty thousand per annum.”

Claire’s outraged laugh almost silenced him. Almost. “But we’ll offer you a discount. A big discount, to make up for my earlier mistake.”

“Unless your big discount is somewhere in the ballpark of fifty percent then you are out of your mind.”

He cleared his throat. “I was thinking closer to ten percent.”

Again she gave a derisive bark of laughter. “You’re talking about a rental of more than six hundred dollars a week
over and above what we’d agreed to pay in Rose Bay, and what, you expect me to be grateful?”

“It’s a good deal. One Big Jack agreed to because of my mess up.” Okay, so it wasn’t such a good deal for the Jones sisters. Too expensive, as he’d known all along. But there was method to his madness. If he showed her something out of her price range now, maybe when he showed her something cheaper later, she’d be more interested.

And he had a property he suspected she would be
very
interested in.

She regarded him in silence for a long moment, her eyes narrowed, her head shaking from side to side. “You don’t even have my lease for the Rose Bay shop, do you?”

No, he didn’t. Though fuck knew he’d tried to convince Parker.

It was Jack’s turn to purse his lips and once again avoid the question. He kinda wished he could put up the volume and sing again, but she wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice.

“You never explained the situation to the other tenant, did you? Instead you chose to broaden my horizons, and hope you could net two leases in the process. Mine and his. How gallant of you, Mr. Wilson. I can only
assume
you’re doing it with your grandfather’s best interests at heart. Saving him the trouble of finding something else for my competition when he gets out of hospital.”

He shook his head. “This has nothing to do with my grandfather. I’m simply trying to show you areas I’d thought you may not have explored before.”

“Get me the lease, Jack. Let me sign it and take me back to my car. Soon as we have everything squared away, I promise not to bother you again.” The air around her was charged with static electricity and a whole heap of suppressed lust. Just inhaling that air seemed to light Jack’s blood on fire. “I’ll happily wait until your grandfather is well enough before I have any further interaction with Wilson Property Management.” Claire’s voice was icy and her arms were folded across her chest—in a defiant, stuff-you gesture—yet sparks of awareness flew all around the car.

“And I’ll understand if you don’t want to deal with me professionally once Big Jack is back on his feet. But don’t try and kid yourself that there’s nothing else going on between us. Whatever happens with the lease, I suspect you and I are going to be seeing a lot more of each other.” He smiled, letting the innuendo in his words seep into her mind. “A lot more.”

“Don’t try and use the attraction between us as a means of avoiding the problem.”

There was something about arguing with Claire that set his blood on fire. And from the way her nipples poked at her shirt
—
how could he not notice, with her arms pushing those bountiful breasts up?
—
Jack suspected Claire felt exactly the same. “So you’re not denying there’s an attraction?”

“We’ve kissed twice. It’d be both difficult and hypocritical to deny there’s an attraction.”

Satisfaction roared through him. “Have dinner with me tonight. We won’t talk about properties and leases. We won’t even think about them. We’ll just concentrate on you and me, and where we can take this mutual attraction.”

“In other words, have dinner with you so you can strip me and fuck me six ways to Sunday.”

His cock jumped to attention. “Would that be so bad?”

She didn’t answer, just glared at him.

Dumb answer, especially because he hadn’t actually had sex on his mind when he’d asked her. “I invited you to dinner, Claire. Not to bed. I thought we could get to know each other a little better, without having the pressure of a business agreement sitting between us.”

Claire shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“This shop is too important to me. I can’t let my personal feelings interfere with my business judgment. Regardless of what you have on your books now, my heart is set on the Rose Bay property, and I will do whatever is necessary to get it. Which means nurturing a personal relationship of any kind with you is not only going to be a bad idea, it’s going to be pretty impossible.”

He sighed. She wasn’t going to change her mind anytime soon. “You were right.”

“About what?”

“My not having the lease.”

“So get it.”

“It’s not that simple.”

She glared at him, invisible daggers hitting him in the chest with deadly precision.

“Parker
,
the other tenant, won’t budge. Far as he’s concerned he’s signed, and the property is his.”

Claire let out a low, sexy growl and swung her furious gaze away from him, staring out the window instead. She counted slowly to ten, but before she reached seven she gave a howl of indignation. “Where are we?”

“In the car.”

Another dagger hit him square in the chest. “Where are we going? This is not the way back to your office.”

It was the darnedest thing, but every dagger that hit him only increased his hunger for her. He liked watching Claire getting all fired up and doing her best to temper her anger. There was something extraordinarily sexy about her control, and he’d be willing to bet that getting her to lose that control would be a million times sexier.

“Didn’t I mention I needed to check out a couple of properties? We’re going to see another one.”

Her little yelp of disbelief hit him right in the belly.

“
Uh-uh
. No,
we
are not going anywhere. You are going to take me back, and you’re going to sort out the Rose Bay lease, at which point you are more than welcome to visit as many properties as you like. On your time, not mine.”

Jack shook his head. “Sorry. No can do. I’ve already taken the off-ramp. Getting back to the East now is going to be hell. We’d have to go through the city. And with traffic, it’ll take forever. Quicker just to come with me and see the next place.”

Claire remained silent for a minute or two. Her fingers tapped on the door in a rhythmic beat. One tap, two taps, three taps and one again. Oh, he could imagine her tapping out that beat on his ass
—
with her feet
—
as he threw her onto his bed and took full possession of her strong body.

She reached into her bag, pulled out her iPhone and hit a few buttons. “Maddie?… Yeah… No, I didn’t… Long story.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Do I sound happy?… Yes. My point exactly… I have no idea. Driving into the inner city I think… Again, I have no idea.”

Jack didn’t attempt to interrupt. He listened to her side of the conversation, content to hear Claire’s just-woken-up voice ringing through the car. He couldn’t make out what Maddie said in response, he just heard a faint rumble through the phone.

He did not for a minute think Claire had accepted his decision to drive her to another shop. It was clear she was way too stubborn to let him convince her of anything, including agreeing with him to let the lease remain with Parker. A minute later she proved him correct.

“Here’s what I need you to do, Mad. Can you phone Epstein please? Fill him in on what’s been going on with the lease, find out exactly where we stand, and tell him we’re willing to take whatever action is necessary to either get that property or… Uh-huh. I think we should… Look, if legal action is our only option, then that’s what we’ll do… Yeah. Of course you should talk to Julia first.”

Her conversation continued on, and Jack knew most of what she said out loud was voiced for his benefit.

Still, Jack wasn’t panicked. Yet. Probably had a lot to do with his next destination, and the fact that Miss Jones’s smoky voice was tying his balls in knots again.

Ten minutes later Jack pulled into another parking spot, this time in a trendy area, not quite so up-market as Mosman.

“Glebe?” Claire looked not the least bit impressed.

“Glebe,” he confirmed. “There’s an empty shop I want you to see.”

Sandwiched between two universities, Glebe was like a little village, crammed full of coffee shops, restaurants, vintage clothes stores and funky bookshops.

“I’m sure there is.” She nodded at his door. “So why don’t you go look at it, and I’ll wait here in your car. When you’re done, you can take me back.”

“Nope.”

“No?”

“I’m not going in there without you.”

“Then it seems we’ll both sit in the car. And if we’re both just sitting here doing nothing, you might as well drive me back to my car.”

“No, again.”

“No?”

“See, if I’m forced to sit here beside you, I won’t be doing nothing.”

“What will you be doing? Trying to convince me of the delights of Glebe?”

“No, much more simple than that.”

“What then?”

“You have two choices. Either I can sing out loud, to the radio or to a song of your choice…”

She pulled a sour face, telling him without words exactly what she thought about that option. “Or?”

“Or, regardless of your thoughts about getting to know me personally, I’m going to lean over and kiss you again. And this time I won’t stop because we’re parked on a public road.”

With a vicious growl, Claire turned up the volume.

Fortunately, Jack recognized the song playing, a Katy Perry tune, and he sang in time to it. Or tried to, anyway.

“You know you have got to stop that God-awful racket?”

He shook his head. “No can do. Until you walk into the shop with me, I’ll just sit singing my heart out.” And with that he threw said heart and soul into the song. Pity for Claire he had no idea what the words were and had to make up his own as he went along, but the originality just added more soul.

Claire turned off the radio with a
harrumph
.

He grinned at her, and continued singing, projecting his voice as far as he could when he reached the high notes.

For the second time that day, Claire scrambled out of the car. “How old are you anyway?” she grouched as he followed suit. “Fifteen?”

“Close. Thirty-five.”

“You act like a child.”

Jack fell into step beside her with a triumphant wink. “Then I figure I’ll be perfectly happy in your shop.”

“You’re welcome there anytime
—
just so long as you don’t sing. You’ll scare off my other customers.”

“You’ll love this place.”

“I’m not interested in this place.”

“I kissed a girl and I liked it.”

Claire clamped her hands over her ears.

He nudged her arm out of the way. “I did like it. Heaps.”

“The song?”

“The kiss. Both kisses.”

“You really are fifteen.”

“You really need to give this place a chance.”

And in a move he didn’t see coming, one he’d never have expected from the lovely Miss Jones, she placed her hands on her hips, glared in his direction and…pulled a tongue at him.