Dragon and the Dove (4 page)

George Leeds had his unsavory moments, but
there were lines he never crossed when it came to women. Andrew
Strachan had his noble traits, but none of them applied when it
came to women, especially beautiful women.

Cooper had gotten on the plane because, as
Jessica’s employer, he had responsibilities for her well-being. She
was out of her area of expertise when it came to dealing with
Strachan. He’d also felt an uncomfortable measure of guilt for
sending her off so ill-prepared
. Of course, that
had been the whole idea behind his decision, for her to be
ill-prepared
for a man like Leeds. That he’d
thought about her more often than he’d liked over the last few days
had been a minor consideration.

It had also been as compelling as hell.

She was sitting in the last booth with her
back to the wall, and he wondered if the precaution was instinctive
or learned. He knew Leeds wouldn’t have allowed her to accidentally
take his preferred spot. She had to have maneuvered herself into
it, and for reasons all too obvious from Cooper’s point of view,
Leeds didn’t seem to mind.

Light from an overhead glass globe cast soft
shadows over her face and played with the highlights in her hair,
giving her an air of mystery she had not had when he’d seen her
standing in his office all wide-eyed and staring. Her iridescent
blue dress was slightly disarrayed, baring one satiny shoulder.
Unwillingly, Cooper followed the naked curve with his eyes. It was
a sweet sight, but arousal and assistants were mutually exclusive
by his rules.

Or they were supposed to be. Dammit.

He lifted his gaze to her face. She looked
consummately at ease in the dreary surroundings, her smile flashing
every few moments at what Leeds was saying, her hands embellishing
her own words with graceful movements. She had pinned her hair up,
and a few tendrils had fallen back down to curl against her neck.
She was more than attractive, lounging in a buttoned and rolled
Boarshead booth. She was beautiful.

She was also drunk. The lineup of empty pint
glasses on the table didn’t leave him a doubt. He’d never expected
the woman to be so much trouble, or so damned tenacious—or so
damned intriguing. Anyone else would have quit.

But not Ms. Langston, he thought with a
grudging, wry grin. She looked ready to give everything right down
to her virtue for the good of the company, and Cooper knew Leeds
would be glad to take whatever was offered. Strachan, on the other
hand, had never been known to wait for an offer. Fortunately,
Cooper had arrived in time to save her from the Scots wolf.

He stepped closer to the booth, drawing her
attention, and he knew he’d once again misjudged her. She wasn’t
drunk, not by a long shot. The look she gave him was lucid and
piercing, with an element of surprise she quickly hid. As he took
his final steps her gaze dropped to his bad leg and his limp. Her
eyes softened, then she hid that emotion too.

“Leeds,” he said, startling the other man
into spilling his beer.

Leeds looked over his shoulder and
immediately stumbled to his feet, his pockmarked face stark with
surprise. “Coop, hell, man. I didn’t—I mean, I didn’t expect, or,
uh, do anything. Nothing. I swear. Hell, look at her.” He swung one
brawny arm wide, encompassing half the bar before sweeping past
Jessica Langston. The action upset his equilibrium and sent him
tumbling back into the booth. Once his head got lower than his
heart, the rest was history. Leeds slid under the table in a state
of blissful unconsciousness.

Cooper didn’t believe what he’d just seen
any more than he believed what Leeds was wearing. The reprobate had
on a suit coat with matching pants. He was even
wearing a tie and, of
all things, a collar bar, a gold one to match the ring in his ear.
The man had gone all out to impress someone. When Cooper looked up,
he found that someone scooting out of the booth, a concerned frown
on her face.

“Now look what you’ve done,” she said
accusingly, pulling up the tight skirt of her dress so she could
kneel beside Leeds’s supine body. “You’ve completely unnerved the
man.”

“No, I didn’t,” Cooper said, his gaze
riveted to her rising hemline. “I couldn’t unnerve George Leeds on
my best day.”

“He was fine until you showed up
.” She tucked loose
strands of George’s gray-streaked hair into his ponytail and
smoothed her fingers over his brow. “Dammit. He’s out cold, and I
was just this far away from closing the deal.” She lifted her hand,
her thumb and index finger barely half an inch apart.

“I thought you were waiting for Strachan.”
By his estimation, her legs went on forever.

“I came to the conclusion,” she said
tightly, “that it would be better for Daniels, Ltd. if I worked out
the initial deal with Leeds. Then, if Strachan wanted to sweeten
the pot, fine, and if he didn’t, I would already have Somerset
Shipping on board at our price. I did not expect you to show up
from out of nowhere and frighten my client half to death.”

She kept touching George, checking his
pulse, loosening his tie, removing the ridiculous collar bar, and
Cooper wished like hell that she would quit. He didn’t like her
fussing over the other man.

He felt his jaw tighten in irritation when
she went so far as to unbutton the first two buttons of George’s
white shirt. Leeds had never worn a suit in his life. Never. His
normal attire tended toward mix and match and cheap and
serviceable, with a little leather thrown in for good measure. He
usually had two or three earrings in his ear, not a single,
discreet gold ring.

“What made you think Leeds would be more
agreeable than Strachan?” he asked, as if the truth of the matter
wasn’t lying at her feet in a drunken stupor. Over the years he and
Leeds had swilled enough gin and beer to float an oil tanker, and
he’d never seen the old man flat on his back—until now.

“I checked Strachan out,” she said, finally
rising to her feet. “He doesn’t have a reputation for taking women
seriously.” She smoothed her dress, and Cooper did his best not to
follow the movements of her hands as she straightened her neckline.
After her shoulder had been covered, he looked down just in time to
catch the slight shimmy she gave her hips to shake her hemline back
down to her knees.

“You checked him out?” he asked around the
growing lump in his throat.

“I made some phone calls. Half of what I
paid Stanford for was good connections. It’s about a tenth of what
you pay me for.”

“What are
the other nine tenths?”
he asked. She’d finished rearranging her dress, which still didn’t
cure his staring problem. They were closer than they’d been in his
office, and he couldn’t help but notice things he’d missed then,
like her scent, and the pale dusting of freckles on her chest and
across the bridge of her nose. She looked sun-kissed, sweet, and
sultry. It was a deadly combination.

He hadn’t eaten much on the plane, and
nothing since his arrival. He could only hope that was his problem.
He did not want his problem to be her mouth and what looking at it
made him want to do. That was trouble he didn’t need.

He shouldn’t have sent her to London. He
should have sent her back to Elise Crabb and demanded a refund.

She met his eyes squarely and said, “One
tenth is for my accounting degree, two tenths for my MBA, and two
tenths for my natural intelligence.”

“That’s six.” Damn, he thought. It was her
mouth and not his empty stomach. He could tell by the effect
watching her talk had on his groin.

She waited a moment before answering, and
under her unwavering gaze, he felt sized up and measured from the
inside out. He only hoped she wasn’t able to read his mind.

“The other four tenths,” she said, “are for
not turning around and walking out when I realized that counseling
you on your potential Pacific Rim investments wasn’t going to take
up nearly as much of my time as brokering your rather questionable
skills.”

“My skills are not questionable,” he said,
irritated with himself and her, and with all the reasons his body
was coming up with for wanting to take her to bed. All he’d really
wanted to do was fire her. He shouldn’t have let his practical
business side or his sense of responsibility get the better of him.
He shouldn’t have followed her to London.

“Your skills are not questionable in
degree,” she agreed, “but most definitely in form. I have serious
doubts about working for a maritime bounty hunter, which I have
surmised is the correct term for your line of business.”

She was a cool one. He had to give her that
much credit.

“You have six days left on your contract,”
he said. “I’ll still give you a
thousand dollars for each of them.”

She ignored his offer. “I haven’t figured
out why you wanted an assistant of my caliber at all. An executive
secretary could have met your needs for a lot less money. Right now
I’m planning on counseling you to replace me with someone who can
manage your office, and for you to do your own contract negotiating
when the occasion arises, which Leeds explained isn’t very often.
You’re usually on your own, bringing in the pirates for a price
that was set without any input from you.”

Cooper wasn’t prepared to discuss any of her
chosen conversational topics with her, especially in the
Boarshead.

“Have you ever heard of anyone being too
smart for their own good?” he asked, one eyebrow raised in warning,
his implication hopefully clear.

She arched one eyebrow back at him,
her
implication crystal clear, and Cooper wondered where
in the hell he’d gotten his first impression of innocence. The
woman had the
cojones
of a rhinoceros, and she’d drunk
George Leeds under the table.

Maybe Mrs. Crabb had been right. Maybe
Jessica Langston was exactly what he needed.

God, he hoped not.

“Come on,” he said, taking her arm. “Let’s
get you out of here before something happens we’ll both
regret.”

Jessica would have balked on principle
alone, but the strength of the hand on her elbow gave her no choice
but to comply.

“What about Mr. Leeds?” she asked, looking
over her shoulder at the man they’d left lying on the floor.

“I’ll take care of Leeds after I’ve taken
care of you,” Cooper said.

“This really isn’t necessary, you know,” she
said, struggling to keep up with him despite his limp. “I can take
care of myself.”

“So I’ve noticed,” he said wryly.

She would have liked to argue with him, but
their headlong retreat out of the Boarshead was having an unhappy
effect on her equilibrium, and she didn’t want to end up like
George, especially in front of Cooper Daniels.

“Could we slow down, please?” she asked,
inadvertently leaning into him. “The room is starting to spin a
little to the left.”

He came to a sudden halt and pinned her with
a green glare. “You
are
drunk.”

“No,” she said, grabbing onto him for
support. “No, I’m not. But I do have a limit when it comes to
alcohol consumption, and I have reached it.”

He swore, succinctly, looking right at her.
That his words were spoken in a Chinese dialect did not confuse her
in the least. She understood him perfectly.

“An apt sentiment, I’m sure,” she said. “But
I’d still appreciate it if you would slow down.”

Cooper did, holding her close to his side to
keep her from slipping to the floor, and holding on to his anger by
the thinnest of threads. It was bad enough to have found her in the
Boarshead with her companion inebriated to the point of
unconsciousness. It was worse to realize what situation she would
have found herself in if he hadn’t shown up. He didn’t have to look
around to know how many men were staring at them. Half of them had
probably been waiting for Leeds to pass out so they could move in
on her.

Actually, he knew there was no probably
about it, a fact quickly proved when a sailor still smelling of the
sea stepped in front of them. The man was big and barrel-chested,
with short-cropped hair. He wore a tight T-shirt that showed off a
pair of sizable biceps.

“No need to call it a night, luv.” He spoke
directly to Jessica, ignoring Cooper. “Just because the old man
weren’t up to snuff don’t mean you have to leave. Billy Ellen’ll be
glad to see you home, after we finish a couple more of the
Boarshead’s own.”

“No, thank you,” Jessica said with all
politeness, giving Cooper a discreet push to direct him around the
man. Cooper leveled a scowl at her. He didn’t need her telling him
what to do. Drunken sailors were his specialty.

“Forget the gimp, luv,” the sailor said,
moving in front of them again. “Stay and have a good time with
Billy boy.”

“Billy boy” was a wall of immovable chest
and palpable aggression standing in Cooper’s way and silently
daring him to fight.

Cooper didn’t need the added incentive of
the dare. He was only too happy to oblige the oaf who had called
him a gimp. In his present mood, he had neither the time nor the
patience to suffer fools, so he flexed the muscles in his left hand
and took a deep breath. The giant fell while he was still inhaling,
before he’d had a chance to balance the tension in his muscles, let
alone strike his blow.

The woman at his side brushed her hands
together and straightened her neckline again. “I think you’re
right, Mr. Daniels. We should leave.”

She’d tripped the bastard, put him to the
floor, and she’d done it half-drunk. Cooper had seen it, but he
hardly believed it.

Jessica slipped her arm through her
employer’s and ushered him toward the door before the man on the
floor could clear the confusion out of his head. She’d had the
advantage of surprise. She often did. She didn’t look particularly
athletic, she didn’t look like a martial-arts disciple, and she
certainly didn’t look as dangerous as her employer. The sailor had
made a wise choice in watching Cooper Daniels instead of her. It
just happened to have been the wrong choice.