THE CRITIC (8 page)

Toreas was hoping to pull Liz over to her side. She needed someone’s help, anyone’s help, in telling her how to go about seducing a man she professed to hate, but who intrigued her nonetheless.

“Wear anything, I don’t know.  I’m not getting involved in this.  What are you going to do if he says no?”

It was Toreas’s turn to laugh. “He’s a man. What man do you know who is going to turn down free sex with no strings attached?”

“What are you going to say to him? I hope it’s something better than that.”

This entire conversation was growing wearisome. All Toreas had intended was to have her friend advise her if she should dye her hair or hot comb it, or maybe even perm it, or buy a short skirt or a new lipstick, not scold her about her plans.

She was fully aware of what she was about to do and it didn’t matter.  She was determined.  After all the abuse she’d suffered at his hands, Jared Stone owed her.

With or without Liz’s help, she would find a way to entice the man. And she would be up front about it being strictly for professional reasons.

She thought of his lips on hers, his hands on her face. 
This is all for my book, nothing more than that. He’s not a potato chip. I can stop at just one.

Chapter Seven

Toreas did her best to avoid looking in the mirror. Liz had been absolutely no help.  She hadn’t given her one word of advice to make this meeting with Jared easier.  Liz didn’t want her to go, that much was obvious.

Toreas wanted to arrive at the pie shop before Jared.  If she was sitting there first, maybe the butterflies would go away.  What did she mean, butterflies?  It felt more like rocks lying in the pit of her gut making her nauseous.

That voice was bothering her again, pestering her, trying to remind her that she was a good Baptist girl. She was in enough trouble already with past deeds that hadn’t been planned.  Now here she was purposely planning to sin, and sin big time.

“All right already,” she wanted to shout to the steady voice in her head. “I hear you.” Besides, it had never been that much fun so this should only count as a little sin.

She caught her reflection in the mirror.  She was blushing.  She hated it. How could she go about her task with that darn telltale flush?

One glance at her watch and she swabbed on a little lipstick.  Her clothes were not what she wanted, baggy pants and a thick sweater. But they were all she had.

Toreas walked into the pie shop with her knees knocking together and asked for a table for two.  Before the hostess had a chance to seat her, Jared showed up beside her, tall, not quite dark, actually not dark at all, and handsome.

She watched as he smiled down at the waitress, then turned to acknowledge her.  His eyes exuded warmth.  She was surprised she had never noticed that before.

“Hello, Mr. Stone.”

He stuck his hand out to her.  “Can’t we at least let go of the Mr. Stone?  Please call me Jared.”  He smiled at her then.  “I already have a table.  By the way, may I call you Toreas?”

She felt the heat rising to her face and hated it.   The man had only smiled at her.  She didn’t answer; instead, she followed him to a table where he had two cups of coffee waiting.

She remembered her mother always telling her never to leave a drink on the table and come back for it; someone could slip something in it.

Toreas looked at Jared, not quite trusting him, yet doubting he would go to such lengths. After all, the man wasn’t a criminal, was he?

She glanced at the cup placed in front of the chair she took, and then at Jared. “Thanks for the coffee, but I prefer tea.”

That was a lie.  Toreas hated tea.  But she hated even more that Jared had presumed to order for her. Besides, that nagging little thought continued to creep in on her.  What if he had put something in it?

Her stomach was lurching as though there were acrobats doing a full routine in there.  The man seated before her definitely had no need to drug the women he wanted.

“So, To..re..as.”

He said her name slowly, making it feel like a caress and making her aware of how wholly inadequate she was at this seduction nonsense.

Toreas wanted to call Jared’s name and make it sound as sensuous as he’d made hers sound, but she wasn’t any good at things like that.

“You may not believe me, but I truly had no idea that Derrick was bringing the crew to your meeting,” Jared said and smiled.

When he reached for his coffee Toreas caught the slight tremble in his hand. She searched his eyes, sensing the nervousness in him that he was trying desperately to hide.

His dimples kept going in, then peeking out at her, as though they couldn’t decide what to do.  There was a half smile tugging at the corner of his bottom lip, but it wasn’t reaching his eyes.  It was then she knew with a certainty he was as unsure about the outcome of their meeting as she was.

Toreas sat back in her chair biting first her bottom lip, then her top, her head tilted at a forty-five degree angle observing him.

Jared picked up his cup and took a drink, at the same time signaling the waitress to the table. “Would you bring the lady a cup of tea please?”  He glanced in Toreas’s direction.

“Is there any type that you prefer?”

“Just plain tea.”  She was flustered with him watching her. Even though she wasn’t a tea drinker, she could have been a little more sophisticated, asked for some herbal tea at least. Now what was he thinking?  Plain tea for a plain woman?

***

Jared was nervous.  He had been sitting in the restaurant for almost thirty minutes. Every five minutes he’d had the waitress bring fresh cups of coffee because he wanted to give the impression that he’d just arrived. She was annoyed over his insistence on clean cups each time, but that was a must. Refilled cups looked refilled to him.

The last time he’d re-ordered, he’d given the waitress a twenty and smiled at her. “I’m meeting someone I’m trying hard to impress.”

He knew the right words to use on women.  They loved a sensitive man.  He knew the waitress would find cute the idea that he was going to so much trouble to impress a woman and stop hassling him.

Whatever it took.  He could be charming when he chose to be and right now he chose to be.

The waitress had a smirk on her face when he ordered tea for Toreas, enough of one that Jared wanted to ask her to give him back the twenty. Maybe not quite, but the smirk irritated him. He was having enough trouble dealing with one woman. Two was one too many.

He was pretending not to watch Toreas’s every move.  She probably thought he’d not seen her wistful look at the cup of coffee. Liar. For whatever reason, she didn’t want the one he’d had waiting. Probably thought he’d poisoned it.

He’d given her the quick once-over when he went to meet her at the front—baggy pants and thick bulky sweater, as usual.  Neither garment did a thing for her appearance except to make her look washed out.

His eyes fell on her lips, her best feature. She was looking intently at him from thick full lashes. Ahh, he’d almost forgotten. Toreas Rose had remarkable brown eyes, eyes that told exactly what she was thinking, eyes that were constantly shooting sparks of fire in his direction.

He saw the faint splotch of color on her brown cheeks and wondered why she was blushing. He’d done or said nothing that anyone could construe as sexual.

It was obvious Toreas was uncomfortable with him.  Jared wondered if she might perhaps be a virgin.  He almost laughed.  In this day and age…?

Her gaze was still fastened on him and now he was the one beginning to squirm.  He wanted to bed this uptight prude who sat across from him, just once. Any more than that and she would be falling madly in love with him, clinging to him.  And that he didn’t want.  

   He’d never had a tiny woman and by no stretch of the imagination one who was not well versed in the pleasures of the flesh. Regardless, he could feel a growing hunger. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d had her. Once.

“So, Mr. Stone.”  His raised eyebrow stopped her.   “I’m sorry, Jared. Can we end this?  Will you please cease your attack on me?”

He wanted to tell her yes, but their feud was bringing in big revenue to the station.  He couldn’t ask Derrick to give that up simply because Toreas Rose’s lips tasted like strawberries and he wanted to see if the rest of her tasted the same way.

“My boss isn’t ready for this to die out yet.”  Jared watched as Toreas’s lips thinned in disapproval. “But I have thought of something that might help all of us.”

She was eyeing him suspiciously, and with good reason. “Seriously.  You could come on the show.”   He saw the look on her face.

“Hear me out. I’m sure your friend Kelle can show you some moves to use if I get out of hand.”  This time he was rewarded with a smile.

“Let’s hear your proposal, Jared.”

He arched his eyebrows at her, surprised how much he liked hearing his name coming from her mouth.

“Well,” he smiled. “I was thinking of having you come on several shows and demonstrate a few self-defense moves.”

“That’s not my thing. I told you, I’m only learning.  Kelle is the expert, not me.”

“I don’t want Kelle.  I want you.”

Toreas’s hand moved toward the coffee cup before she remembered she’d told him she didn’t like the stuff. He wasn’t saying he wanted her in a sexual way, but just the same, she had felt a slight chill followed by amazing warmth spreading throughout her body.

“My coming back on your show would help your career and the station, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“How is that going to help me, or my group, or
ARW?”

“All publicity helps, trust me, good or bad.  The public hears there’s a fight or a banned book and right away they want it.”

“How do you know this?”

“I was in advertising and public relations. I thought I’d told you that already. Never mind.” Jared smiled. “Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I’ll bet the sales of romance novels have risen already.”

“How do you know more people are reading romance because of, as you say, our little feud?”

“I know. It’s the way the world works.”

“I’m not sure about that. My chapter is about ready to kick me out if I don’t call a halt to this.”

“I’m asking you in a way to be my partner. We can script it.”

“You mean lie to the public.”

Jared looked at the woman in amazement. How was what he was asking of her any different from writing fiction. He decided to ask.

“Isn’t that what you do, write fiction?”

“But I don’t lie.”

“Are you saying guys are as stupid as you writers make them out to be and that every woman is a heroine?”

Toreas was smiling and it was irritating the heck out of Jared. It appeared she was laughing at him and he didn’t like it. “Why are you smiling?” he asked irritably.

“You’re asking me if I think men are stupid. I can’t believe you would ask me such a loaded question.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look at you, you’re annoyed.  You’re frowning at me with your face scrunched up in concentration.  Your expression looks like a petulant little boy’s.”

“So I’m stupid?”

“A smart man wouldn’t ask me that question.”

“Ms. Rose, are you by chance calling me stupid?”

“No, you did that yourself! You just said you were stupid. And I thought we were on a first name basis.”

Jared could sense she was enjoying this. He was trying not to glare at the woman.  After all, glaring at her would not get her in his bed.  And now more than ever he was determined to wipe that smug look off her face.

When he finished with her, Toreas Rose wouldn’t know what hit her.  Jared definitely intended to make her shed that Quaker look.  He didn’t like the way she treated him as if he didn’t matter.  No woman had ever done that to him before.
What about Gina
? A little voice whispered
. 
He’d almost forgotten his two- timing ex.

The women were as different as ice cream and yogurt.  Gina was a knockout and Toreas… He glared again at her and thought, T
his woman should be grateful that I even want her
. He tapped his fingers on the table and glared more fiercely, not surprised that it had no effect on her. But still, he wanted to put her in her place.

“Look, all men are not stupid and we’re not put here for your amusement.”  He smirked then.  “Neither are all women heroines.  If a man has the balls…”

He caught her disapproving look.  “If, in your book, some weenie by chance attempts to behave like a man you women go and lop them off.”

Her disapproval had now turned into an all-out frown.  She appeared to be studying him and her appraisal of him helped to fuel his next words. “Romance novels are forever having the man get knocked out and the woman saving him. He’s shot, thrown from a horse, or about to be dragged across the plains.”

He smiled then. “Different stories, same ending.  Damsel in distress becomes the one to save the day.”  He looked over at her.  She wasn’t amused by his assessment.

Maybe a different approach would work better. “Why aren’t any of your heroes fat?”

“Because women have fat husbands in real life.  Why do we want to read about them?” Toreas turned toward the waitress thanking her for the tea, watching as she took away the coffee she could definitely use while having this conversation with Jared. She took several sips of the tea, trying not to make a face at the taste.

Jared placed his elbow on the table and cupped his chin with his hand.  He leaned across the table drawing Toreas’s eyes, wanting to kiss her.

“Do you really believe it’s the women who rescue the men?”

“Of course.  Look around you.  Ask the women who run the household, pay the bills, keep up with the repairs, and the kids.”

“And the workplace?” Jared asked.

“Of course in the workplace. Women may not earn the same pay but they are the ones who make sure the job gets done.”

“Your opinion of men is very low. How did you ever become a romance writer?”

“As an avid romance reader I suppose I may have thought finding a hero would be easy. Since it wasn’t, I decided to write, to create the hero that most men can never be.”