and he could easily find another that would suit just as well.
He’d been telling himself that all day and so far, it hadn’t worked. Victor stared grimly at the work piling up on his desk and wondered how she’d twisted him into a frustrated knot with just that one, simple kiss. And several gut-punch smiles. And the cutest butt and sexiest legs he’d ever seen.
Damn her! Why hadn’t she called?
He looked at the phone on his desk for the hundredth time, wondering what she was doing.
She wasn’t going to call. It was already well past five o’clock and if she were going to follow through on his suggestion last night, she would have called earlier. With a frustrated sigh, he sifted through the files on his desk, wondering why he cared so much. It wasn’t disappointment he felt, he told himself as he tried to concentrate on a suggested merger. It was only that he was interested, curious, in her and her plight. So what if she had the best figure he’d ever seen on a woman? And the loveliest eyes? And lips a man could kill for, he thought for the millionth time.
Dammit! Every time he started thinking of her and how he should just walk away and forget about her, an image of her lush, sexy body popped up in his mind. There were so many women out there, he could find a replacement easily. He should just end this silly wait and call up one of those women who would love to be on his arm tonight.
The phone on his desk rang and he smacked the contract down on the other papers, irritated that he hadn’t absorbed a single detail. “Yes!” he snapped into the phone, distracted and irritated as he looked outside and saw the darkened sky.
Lana hesitated, hearing his irritated voice. “I’m sorry. Is this not a good time?” she asked, terrified of what she was about to do and grabbing at any excuse she could to back out of her decision. He sounded angry and that was as good an excuse as any to terminate the call, she thought nervously.
A deep chuckle came from somewhere deep down in his chest, and his mood instantly lightened now that she was talking to him. “Lana, don’t you dare hang up this phone,” Victor said, amusement and relief ringing in his voice. Leaning back in his desk, his mind started imagining what she probably looked like right at this moment. He could see in his mind’s eye her pretty white teeth nibbling nervously at her full, lower lip and his body hardened. Painfully. He knew all the things he wanted to do with those lips, one of which was nibbling on the lower lip with his own teeth. A feral smile tightened his face which would have terrified her if she’d been in the room with him instead of on the phone.
With a silent groan, he pushed that image aside and focused on the conversation. Getting her to meet him was not a foregone conclusion, if the nervous tone of her voice was any indication. It would take all his negotiating skills to bring her around to his way of thinking. But failure was not in his vocabulary.
“It’s about time you called. What are you doing?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and looking at the ceiling. Relief was pumping through him and he didn’t want to analyze any of the other feelings. The room was quiet and there was nothing but white on the ceiling. But in his mind’s eye, he was thinking of all the different things he was going to teach her now that she’d finally given in to her curiosity.
Lana hesitated, biting her lip. “I’m standing in the middle of my living room wondering why I’m calling you.”
He laughed softly, enjoying the fluttery sound of her voice, the feminine tone that told him she was beautiful, even through the phone. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
She didn’t return the laughter. “No. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m doing.”
“You’re satisfying your curiosity. And now that you’ve made the call, I’ll make the rest easier for you. What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked.
Lana took a deep