Read Wicked Nights for Free Online Page A

of the room, inviting her to lead off the pitches with a lethally charming, “Ladies
    first,” when they both knew going first was the weaker position. Their judges would hold back on scoring
    to leave room for the last diver.
    He grinned and settled back in his seat, arms folded over his chest. If he looked good in nothing more
    than a pair of jeans and a faded cotton T-shirt, he cleaned up even better. He wore an open-necked shirt—
    she’d never seen Cal bother with a tie for anything other than funerals and weddings—and a dark suit
    jacket, which didn’t disguise the breadth and power of his shoulders. He had the build of a swimmer, his
    body advertising that it was trained to pull him through the water at a killer pace. She’d seen him swim, and
    it was a thing of beauty. She’d give him that much credit.
    He was also big and bad, irritatingly calm as he sank back onto his seat, leaning slightly away from her,
    his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest. The conference-room table hid his
    feet, and she fought the urge to peek and see if he was wearing steel-toed work boots. It was hard to
    imagine him in dress shoes, but he radiated control and competence.
    He raised an eyebrow. Right. Her pitch. She hadn’t prepared slides or a formal talk, but she knew her
    message. She’d also loaded up her laptop with images she’d shot at the diving sites she was promoting,
    because a picture was definitely worth a thousand words. All she had to do was get Sal, Ben and Margie to
    imagine themselves in those waters, and she’d have them. She quickly tugged on her ear, hoping the lucky
    gesture would bring her the same good fortune she’d had every time she’d climbed the dive tower and
    competed.
    “You’ve got a cruise ship full of passengers, most of whom have never dived before. The number of
    newbies seriously outweighs the number of certified divers. I’d like to go after that segment, grow your
    tour numbers. Why wouldn’t those passengers want to dive?”
    She’d fallen in love with recreational diving during her own summer trips to Discovery Island. As soon
    as she’d turned twelve, she’d been fitted up with gear and taught to dive. Her first excursions had been off
    Discovery Island pier, fifteen-footers, where she could have dived to the bottom without the gas, but the
    tank meant she could stay under for thirty minutes. She’d loved it and she’d been hooked. Sharing her
    passion through her dive program just seemed...natural.
    Cal sprawled in the back of the room, all hot-eyed, hard-bodied charm as she started walking the
    executives through a cost comparison of land-based tours with diving excursions. There was more money
    to be made on booking diving than most of the other shore excursions, and pretty soon her audience of
    three was nodding along. Except for Cal, of course. His expression said he wasn’t convinced.
    “If the passengers have never dived before, are you proposing resort dives?”
    “Good question.” She smiled at the woman and launched into the next part of her talk, walking the
    room through the shallow, baptismal dives she’d planned for the harbor as she displayed different images
    on the screen. At thirteen to fifteen feet, anyone in reasonable physical health could give diving a try.
    Pointing out the window at the gorgeous, light turquoise water, she asked, “Who wouldn’t want to get in
    there and see what’s happening beneath the surface?”
    Cal raised a brow. She knew that look of mocking disbelief. It was, she decided, too bad for him she
    had every intention of winning this contract and wiping the smug look off his face.

    * * *
PIPER HAD THE room in the palm of her hand, which further irritated Cal. Letting her go first had
    seemed like a smart tactical move, but now he was second-guessing himself. She’d been every bit as
    unprepared as he’d expected, talking off the cuff without a formal set of slides—and she’d captivated