The Boss's Proposal (5 page)

He threw her an amused glance. “I am?”

“I think you're smart to respect the original look. In three years, the center is going to celebrate its hundredth anniversary. Your idea will help celebrate it, too.”

“Hmm.” He stopped opposite the third dormer window to check the splotch of orange spray paint on the sidewalk where the surveyor had marked it.

“After all, you're right, this is New England,” Max
reminded him. “People don't want flashy, they want traditional.”

“Except traditional in medicine means wards of metal-framed beds and nurses with starched white caps. There's a reason medical buildings look modern. People want to know they're going to get the very latest medical care, and the building needs to reinforce that impression from the minute they drive up. It doesn't do any good to design a structure everybody loves if patients stay away.”

“Well no, of course we don't have to be slavish. I'm just saying you've got a good point when you suggest that respecting the design is a good starting point. I'm sure the medical center board will like the idea.”

“Really?” He slowed as they neared the end of the sidewalk at the far end of the property. “Tell me, did Jeremy Simmons fall for this routine?”

Max frowned. “What?”

“You, getting out the butter and lathering it all over me.” He swung around toward her, the look in his eyes anything but amused.

She stopped. “I'm only offering an opinion.”

“No, you're trying to get me to think that what I want to do is what you really want to do. I'd call it good old, garden-variety manipulation. Or at least a stab at it.”

“I'm not trying to manipulate you. I'm trying to agree with you, have us move in the same direction.” Even she could hear the edge in her voice.

“Sure you are. You've already decided what you want this addition to look like and you're doing your damnedest to convince me it's my idea, too.” He took a step toward her. “Look, you may be smart enough to run rings around most of the project heads you've had to deal with. Hell, you may even be smart enough to do the same thing to every guy you meet—assuming you meet just the right ones. You said at the gala you hadn't ever run across anybody who could keep up with you? Guess what? You just have.”

Anger pricked at her. “What makes you think you have the right to talk to me like that? I don't know what kind of women you hang out with, but I don't need to butter you up, Reynolds. Don't flatter yourself.”

That pirate's smile spread slowly across his face as he took another step toward her. “I don't believe in flattery. Reality is so much more interesting, don't you think?”

“I'm not interested in your reality.”

“You sure seemed like you were yesterday at the coffee bar. Or was that just about figuring out a way to hold the reins?”

“That was about getting you out of my way,” she said sweetly. “And you fell for it.” She turned to walk past him.

In a flash, Dylan snaked out an arm to pull her back to him. Her expression morphed from shock to alarm to fury.

“Let go of me,” she spat.

“Eventually,” he agreed, enjoying the feel of her, taut and curvy against him.

“Now.”

“No.” Not when her scent was winding into his senses, sandalwood and spice. Not when he could watch the mad beat of the pulse in her throat. Not when he could see that mouth, that soft, delicious mouth that tempted him even now.

“So you're sure you're not interested?” He leaned in deliberately, watching her eyes. They were the color of topaz, streaked with green near the pupils, a green that disappeared as they darkened. They might also have been damning him to hell, but they darkened. He could hear her breathing speed up. “It's dangerous to twist the tail of a tiger,” he murmured. “You never know what'll happen.”

And then he felt it, a tremor running through her, faint as the tap of butterfly wings.

Need punched through him, taking him by surprise. Suddenly, what had started out as a test of wills had turned into something quite different. Suddenly, he was testing himself—and coming up wanting. Dylan Reynolds was a man used to being in control of his desires, but for a disconcerting moment, he wasn't anymore. He could feel each breath as she exhaled, knew how little it would take to bridge the gap between them. Just one taste, he bargained with himself, ignoring the knowledge that one taste would only lead to the next. Just one, he promised, lowering his lips toward hers.

And found them pressed against the smooth skin of her cheek.

It had taken every shred of strength Max could muster to turn away when every fiber of her clamored to feel the heat of his mouth. It was worth it, though, if only to see the smug certainty in his expression wiped away by surprise. Except that hadn't been smugness she'd seen, it'd been naked desire, and it had nearly taken her, as well.

Sucking in a deep breath as though coming up from underwater, Max pushed away from him. Just a moment or two to get her bearings, she told herself. The important thing was that she hadn't let it go any further. She'd stopped him in his tracks. It didn't matter that need still vibrated through her. It didn't matter that adrenaline sloshed through her veins. Dylan Reynolds had wanted to prove something? He had. He let her prove that she was still in control.

She took a step back toward him and reached over to pat his cheek, leaning in as far as she dared. “Like I said, sugar, don't flatter yourself.”

And she walked away.

P
redawn dark still filled the room when Dylan awoke from a dream of silky skin and sleek curves and golden eyes. Max McBain wrapped around him, Max McBain, moving against him. Max McBain, driving him wild.

And her cheek, soft against his lips.

It had stayed on his mind, that kiss that wasn't a kiss. All during the ensuing day, when they'd worked in different areas of the office on different parts of the project, the memory had distracted him—her soft curves pressed against him, the faint warmth of her exhalations, that mutinous mouth just a fraction of an inch away from his.

Her parting remark that day at the hospital had
annoyed him, as she'd intended, but it hadn't stuck with him. The touch of her cheek had. Hadn't he called her determined? Well, he was determined, too. Max McBain thought she'd shown him who was in control. She thought that she'd stopped things in their tracks.

Max McBain had made a very big mistake, because all she'd done was make him want her more.

And made him more determined to have her.

With the buzz of an angry insect, Dylan's mobile phone vibrated on the night table. He picked it up to check the display and with a sigh flipped it open. “Hello, Nabil.”

“Hello, Dylan,” shouted Nabil Raboud, the prince's business manager in Dubai. Nabil always spoke into the phone at top volume. “Prince Al-Aswari sends his greetings and his best wishes for your continued health.”

Dylan sat up on the edge of the bed. “My best wishes to the prince, as well. How are you, Nabil?” He could picture the short, plump, mustachioed Nabil sitting behind his desk in his office, dressed in one of his Savile Row suits with contrasting pocket square.

“I am well, thank you for your inquiry. The prince, however, is concerned. It has come to his attention that the delivery of structural steel for the Al-Aswari Tower has been delayed.”

A matter that should have been taken up with the building contractor, not the architect, Dylan thought.
He rubbed his eyes. “I believe the vendor is holding up shipment until they receive payment.”

“Oh, the money will come,” Nabil said blithely.

“And when it does, so will the steel.”

“Which may cause delays in construction.”

Which the steel supplier was hoping to leverage to get paid more quickly. “It's an unavoidable risk.”

“It is unacceptable. The Al-Razi building grows by the day. The tower of the prince's rival must not open before the Al-Aswari Vertical City and it must not be taller. The prince wishes for you to make certain.”

It happened, Dylan thought. Sometimes when clients hired an architect, they began to feel proprietary. In exchange for what he considered his patronage, the prince expected that Dylan would take care of any and all problems that cropped up—whether they were his job or not. “Have you talked to Ali?” Dylan asked, thinking of the tough little general contractor.

“Oh, it is not for Ali. The prince wishes you to handle this personally.”

Dylan let out a long breath. “I can try to reach Ali, but please tell the prince that until new financing is in place, more shipments will be delayed. The vendors demand payment.”

“Ah, but soon it shall no longer be a problem. The prince is arranging new financing with his cousin in Abu Dhabi. Construction will proceed. So will design of the other buildings in the complex, of course. He wishes to know when you will return.”

When he was good and ready, Dylan was tempted to reply. “The project is on hiatus,” he said instead.

“Oh no, only construction is on hiatus. The prince says design must continue. He was very disappointed to hear that you were gone.”

Nabil knew as well as Dylan that much of the design work could be done as easily in New York as Dubai, especially when no checks were going out. The prince liked to attend the occasional design meeting, though. Given that it sometimes afforded Dylan the opportunity to discourage some of the man's more impractical impulses, staying on-site made a certain sort of sense. Perhaps more important, the project employed a staff of twenty-four at Reynolds Design International, and promised to do so for some time to come. For that, Dylan was willing to tolerate a few inconveniences.

Still, he had to draw the line somewhere.

“Please tell the prince that I am helping my father but that I will return as soon as I can manage.”

“Your father is ill?” Nabil asked quickly.

“No, he is fine. But he's made a request of me that I can't refuse.”

“Unfinished business?”

Dylan smiled in the darkness. “Right, unfinished business,” he said, thinking not of the proposal but of Max McBain's scent. Definitely unfinished business.

“Of course. I shall inform the prince. When the
financing is complete we shall expect your return.

Good day, Dylan.”

And he disconnected, leaving Dylan holding on to a silent phone.

 

An hour later, Dylan walked up the brick sidewalk outside the BRS building. There'd been no point in going back to bed to toss and turn until the alarm went off, he'd figured. Better to get in and get started with the day. The two sets of sliding glass doors opened before him.

And the first thing he heard was laughter.

It echoed through the empty lobby, bouncing off the flagstone floor. At this hour, the lights were still dim and the shops shuttered, security doors still locked. Dylan glanced around in curiosity as he stepped out of the entry area. And saw Max McBain, a wide smile on her face, standing next to a grizzle haired janitor with his wheeled trash can.

Desire shot through Dylan right down to his toes.

His palms still remembered the feel of her curves; his body still ached for her. Seeing her now only reminded him of all they'd yet to do. She'd accused him of being cocky, but there was a confidence bordering on impudence in the angle of her head, the set of her shoulders. She was sure of herself and in control—except when she got around him. It was, perhaps, the most arousing thing he could think of.

“Dylan?” Max looked startled. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm working here for the time being, remember?”

“I mean now. It's barely six in the morning.” She wore a white tunic belted over a skirt the color of new spring grass. Drops of green glass dangled at her ears. Her hair was loose and all he wanted to do was put his hands in it and fuse his mouth to hers and taste her, finally taste her. She looked fresh and alert, and more than a little uneasy.

Good.

“I woke up early. Jet lag.” He put out his hand to her companion, but he kept his eyes on Max. “Dylan Reynolds.”

“Oh, right.” Max turned to the custodian. “Dylan, meet Carl Dunston. Don't tell Hal, but Carl's the guy who really runs the joint.”

“If my dad hasn't figured that out by now, he's not as smart as I think he is,” Dylan said.

“You're Hal Reynolds's boy?” Carl pumped his hand a few times. “Pleased to meet you. Getting an early start, I guess. Your daddy likes to do that, too, sometimes.”

“Carl's the key master,” Max informed Dylan. “The lobby might be open early, but the stairwell door stays locked and the elevators don't work until seven. If you want to get in before that, you've got to make friends with Carl.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Dylan replied. “Do you often come to work at 6:00 a.m.?”

This time it wasn't Max who responded but Carl. “She'd come in at four or five if I let her. Keeps trying to sweet-talk the keys out of me but I know better. I give her the keys to this place, she'll never leave. This way, she can't get in any earlier than now.”

Dylan grinned. “You're a smart man, Carl.”

“I have daughters of m'own,” Carl said. “I don't care how much this area has cleaned up, it's no place for a lady to be running around in the middle of the night.”

Max rolled her eyes. “I've taken self-defense courses, Carl. I keep telling you, I can take care of myself.”

Carl stuck his chin out stubbornly. “Nope, no matter how much she tries to persuade me—and she can be pretty persuasive—”

“So I hear,” Dylan said, earning a dirty look from Max.

“—I just say no. That's what Mr. Reynolds told me to do and I'm sticking with it.”

Dylan clapped a hand on the janitor's shoulder. “Good man.”

The janitor nodded as he stepped into the elevator and unlocked the controls. “There you go, she'll work now. Have a good day, sir. You too, Max.”

“Same to you, Carl.”

Max walked into the elevator and stood at the con
trol panel. Dylan stopped a little behind her, enjoying the hint of tension in the set of her shoulders.

“I was serious about the self-defense lessons,” she said pleasantly, without turning.

“And here I left my nunchucks at home.”

Ignoring him, Max pushed the button for the top floor. The elevator doors rolled shut. He did reach out then to touch her hair, letting the silky strands slip against his fingers.

Max jerked her head around toward him, but too quickly so that her cheek brushed his fingers. He let them linger there a moment before dropping his hand.

“Didn't you learn anything the other day?”

Dylan smiled. “Not nearly enough,” he said. “Want to try again?”

His touch still shimmered on her skin. And for a fraction of a second, before sanity took over, her first thought was “yes.”

“So why the o-dark-thirty start time?” Dylan asked as the doors opened onto the BRS lobby.

Max strode out of the elevator car and into the short passage that led from the lobby to the main office floor. “You'd be surprised how much work you can get done at this hour. There are fewer distractions. And don't start with any of your games,” she warned as he turned to block her way. “I've got work to do. Some lunatic got it in his head to completely change all of our floor plans and they've got to be re-rendered before the next design review.”

Mischief flickered in his eyes as he raised his hands in the air and leaned in toward her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek. For an instant, her knees turned to water.

“I guess I won't play any games, then,” he murmured into her ear.

It would take so little. All she had to do was turn toward him. And she was tempted, God knew she was tempted. It would put to rest the curiosity that had nagged at her for days. It would answer all the questions she had. But it wouldn't be smart. And it wouldn't be safe, she'd learned that before.

Max gave herself a mental shake and brushed past Dylan. “Excuse me, I've got work to do,” she said, pleased that her voice remained steady. Even if she'd had to work to keep it that way.

She'd seen little of him since that day at the medical center, staying at her computer most of the time, working on renderings. Not that she was avoiding him, of course, she was simply focusing on getting the job done. Except she hadn't been doing that very well, either. That breathless moment when he'd lowered his mouth toward hers kept replaying itself over and over again in her head. And she couldn't help but wonder what might've happened if she hadn't turned her head.

Always before, Max had been able to see a kiss coming a mile away and decide whether she wanted to let it happen or stop it in its tracks, or even control the situation so that the opportunity never arose. With
Dylan, she'd been so preoccupied with the argument that she'd found herself caught completely by surprise and unable to stop the kiss until the very last.

And the worst part was that she knew deep down she hadn't wanted to stop it at all.

She glanced over in his direction to find him standing at the door of his office, watching her. Something skittered around in her stomach. She was going to have to be very, very careful with Dylan Reynolds, Max decided as she opened the door of her office. Very careful indeed.

 

Max had to give Paul Fischer credit, when it came to getting input for the hospital addition, he was nothing if not democratic. The hospital building commit tee included everybody from the chairman of the board on down to orderlies. Nearly two dozen people crowded into the hospital's biggest conference room to talk with Dylan and Max about what they wanted from the new wing. They jostled together on the extra chairs that had been crammed in around the table. The temperature in the room kept rising.

Or maybe it just felt that way because the only open chair that had been left for Max was next to Dylan. She had to give him credit, he knew how to impress potential clients. His silver and cobalt-blue tie fell just on the über-hip side of flashy. She would have bet money that the suit was Armani. Before him on the table sat a paper-thin, brushed aluminum lap
top. He looked stylish, modern, talented and fiercely competent. And he had them all mesmerized.

If she didn't watch out, Max thought, he'd have her mesmerized, too. She set down her pen, trying to concentrate on what Fischer was saying. Something to drink, she thought, would help. As she picked up her water bottle, the cuff of her jacket caught her Montblanc and sent it spinning off the edge of the table.

Max ducked down for it quickly and found herself face-to-face with Dylan, their fingers tangled around her pen.

“I didn't realize you wanted to hold hands,” he murmured, amusement lingering in his eyes as he held out the Montblanc.

Max snatched it away.

He grinned and straightened. Then, with that effortless polish she couldn't help but admire, he switched gears and looked at the committee members. “We've talked about what you need to make your jobs easier, but I'd like to get the bigger picture. What kind of impression do you want this building to give? What do you want people to think when they drive up to the medical center?”

“That they'll get the most up-to-date care available,” Walt Ardsmuir, chief of surgery, responded promptly. “The main building has history but we need to bring it into the twenty-first century.”