As You Like It. Lori Wilde

a young man. You were once one of the best software designers in the world. Why would you walk away from it?”

      She met his stare and Beau realized she honestly couldn’t fathom why he had left both his career and New York City behind. Even though he expected it from her, he felt oddly disappointed. She asked the same damn questions Angeline had asked. He couldn’t explain it to her, just as he’d been unable to explain it to Angeline. He knew she simply wouldn’t understand. Not a success-oriented, achievement-driven woman like her.

      “I’m sure there are plenty of designers in Manhattan that would leap at the chance to create this game for you, Ms. Sturgess.”

      “Marissa,” she said and laid her hand over his.

      The physical contact weakened his knees, tightened his stomach and made him glad he wasn’t standing. She was pulling out the womanly wiles now and God help him, he was susceptible.

      “No can do, Marissa.” Best to send her on her way posthaste before he got himself into serious trouble.

      “Everyone has their price, Beau,” she wheedled. “Come on. Tell me. What’s yours?”

      That approach was not going to work with him. He found it mildly insulting that she wouldn’t accept no for an answer, even at the same time he admired her buoyant tenacity.

      “You can’t afford me.”

      “How do you know?”

      “Trust me on this, you wouldn’t be willing to pay my price.”

      “How do you know unless you tell me what it is?” she insisted.

      “And risk getting my face slapped?” He chuckled. “Not hardly.”

      She ground her teeth. “Don’t tease.”

      “Who’s teasing?”

      He held her gaze. He wasn’t even sure what he was proposing, or even if he was proposing anything, but the jump of sexual electricity between them was undeniable. Why let the opportunity slip through his fingers? Especially when it was past time he learned how to enjoy good sex for its own sake and not as a prelude to commitment.

      She sucked in her breath. “Listen, this project would help lots of sexually dysfunctional people improve their lives. Don’t you want to help people?”

      “Not particularly.”

      Her forehead wrinkled in shocked surprise. “What happened to you?”

      “Life.”

      She launched in again, arguing in circles, gesturing with her arms, talking faster and faster until he feared she was going to burn up all the oxygen in the room. Like a swivel-hipped running back, she was relying on her verbal speed and agility and commitment to her position to influence him.

      Poor woman.

      She had no idea she had selected exactly the wrong track with him. If she had only stuck with the sexual banter he might have been persuaded. But when those around him got excited and tried to force him into going along with them, Beau stubbornly dug into his position. He shook his head.

      She kept talking, working first one angle and then another. The woman would have made a terrific filibuster or a kick-ass auctioneer.

      “No,” he said calmly, dispassionately, when she stopped to take a breath.

      Their gazes clashed. Her brown eyes flashed a challenge as clearly as if she’d drawn an épée from its sheath, readied her stance for a lunging round of thrust and parry and uttered “En garde.”

      “Perhaps I wasn’t making myself clear enough. If you were to…”

      “I said no.”

      “I don’t take no for an answer.”

      “Guess you’re going to have to this time, because I’m not changing my mind.”

      “I don’t believe this. Offer a man a huge amount of money to do something he loves, something he’s the best at and he turns you down. Who does that?”

      “I do.”

      “You’re impossible.” In disgust, Marissa threw her arms into the air and the back of her rapidly moving hand struck his beer bottle.

      Like a ten pin smacked by a twenty-pound bowling ball, the bottle rocketed against the wall and shattered, bathing them both in beer.

      The brittle sound of unintentional violence snapped off the high ceiling like whiplash. Every patron in the place turned to rubberneck, and for the first time Beau noticed the bar was more than half-full and Leroy was no longer sitting at the back table.

      “Oh, oh,” Marissa sputtered, her eyes widening at what her strong-chinned zeal had wrought.

      “Wow,” Beau drawled then lazily licked beer foam from his lips. His words were light, but his chiding expression was not. “Impressive display of pique.”

      “I’m sorry,” she apologized and took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to lose control.”

      “If you were trying to intimidate me, it’s not going to work.”

      “I didn’t break the bottle on purpose.” Beer dripped from her bangs and she looked incongruously, impossibly cute. Sort of like a Tasmanian devil dressed up in fancy clothes.

      “Maybe not consciously, but you were frustrated,” he pointed out.

      “What are you accusing me of?” she demanded.

      Remy rushed to the rescue with two towels and a broom. He handed them each a towel, then started sweeping up the glass.

      “So,” Remy mused aloud as Beau and Marissa, still locked in a stare, wiped themselves off. “This is what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object.”

      3

      MARISSA HADN’T EXPECTED the guy to be so good-looking. Or so damn stubborn.

      Dash warned you.

      To hell with Dash. She wasn’t about to let his doom-and-gloom predictions affect her. She was a professional. The best. She didn’t give up easily. She had guaranteed Judd and Francine that she could deliver Beau Thibbedeaux and by hook or by crook she was determined to achieve her goal.

      After knocking over Beau’s beer bottle, she’d left the bar in a fluster, disturbed by her body’s intense reaction to the man and unnerved by the fact she had lost her temper. She needed some distance and time to regroup before mentally wrestling with him again.

      She just had to find out what made the guy tick. Obviously, it wasn’t money. This afternoon she had made a monster mistake in trying, by sheer will of her personality, to convince him to take the job. What she needed was a more subtle approach.

      What she needed was an angle.

      Ashamed that she hadn’t done more extensive research on Beau before showing up in New Orleans, Marissa crawled into bed in her jammies, whipped open her laptop and plugged it into the phone jack behind the nightstand in her hotel room.

      Tackling the task with zeal, she logged on to the Internet. She did a Google search, keyboarding in the name Beau Thibbedeaux, and was rewarded when a string of references popped up. She read each entry with interest, searching for his history, his weaknesses, his appetites, anything and everything that might lend her an edge in dealing with the guy.

      What she discovered dampened her enthusiasm. He was an eccentric computer genius. He was rich beyond her wildest imaginings. That explained his cavalier attitude toward money. He seemed to enjoy hiding out from the world, preferring to spend his time with a small but close-knit circle of family and friends.

      Beau was a homebody and homebodies were harder to motivate. Absentmindedly, she toyed with a paper clip fished from her briefcase and pondered the situation.

      Think.