Hard Deal. Stefanie London

not like you want him to ask.

      Sure. But Imogen was sick of being ignored. Unfortunately, that seemed to be her lot in life. In any case, she’d put aside worries over her own lack of love life to focus on someone else’s love life. Her sister, Penny, was getting married in ten short weeks to Daniel the Duke of Douchetown.

      It was bad enough that her future brother-in-law’s stuffy old-money family had given Penny hell when they’d first gotten engaged. She’d ended up at Imogen’s place in tears on more than one occasion after they’d made her feel unworthy. But now Imogen had a sneaking suspicion that her fiancé was cheating. She’d spotted him flirting with a blonde woman at a bar when he’d lied to Penny and told her he was in Sydney for work.

      So, she’d hatched a plan to catch him in the act. In disguise, of course.

      * * *

      Caleb bit back a smile as his father’s assistant walked alongside him, her pink lips set into a flat line. The woman always looked as though she’d sucked on a lemon. Logically, it wasn’t a visual that should turn him on but there was something about Imogen’s overly prim persona that got him all hot and bothered. And hard as a rock. Maybe it was because he suspected that beneath the boring shirt and single strand of pearls, there was a spitfire lurking.

      He had a talent for seeing the reality that people tried desperately to conceal. And the fact that a woman as hot as Imogen chose to hide behind an outfit better suited to a funeral director made him curious as hell.

      “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said.

      “I can be your SOS. Message me if he turns out to be a foot shorter than his Tinder profile advertised.” He nudged her with his elbow as they waited for the elevator. “Or if he’s a close-talker. I know you hate those.”

      “Who doesn’t hate a close-talker?” Her button nose wrinkled. “When I speak with someone, I don’t want to know what they had for lunch. Let alone experience it secondhand.”

      The elevator opened. It was rammed, sardine-style. All his father’s obedient minions were clocking out at five-thirty on the dot. That tended to happen when Gerald Allbrook went off-site. Apparently, there’d been some shit storm with contract negotiations for a new residential tower on Collins street. The big man had stepped in, which wasn’t a good sign.

      Not that Caleb should give a shit. He wasn’t going to have a hand in this company beyond his current puff position as head of marketing. It’d been a token gesture after making Jason managing director. AKA next in line. Jason was Prince William and Caleb was the redheaded kid who’d only ever sit on the throne if everyone else kicked the bucket.

      “Who’s looking daydreamy now?” Imogen said as the elevator pinged at the next floor. Two more people squeezed in.

      “I’m thinking about regaining my personal space,” he quipped.

      A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. The elevator jerked to a stop again and Imogen glanced at the sweaty-looking man standing on her other side. Her nose was unfortunately armpit-height. Her head swung to Caleb and she sighed, shuffling closer.

      “Good choice,” he whispered.

      “You’ll never be a good choice,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Just the lesser of two evils.”

      Ouch. Imogen had never bothered to hide the fact that she—like everyone else—viewed him as a layabout who was riding on the coattails of his family name, never to achieve anything of his own. But the upside of that meant he could do whatever the hell he wanted without pressure to perform like his prize show-pony brother.

      “I love it when you play hard to get.”

      “I know every other female in this office seems to be under the deluded impression that you’re God’s gift to cha-chas, but I’m not blinded by a pretty face.” She folded her arms across her chest.

      He leaned closer as people streamed past him to get out at the ground floor. For once he was grateful that the archive rooms were shoved way down in the basement. “Cha-chas? Really?”

      “I’m supposed to take language advice from a guy who wears novelty socks?” She shook her head. “How am I supposed to take you seriously when you wear tacos on your feet?”

      He pulled up the leg of his designer suit pants to reveal a bright red sock with a T. Rex print. The socks were his “thing.” Plus, they had the added benefit of pissing off his father. The old man had strict requirements for his sons’ appearances. Even on “casual days,” where the whole damn company could wear denim, Caleb and Jason were supposed to suit up like penguins. So the funky socks were his way of giving the middle finger. And frankly, they were a talking point. A conversation starter. And Caleb liked talking to people.

      “You know I only wear the tacos on Taco Tuesday.” He grinned. “Besides, how does my sense of fashion have anything to do with your inability to correctly name your body parts?”

      “What do you want me to call it?” She turned her nose up but some of the bravado had disappeared. The pink flush in her cheeks didn’t match the defiant expression.

      “How about you use the proper term?” They were alone in the elevator now, but Caleb continued to whisper as though there were people listening. “Pussy.”

      Was it his imagination or did a tremor run through her? The pink turned from a sheer tint to bright splotches on her cheeks. “That’s highly inappropriate,” she spluttered. “And the proper term is vagina, not pussy.”

      She blinked, as though surprised by her own words. Caleb grinned. “Did I succeed in getting the Prim Miss Hargrove to use a naughty word?”

      “You’re a bad influence,” she said as the elevator came to its final stop. The doors slid open and she marched out ahead of him, her sensible low-heeled pumps click-clacking against the polished floor.

      “You say that like it’s news.” He followed her, a step behind so he could watch her hips sway as she walked.

      Her skirt wasn’t exactly tight fitting, but he knew for a fact that her shapely legs extended up to a pert backside. That beneath the crisp white shirt she hid a pair of perfect, bouncy breasts. That underneath all that spit and polish, the girl had a tattoo of a diamond on the side of her rib cage. He’d seen it once, during a team-building day when they’d been at a corporate retreat. She’d had on a basic black swimsuit that kept everything covered, but when she’d fallen off her paddleboard he’d caught a glimpse of it.

      And ever since he’d been on a mission to find out more about Imogen Hargrove.

       CHAPTER TWO

      IMOGEN UNLOCKED THE door to the archive room and held it open for him, making a sweeping gesture with her hand as though she were leading him into a ballroom. “Now hurry up. It’s home time.”

      Caleb chuckled to himself as he started hunting for the box of archived promotional materials. “You never did answer my question.”

      “Which one?”

      “About whether you had a date tonight.” He pulled the lid off a box and rifled through the contents. Nope, not that one.

      “Why do you care about my love life?” She leaned against a steel rack that housed row after row of identical brown boxes. The way she folded her arms under her bust made the buttons strain on her shirt. “It’s not as interesting as yours.”

      “Your love life isn’t interesting because you keep turning me down.”

      She rolled her eyes. “I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re all talk, Caleb. You make these pithy remarks and dirty little jokes but you haven’t actually asked me out. I’m not sure I would go so far as to use the C-word, but...”

      “The C-word?”

      “Chicken.”