The Rebel Tycoon's Outrageous Proposal. Abby Gaines

can meet Thursday.”

      AnnaMae raised her hands in surrender. “It’s your funeral. But I’m not staying around to watch it.”

      After her friend left the room, Holly faltered. Working for Harding would test her resolution to its limits. She wouldn’t contemplate it if she wasn’t desperate. Besides, he would have every right to refuse to employ her. Not because of the FBI investigation, but because of what she’d said when he’d called her last month.

      She’d never met the man—knew him only by reputation—and his call had come out of the blue. Holly couldn’t imagine why he’d been so adamant that he needed an accountant with a reputation for scrupulous honesty. She’d turned him down.

      But not before telling him that his questionable business values were incompatible with her client portfolio.

      Which was nothing less than the truth—though she cringed at the recollection.

      Jared had thanked her for her time and wished her all the best. Not the reaction she’d expected from the famously rough-and-ready Mr. Harding.

      “Maybe he’s not holding it against me,” she said out loud.

      Some hope. Behind Jared’s smooth-as-silk words, Holly had detected a confusing mix of subtle mockery and cold steel. Would a man like him put himself in a position where she might reject him again?

      But that didn’t matter a damn now. She would call his personal assistant and get some time in Jared’s diary, even if she had to beg.

      Because if anyone in this city would hire an accountant who was under investigation for fraud, it was Jared Harding.

      Holly consoled herself with the thought that working for him, without judging him and without compromising her own principles, would be a big step on her journey toward becoming a better person.

      CHAPTER TWO

      JARED STRETCHED elaborately, leaned back in his chair and swung both feet up to rest on the pale beech surface of his desk—and took pleasure in the shadow of disapproval that flitted across Holly Stephens’s face.

      Childish behavior, he knew, but the second she’d walked into his office, shoulders squared, chin high, lips pressed in a firm line as if she were here to perform some particularly distasteful task—namely, talk to him—he’d picked her as the type who would think worse of a guy just because he liked to rest his feet on a desk.

      Her reaction proved him right. Score one for Jared.

      His own satisfaction in this trivial matter needled him. He didn’t need to get one up on a prissy accountant to feel good about himself. But somehow, the look of her had taken him back to the days when just about everyone looked at him like that—the days when he’d exulted in proving them right but winning anyway.

      He hadn’t known what to expect of Holly—but given her stellar reputation and the way she’d lambasted him the one time they’d spoken on the phone, it wasn’t this woman whose navy suit bordered on frumpy, whose hair of indeterminate color was pulled severely back off her wan face. Nor had he expected when he shook her slim hand to feel a charged awareness that simply didn’t make sense.

      The confusion sparked by his physical reaction had provoked him to the kind of juvenile discourtesy he’d abandoned years before.

      “So, Holly,” he said, “what’s changed?”

      “I, uh, excuse me?” Holly cleared her throat, still trying to regroup the thoughts scattered by the searching intensity of his dark blue gaze. The moment she met him, she’d dived back into her familiar control-freak armor. At least that way she knew who she was, knew what she thought of him.

      Because Jared wasn’t at all what she expected. She’d seen his picture in the Seattle Post-Intelli-gencer many times. She’d acknowledged he was good-looking, even as she disdained the smile she deemed cocky and the arrogant tilt of his head. But the reality was altogether bigger, more forceful, more…male than any photo could convey.

      It’s his height, she told herself. He would easily be six-two, which made his broad shoulders seem just right, instead of hulking. She’d been right about the cocky smile and the arrogance, though—she eyed the black loafer-clad feet on the desk in front of her with disfavor. How could he expect her to take him seriously?

      Yet she did.

      “Could it be that my questionable business values are no longer incompatible with your client portfolio?” He quoted her earlier response to him.

      Holly resisted an anxious urge to gnaw her lower lip. She looked him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have said that, and I apologize.”

      His smile said he didn’t believe her. “But you still feel that way.”

      “I—” She stopped, helpless. She wouldn’t lie to him to get the job. “This isn’t about my feelings. I need a job, you need an accountant.”

      “So you’ll put aside your scruples?” He sounded almost disappointed.

      “I’ll do what I should have done earlier and reserve judgment.” She thought she saw a flash of approval in his eyes.

      “Why now?”

      If their conversation had been difficult so far, it was about to get a whole lot harder. Holly kept her voice steady. “Before you offer me a job, I should tell you about my…less desirable attributes.”

      “Sounds intriguing.” He brought his feet down to the floor, and leaned forward to scrutinize her. “Is that a mustache on your upper lip?”

      “No, it’s not,” she snapped, her hand involuntarily testing the smooth and definitely hairless skin between her mouth and her nose. “Perhaps I’m the one who should be asking about your undesirable attributes.”

      “I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours,” he wheedled. Despite herself, Holly smiled.

      Jared blinked. Holly’s lips, no longer tight with disapproval, emerged as full and perfectly shaped. The somber eyes he’d dismissed as unremarkable gray proved to have hints of forget-me-not blue when humor lit them. Which just went to show his male instincts—the ones that had been shocked at that handshake—were in full working order.

      “You need to know,” she said, “that as of last Monday I’m under investigation by the FBI for theft and fraud.”

      His shout of laughter was the last reaction Holly expected. Still, Harding was notoriously unpredictable. “You think it’s funny?”

      “Look at you.” With a wave of his large hand he indicated her face, hair, clothes, demeanor. “You’re the picture of innocence. You’re even blushing, for Pete’s sake. It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain there’s not a dishonest bone in your body.”

      He made it an insult.

      “What about Babyface Malone?” she demanded, stung.

      “Who?”

      “Malone was one of the most heinous mobsters around, and he looked every bit as innocent as I do.”

      Jared snorted. “If you’re trying to tell me you’re with the Mob I’m not buying it. You’re nothing but an honest accountant who’s been wrongly accused.” To his evident horror, tears sprang to her eyes. “Now what?”

      “I…appreciate your judgment of me,” Holly said, and added scrupulously, “however underin-formed it may be.” She meant it. News of her troubles had traveled fast within Seattle’s accounting community, and two of the peers she’d phoned for advice before she turned to AnnaMae had made it clear they were assuming the worst. “You’re right, I am innocent. So if you want to tell me about this job…”

      He grinned. “I can think of nothing I’d like more than having the FBI’s latest target handle the fine print on this deal.”

      Holly hated his smart-aleck attitude,