High Stakes. Barbara Dunlop

held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “How is it my fault?”

      “Jenna’s frustrated, because you keep picking fights, undermining my instructions—”

      “I do have veto power.”

      “Over the stain color? The wainscoting? The positioning of the wine rack?” If Derek would just let her do her job, they wouldn’t be in this fix. She was really quite easy to get along with.

      “Over any little thing I want,” he said.

      “You have taken things way beyond the spirit of the contract.”

      “Your threatening to bankrupt me takes things beyond the spirit of the contract.”

      “I did not threaten bankrupting you.” Candice folded her arms across her chest. “I am a professional.”

      He gave a dry chuckle. “You said, and I quote, ‘I have a contract for three-point-five million of your dollars, and I intend to spend every cent.’”

      Candice shifted uncomfortably. “I was upset.” It hadn’t been the most professional moment of her career. But, Derek did that to her.

      He ran his fingers around the seams of the doors. “The true measure of a professional isn’t what she does when things are going well.”

      “You don’t think you and Tyler lying to us, conspiring against us, hiding your identities amounts to extraordinary circumstances.”

      “Tyler was working undercover.”

      “Tyler was also sleeping with Jenna.”

      “She seems to have forgiven him.”

      “He deserved to be forgiven.”

      Derek stared at her in silence for a moment. “Unlike me.”

      “You’re still a problem, Derek.”

      “We’re still locked in a restaurant, Candy.”

      “It’s Candice.”

      He grinned.

      “Okay, fine. You’re right. Let’s table it for now.”

      He nodded in agreement. “We can always pick up the fight after we’re free.”

      She nodded in return. “Deal. So, did you bring your master key?”

      “Won’t fit this lock.”

      “It’s a master key.”

      “The door and the lock are old. And unique. We haven’t locked it in years.”

      Candice eyed the carved oak slabs. “You think you could break it down?”

      “It’s solid oak. Besides, isn’t it pivotal to the flow of the room or something?”

      “True.” It was a feature she’d planned to use. They’d refinish it, replace the brass. Maybe change the lock in case this kind of thing ever happened again.

      It would be a shame to break it. But she was starting to feel claustrophobic. Not that the room was small. In fact, it was huge. It was just that Derek took up so darn much of it.

      Suddenly, inspiration hit. The kitchen. She headed across the dining room. “There’s a door through the kitchen.”

      “Blocked by the new refrigeration unit,” Derek called after her.

      “We should at least check it out.”

      “Waste of time,” he said, but he followed.

      “Pessimist,” she countered.

      “Realist,” he corrected.

      “Cynic.” She stopped in front of the crated refrigeration unit. It was huge. She suspected even former linebacker Derek wouldn’t be able to budge this thing.

      “Jenna will be here soon,” Candice said with more confidence than she felt.

      “Maybe.”

      “I’m sure she’ll notice we’re missing.”

      “She’s probably got her mind on her Tyler right now. I hear weddings make women feel romantic.”

      Candice had to admit, Derek had a point. For some women. “Not me.”

      “Why does that not surprise me?”

      Candice lined her hands up against the rough wooden crate and pushed as hard as she could. “I am not staying in here until Monday. I have things to do, places to go.” She had the library redecorating proposal to finish this weekend. The deadline was Wednesday and there were still a hundred details to check.

      “Are you hinting that I don’t?”

      “Well you’re not acting like it.” She pushed harder. For a big-time international conglomerate executive, he seemed pretty blasé about losing a huge chunk of his time.

      “Candy—”

      “Don’t call me that.”

      Derek leaned back against a butcher’s block. “It weighs a ton.”

      She glared at him as she peeled off her high heels. “Wimp.”

      He straightened and opened one of the drawers under the counter, pawing through the contents. “I’m speaking literally. It weighs two thousand pounds. Sometimes you have to accept defeat.”

      “How’d you ever get to be a millionaire with an attitude like that?” She turned her back on the crate and tried pushing it butt first.

      “How do you manage to keep clients with an attitude like yours?”

      “I’m an extremely reasonable person.”

      “You’re trying to push a two thousand pound refrigeration unit in your stocking feet.”

      She clamped her jaw on a small smile and stopped pushing. “That’s not unreasonable.”

      He held up a carving knife, flexing the blade. “You weigh what, a hundred? It defies at least one law of physics.”

      She eyed the sharp edge. “Have I annoyed you that badly?”

      He frowned and tossed the knife back into the drawer. “None of these will work on countersunk screws. We may be stuck.”

      “How stuck?”

      “Real stuck.”

      “As in you and me? All night long?”

      He shot her a look that sizzled right down to her toes. “Candy—”

      “Don’t call me that.”

      “Don’t leave yourself wide-open like that.”

      Raw energy pulsed between them for a long second. Candice felt her skin prickle and her heart rate speed up. She was suddenly short of breath.

      “Derek?”

      “Yeah?”

      “We have got to get out of here.”

      NOW THAT WAS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. Never mind the fact that Derek had piles of work waiting on his desk, or the fact that Ray Yamamoto was about to have a cell phone conversation with Tyler, Derek and Candice were inches short of combusting at the best of times. Leave them alone for thirty-six hours and anything could happen.

      She was drop-dead gorgeous in that tight purple dress. Despite himself, it wasn’t the first time he’d felt an attraction to her. She was smart. And she was feisty. And she made him stop and think, and feel, and want….

      Spending the night alone together was foolish at best, suicidal at worst.

      “I’ll go look for some tools,” he said, determined to exhaust every possibility before giving in.

      “Tools?”