The Value of Vulnerability (10 page)

Like what?
Something more than just sex? A relationship? She shivered deliciously at the thought of having this man’s prolonged attention.

And yet . . . The concentrated attention of Ford Howard did
n’t carry all positives, did it? He was a man who would say and do anything to get what he wanted.

So why was he
re-buttoning her coat and his shirt, all with cool efficiency, as if fire had never burned them? Why hadn’t he taken her? Not that she wasn’t relieved that one of them had been thinking, but it didn’t sit well with her idea of him.

He had another agenda perhaps?
Options
, he had said. That could mean anything.

Opening the car door, he assisted her out. The wind picked up, making stinging missiles out of the
snow now mixed with rain as temperatures rose. The walkway was a slushy mess. She eyed her shoes—they were her favourites.

She needn’t have worried. Ford carried her up the shallow steps to the door, and she laughed giddily all the way. “You’re awfully strong. It isn’t like I’m a ninety-seven pound weakling.”

He merely smiled and set her on her feet, opening the outer door. “Where are your keys?”

She found them as they entered and she unlocked the inner door to the lobby, pushing it open.

“When you Google me later,” he said, smiling wryly, “don’t believe everything you read.”

She leaned back against the metal doorframe,
the door kept ajar as it swung back to bump her shoulder. She eyed him narrowly, amusedly. “What makes you think I’ll Google you?”

“Goodnight, Erin.
Be a good girl.”

She grinned. “I don’t know what that means.”

“You know exactly what that means.”

“Don’t like those images in your head?”

Dimples appeared. “I like them very much. But I’d rather be there to see it in person.”

That made her blush
slightly and laugh outright. “If you
do
call me, maybe I’ll describe it. Introduce you to phone sex. I’ll bet you’ve never had phone sex.”

“Never had need of it.
But when I do see you again,” he purred, “I don’t want you to have taken the edge off.”

Her
edge
would take a lot of grinding—and batteries—to dull. “And your edge, Ford? Are you going to be a good boy?”

He grinned then. “Goodnight, Erin.”

“Thank you, Ford. Goodnight.”

The cowlick fell. As his hand came up to subdue it,
she caught his wrist and, with her other hand, smoothed it back on his behalf, the silky strands slipping erotically between her fingers.

She had been dying to do that all night.

“There,” she said. “All fixed.”

With a mild imprecation, he dragged her into his arms, kissing her hungrily. She gasped against his mouth at this unexpected but welcome onslaught, her mouth opening readily.

This was the Ford she wanted, the Ford whose control was under threat. Sexual aggression she could handle. It was honest—or at least,
felt
honest. She couldn’t distinguish fully between what was true and what was false with him, and that scared the crap out of her.

This did not.

But just as suddenly, he broke the kiss, hot eyes holding a slightly disconcerted glint.

“Go to bed.” He
stepped back. Hesitated. Then spun on his heel and left her.

She watched his progress back to the car
, watched the limo pull away, and stood there until headlights from a car exiting the Visitors’ lot cut across her, tugging her back to reality. Turning, she almost floated lightly to the elevators, wondering if she would ever hear from him again, both hoping and fearing she would.

*
**

Silently, Ford watched the city slide by as the limo headed uptown for home.

As a rule, he subscribed to a basic Two-Types-of-People-in-the-World philosophy, his being: smart people and idiots. That was unfortunate, because he just realised into which group he fell.

He was an idiot.

A smart man would have taken everything Erin so warmly, abundantly, generously offered. A smart man would have hustled her up to her apartment for a mind-blanking one-nighter. A smart man would have left a couple of hours later with zero intention of seeing her again.

An idiot, on the other hand, turned down her offer. An idiot took his hand out from under her dress and politely re-buttoned her coat while
speaking of options. An idiot traded couched masturbation quips instead of dealing with mutual arousal together in explicit terms.

It
was birthed from a miscalculation. A minor one, true, but he was not used to making errors.

Even when he brought his A-game to her at the bar, she had resisted, and those hazel eyes had poured amused doubt all over him. When he tried actual honesty, confessing that she did not bore him, there was
sympathy in her responding laughter. She understood.

That was also the point where her wariness had bloomed.
His moment of honesty flagged the previous moments of dissimulation.

Not a problem. She capitulated in the car, practically begging him to screw her.

So, why had he stopped? He hadn’t wanted to.

He glared out the window.

Presupposing she was as competent in bed as her performance in the car hinted, and she continued to not bore him, he would want her more than once. Since he hadn’t had a woman more than once in a long time, it was easy to conceive a new paradigm for her.

Erin Russell would make an ideal mistress for him.

Mistress
. The word sounded anachronistic. But he knew many men who kept mistresses, so it was as modern a concept as it was an old one.

Having her at his disposal would be convenient.
Certainly a time saver. While having a regular woman in his bed held the potential for causing boredom rather than alleviating it, the series of nooners in hotel rooms with strangers wasn’t working either.

He was open to this new idea.

Erin Russell had appeal. Sweet girl-next-door meets sex kitten. Confident without being aggressive. She made him laugh. Not many did that.

It was fortunate that he had met her,
so accidentally—

Presuming it was an accident.

The suspicion caught him off guard, but he brushed it aside along with the memory that prompted it.

It occurred to him that a woman like Erin would not want to be someone’s mistress—not even his. But in his experience, everyone had a price. Hers would be high, but what couldn’t he afford?

Yes, offer her some trinkets. Some career assistance.

She would be grateful and, if he settled on the mistress paradigm, she would be primed to accept it.

“She’s no different,” he murmured, but the protest rang hollow.

During that game of one-upmanship,
he had allowed her at least the illusion of control. Allowed her to call him out on his boredom and boring approach.

Allowed?
She had him on the
defensive
, for god’s sake. Briefly, to be sure, but still . . .

He smiled ruefully.

It was a glitch, was all. Erin having a powerful day as she confessed, while he . . .

Brett’s dying.

He leant his
head back and closed his eyes.

Snow turned to sleet and sleet to rain, and Erin—silently wishing she could curl up in a blanket with a book and spiked hot chocolate—dutifully hauled herself into the office Saturday morning. She stepped off the elevator with takeout coffee in hand, and was promptly stopped by a huge bear of a man who identified himself as BHG security and demanded her ID.

While her driver’s license was examined, she peeked around the bear to where a technician was installing a new system on the access door.

Hm. That’s much more secure! Good for them
.

“Miss Russell. Of course
.”

Delicate eyebrows shot up at
this almost submissive reaction, and she wondered a little about it. It couldn’t have anything to do with Ford . . . could it? It was far more likely that the guard was familiar with the office manifest and aware of the people who were likely to be in and out on a weekend. Ford wouldn’t know or care about such particulars.

Bear handed her a new pass card, and explained the system: both swipe and six-digit pass code, and card use was logged each time.

Excessive, yes, but considering that she had developed a work-around for the old system for those times she forgot her card, she appreciated the reasons for excess. She signed a receipt for the card and took the instruction-detail sheet.

Settling at her station, she tossed her coat aside and booted up
her computer, rifling through hard copy reports and requests filling the inbox, tripping over some Christmas cards fellow coworkers had left there as everyone got in the spirit of the season.

Little did they know . . . She hoped some were kept on. Good people, most of them.

But it all reminded her of Ford and she smiled stupidly at her monitor for a long time, thinking of the previous night rather than working.

Thoughts ran the gamut from highly sexed fantasy to the peaceful corny comfort of handholding
, from being romanced to being ravished . . . oh, those imagined variations were wicked.

The upshot was that it took her much longer to sort out work problems when her mind could not stick on them—
and so Sunday found her at the office again, her attention still split.

It was dangerous to think of the man. Despite his intimation that he may want more than sex, she probably had read too much into that. His slick persona implied a wealth of distrust
underneath. Recollecting the myriad details of secure phone and background checks, the obvious inference was that he did not trust, did not open up, and never let anyone too close. It didn’t make her want him less, but she needed to remember that he was not looking for a girlfriend. He wanted an affair.

I could do that.

She blew out a heavy breath and settled deeper into her workstation chair.

No such thing as special in his world, remember. And doesn’t everyone want to be special? You’d be no one to him.

Glancing at her phone for the time, she found it dead. Searching through her bag for her charger while vaguely visualising it abandoned on her coffee table at home, the ringing of the desk phone startled her.

“Erin Russell,” she answered.

“I can’t
believe
you’re working!”

“If it’s so unbelievable, why’d you try me here?”

“Your cell is off. You didn’t charge it, did you? And your charger’s at home. And the backup charger.”

“Yes, yes, yes, and yes.” She half laughed, half groaned. “Are you going to
the parents’ for dinner?”

“Well, my fridge is empty,” her sister admitted. “So yeah. How about you?”

Very hopeful tone, that was. “I don’t know, Li. I’m busy with—”

“Omigod, stop. You’re leaving that job! Why do you care what happens there or to the clients or whatever it is that’s had you enslaved and chained to that desk for the last three years?”

The
over
-dedication had only been going on for a year, but even before then, she’d been a bit of a sucker for punishment, all in the name of her career. Maybe it had got a little ridiculous, though.

“I know. I’m sorry. What time is it?”
She sought the time on her monitor.

“Just after three.”
Liana sighed heavily. “I never see you. Gina never sees you. You haven’t been to a family function in over a month, and that was the first time since Labour Day. The folks worry about you. And then there’s the girl-gang. Brooke never sees you. Riel is coming home in April, maybe. Are you going to be too busy then, too? Do you ever see Steph outside of the office? I know you’ve dropped most of your volunteer work—and frankly, that was great because I thought we’d benefit from the freed-up time. But, Erin, you’re digging a big hole of emptiness, cutting yourself off. This is so unhealthy for you.”

“I know, I know,” she agreed
absently, frowning at a lead analyst’s report and recommendation.

“You’re not even listening,”
Liana snapped. “Just on autopilot. Slick answers of what you think I want to hear.”

That got her attention
—it made her think of Ford. “Hey!”

“Tell me honestly you were listening and weren’t looking at your monitor.”

“Well, it’s a big monitor. Falls right into my line of sight.”

“Do you want to come for dinner or not?”

She chewed her lip. “Have I really been that bad?”

“Well, probably not nearly as bad as I think, and not nearly as good as you think.”