The Seduction Game

“I know that and I appreciate it, but God knows you do enough for me already. This house, my tuition, the girls’ school fees…but enough.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about this right now and it totally ruins your bad boy, millionaire image. I’ve missed you and I want to know how London was. So talk.”

Will drank some coffee, putting Chris out of his mind for now, and did as his sister asked, giving her a rundown of his time overseas. Jen was an excellent audience, pausing only when the kids demanded attention, a snack, a cuddle, more pens, a look at their latest school report. Eventually she hauled them off to bed and, giving the kitchen a despairing glance, rang for Chinese.

“So did you meet anyone when you were over there?” she asked some time later when they were sitting in the family room, foil dishes covering the low table, and two pairs of chopsticks dunked in a glass of water. “Any English roses desperate to snare my millionaire brother?”

“Nope.”

“No one at all?”

“Nope.”

Jen rolled her eyes. “Geez, Will, you’re so tight-lipped. There must be someone. You look all…”

“All what?” he asked.

“I dunno.” She eyed him with a tilt to her head and a speculative look in her eyes. “I didn’t see it at first, but yes…you look all relaxed, yet a little wired.”

“Must be your company.”

She punched him in the arm and rested her head on his shoulder. “I doubt that. Spill the beans, William. You know you want to.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come on, gossip. I want the gossip. Brighten my boring night.”

“There is none,” Will said, remembering all the women he’d had dinner or drinks with in London. There had been a fair amount, but none of them had fired his blood to any great degree. None had left him wondering about large glasses and what exactly geeks did do better.

Damn it.

“Liar,” Jen said. “Liar…liar…li—”

“Okay.” He held up his hands. “There is someone, but it’s not like you think, not at all.”

“Oh my God! Tell me everything.”

“It’s complicated.” Jen shot him a glare, tucked her feet under her legs, and rested her head on her hands. Really, all she needed was popcorn to complete the scene. “And none of your business.”

“I’m your sister.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll tell Mom you have a new girlfriend,” she threatened. “She won’t stop until she’s uncovered the truth.”

And that was true. Their mom was like a rabid dog where his love life was concerned and would hassle him unremittingly if she thought there was any possibility of a daughter-in-law on the scene. “Bringing out the big guns, huh?” Will said. “Okay, well, there is someone but not in the way you mean, and she’s certainly not a girlfriend.”

“Then who is she?”

“A geek.”

“A geek?” Jen repeated.

“If you’re going to keep interrupting, I’m not going to tell you.”

Jen rolled her eyes and gestured for him to continue. “So you know about The Risings?” he asked. “The development I’m working on not far from here? I began setting it up before I went to London, but then the call came through from this firm I’d been chasing for months, so I left Chris in charge of sorting it out.”

“That’s not like you,” Jen said. “To leave when something is getting started, or to put Chris in charge of it, for that matter.”

“I know,” he agreed, “but it was unavoidable. For months, I’d been angling for a meeting with this firm in London. They own a bunch of land across the river and I want it. When they contacted me, I had to go, then one thing led to another and before I knew it my stay was extended by a week and then another…” He waved his hands. “It just rolled on. I got the land though, that was the important thing. And Chris has been chomping at the bit for more responsibility. This seemed like the perfect time to let him have it, plus none of my senior project managers were available.”

“And The Risings?”

“It’s important, Jen,” Will explained. “It’ll create jobs and affordable housing, not to mention drastically improving the area.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Well, there’s one shop left. K.I.T, a computer repair store. The owner won’t sell. Chris has tried to get her to, but she refuses. Point-blank will not sell and her building is necessary for the whole development. It’s right in the middle.”

“Why did you start a development without getting everyone’s signatures?” Jen asked. “That was a bit stupid.”

“Well, we didn’t. We had initial agreements from them all in the very beginning.”

“The geek, too?”

He nodded. “The area is a complete dump, so it was no wonder, really. We weren’t surprised at all when they all started signing up. We’re talking a significant space. There’s capacity there for a number of business developments, not to mention some residential development. Right now, though, the space is massively underused. The buildings are pretty old and the layout is the sort you get where things have just been built onto other things, and left to sprawl. It’s ripe for development. So we had the initial agreements in place—”

“In writing?”

Will frowned. “Verbally.”

“Right…”

“It often works that way,” he said, feeling the need to defend himself. “Initial discussions begin and when the verbal agreement is there, we start buying them up.”

“So what went wrong with the geek?”

Will shrugged. “I don’t know, Jen. Sometime between me setting off to London and me coming back here, she changed her mind. I have no idea why, and it is imperative that I find out. So I decided to take care of it myself. I went to see her yesterday and well…”

“Well what?” Jen prodded. “What?”

He shook his head. “She’s different is all. Cute. Geeky. Not what I expected.”

“Wow,” Jen whispered and the goofy smile on her face made him pause. “Cute, huh?”

He frowned. “She’s okay, yeah.”

“Does she like you?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“She must. You’re cute, too.”

“Jen, please,” he groaned, the conversation straying into uncomfortable territory, because he was fairly certain that loving sister or no, his plan to take advantage of the fact that Kate did like him was not one Jen would approve of. In fact, the more Will considered it, the more he was beginning to feel guilty at his duplicity. For whatever reason, Kate was attached to her building. She did not want to give it up. And more than once over the last twenty-four hours Will had questioned just how far he was willing to go to make her. Then there were his feelings to consider. Fact of the matter was, Will was shocked by how strongly he felt toward Kate already. He desired her intensely and dinner together had only cemented that feeling. The situation was confusing and Will was getting a nasty sense that it was not going to play out at all like he expected.

“When are you going to see her again?” Jen demanded.