Seduction by Various Page A

David.
    â€˜Time for round two,’ Rich said.

Malicious Intent
Sommer Marsden
    I HAD ABSOLUTELY no intention of seducing him. I just want that on the record. It was business. It was supposed to be food and drinks and schmoozing. A semi-hard sell, sure. I mean why would he want me to redesign his restaurant when his lovely wife was a budding designer? Why? Because I am good. I am beyond good. I am outstanding. And I was going to prove that to Samuel Radcliff.
    I really am a bitch. I have to admit it. I heard his wife. Sitting at my table for one, picking at my hot and sour soup of the day, I heard her gushing over her project for her design class. And I heard her go on to say that one day she would totally redo The Tarnished Spoon. The name is why I eat here. Really. How can you resist a name like that?
    Anyway, Deborah was going on and on about colours and swags and all of that as Samuel half-listened and nodded. He smiled but busied himself with lists and a calculator. ‘Mmm-hmm,’ was what he said.
    Deborah was completely ignorant. She grinned and chattered and looked around with a great wide-eyed gaze as if she had never seen her husband’s restaurant before. I watched her and she didn’t see me at all. I eat lunch early. I eat alone. I usually sketch in my book or read as I eat. And she was too excited to see me, the lone woman in the corner.
    â€˜I have to go!’ she gasped, glancing at her watch. She shot out of her chair. She was all thin legs and clumsy nature in her too-tight pencil skirt. She had a spectacular ass and I would have laid money on that being part of why Samuel had married her.
    â€˜Go on, Chicklet,’ he muttered, punching more buttons.
    â€˜Kiss me!’ she demanded and leaned forwards. She puckered her too-thin lips and teetered on her too-high heels. I thought for a moment she would fold up like a paper crane and fall into his lap.
    He kissed her dutifully but his eyes never left his stack of paperwork. Interesting. I popped a button on my black dress and freed a little more cleavage. I had a job to win.
    â€˜Ah, the lovely Jillian! How is your soup? Can I get you more iced tea?’ The hours I keep, I usually get Samuel or his second-in-command Robert. Robert is tall, lean and gay. He calls me Miss J. Samuel is taller and stockier and has brawn behind his walk that fills in the lines of his suits when he wears them. He reminds me of Dean Martin and that always makes me smile.
    â€˜No thanks. But I did want to talk to you about the restaurant.’ I trailed a nail along my cleavage absently. The kind of gesture that looks completely innocent. The kind of thing that would make a man think,
Oh she didn’t even know she was doing that. Surely seduction was not her intent
. And it wasn’t. Not yet. I just wanted to redo the restaurant and put a pinhole in his little wife’s plans.
    Have I mentioned that I am a bitch?
    His eyes found my fingers and followed the motion. It was like watching a man being hypnotised. And seriously, if it had been any easier I think I might have laughed out loud. ‘What’s that?’
    â€˜The restaurant. Can we talk about it for a moment?’ I pushed the chair opposite me out with the toe of my black boot. ‘Could you sit? Before the lunch crowd shows?’
    He sat, still staring at my cleavage and my hand. The hand that had stilled at the swell of my breasts. Breasts that were more bared now than before he had joined me. What wonders one small button can hide.
    â€˜What can I do for you, Jillian?’
    Maybe it was me but the word ‘do’ had a slightly wistful quality to it. He could do me, period, I thought and smiled a little. Still, I was only trying to steal the job at that point. Not the man. That urge came later. ‘I want to redo your restaurant.’
    He looked surprised. Maybe because of his recent conversation with Mrs Radcliff. And by conversation I mean her monologue.