Stormy Challenge by Stephanie James, Jayne Ann Krentz

liked to work with his hands occasionally? She certainly didn't want him thinking they might have something in common!
    "He was interested in exploring some of the possibilities of a gadget he found out I had put together. One thing led to another and we started talking business."

    "Keith needed a consultant for the business and you needed a way of marketing your latest gadget, is that it?" Leya murmured, leaping to the obvious conclusion.
    "Not quite," he shot back dryly. "There were other markets for my little security device."
    "But none that offered you control of the company at the same time, I'll bet!"
    "Shut up, Leya," he told her peaceably enough. "I'm trying to explain."
    Leya lapsed back into silence. Didn't he realize nothing he said could possibly alter this feeling of betrayal inside her?
    "Keith and I eventually reached an agreement acceptable to both of us, and then he explained about your position in the firm."
    "The silent partner who wasn't being too silent!"
    "But who seemed to have no interest in Brandon Security except to babysit her brother!"
    Leya winced at that. Was that how Keith had taken her resistance to the idea of the contract? She had never interfered in his life before, and it was only her basic good sense that had prompted her to do so this time!
    "He told me a great deal about you, honey. He's very fond of you, and he's got a lot of admiration for his independent, successful older sister. But he's found what he wants to do in life, Leya, and he's determined to do it his way. He wants you to remain the silent partner and let him run Brandon Security."
    "You mean let you run it, don't you?" She gritted her teeth.
    "I've got the experience in both electronics and finance the firm needs right now.
    Brandon Security is in trouble, Leya. Your brother won't be able to salvage it on his own. He's got the intelligence to see that, and he's got the guts to take the necessary steps to save it. Two years from now, he'll be a very smart, very street-wise young businessman. I'll see to that."
    "We'll certainly find out if you're telling the truth, won't we?" Leya smiled with brittle, dazzling brilliance. "The contract is on its way back to Keith, and you're in charge of Brandon Security for the next two years. Bring me your report card at the end of that time and we'll see how you did!"
    He came to a halt, swinging around to face her with his feet braced slightly apart.
    Without a word, Leya stopped, raising her cold green eyes to meet his piercing gaze.
    "I don't intend to wait two years for you to forgive me, Leya."
    "Why do you need my forgiveness at all?" she countered recklessly, the sea breeze loosening tendrils of dark hair and whipping them around her throat.

    "Because I want you," he said with flat honesty.
    Leya gaped at him in open surprise, and then her teeth closed with a snap. "Oh, come off it, Court. Who's playing games now? You don't want me nor do you need me. Not any longer. You've gotten what you wanted!"
    "No, I haven't. Not yet. But I will!"
    "What you lack in romance and subtlety you certainly make up for in directness, don't you?" she mocked, outraged.
    "I think," Court said slowly, examining every inch of her furious face, "that I began wanting you after your brother had told me something about you. From the way he talked, I knew I was going to find you interesting, to say the least. And I had to admire the way you'd picked up on the possible dangers in that contract we wanted you to sign. I was quite annoyed when you didn't bother to keep the appointment I'd set up for us to meet, and when I discovered you'd taken the contract and disappeared, I decided to find out for myself just what you were really like."
    "So you came sneaking up here, pretending to be someone else ..." Leva began in a voice that shook.
    "I came up here to find out if the real-life woman had the same laughter and challenge in her eyes that I'd seen in the portrait in Keith's office,"--he drawled softly,