The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

Sawyer Carlyle stood in the middle of the open doorway to his office. Her Google image search hadn’t done the man justice.

The whole package was…wow. He was over six feet tall and muscular, enough so that the other men in the room didn’t look quite as intimidating. Or maybe it was the way he held himself—so sure and borderline cocky—that made everyone else fade a little bit into the background. The sexy package was completed by a dark pair of designer glasses, slightly overly long brown hair that he brushed to the side, and a dimple right in the middle of his chin. He looked over the room, his gaze went past her and then jerked to a stop before rewinding and dropping down the necessary foot from the mountains sitting on either side to her face. One of his dark eyebrows went up over the black frame of his glasses. The corner of his full mouth curled up for a fraction of a second before melting back into a firm, straight line. His focus moved on to the man on her left and kept going.

The heat coiling in her stomach lingered long enough to practically shout: you’re in danger girl! before cooling off once the intensity of his gaze had passed her by.

“Gentlemen.” Sawyer paused, his attention zipping back to her. “And lady. It seems there’s been some confusion—”

The elevator whooshed ope

n at that moment, and a tall woman in her late fifties walked out as regal as any queen flanked by two women perfect enough to be on the cover of a fashion magazine. Suddenly, the elastic hair tie looped around the button of Clover’s borrowed interview pants, giving them an extra inch of breathing room, became even more pathetic. One of the tall, lithe model-types stood inside the open doors, blocking them from closing. The other sashayed out into the office with the older woman.

“Sawyer, you’re not putting me off again,” the obvious ring leader said, her cultured tone sounding of exclusive clubs and vacations in the Hamptons. “We have lunch scheduled at Filipe’s. I’m sure whatever you have planned can wait. You can’t take over the world on an empty stomach, after all.”

He sighed. “Lunch is not in my schedule.”

The woman didn’t give an inch. “I won’t take no for an answer.”

Sawyer tapped his middle finger against his thumb as he dipped his chin and rolled his head from one shoulder to the other. It was obvious he didn’t want to go but for whatever reason couldn’t come right out and say it.

No one moved. The other buffer candidates didn’t do anything.

This was it.

If Clover was going to stand out in a good way, she needed to do it now. She stood and took several steps toward the trio of women and pasted on her best don’t-fuck-with-me-and-I-won’t-fuck-with-you smile.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but it’s obvious Mr. Carlyle is too much of a gentleman to say outright he’s not interested in a foursome with you guys and”—she dropped her voice to a stage whisper—“to be totally honest, you seem a little too old for him.”

The man in question let out something that sounded like an elephant snorting while giving birth. Not that she knew what that sound was like, but it was the best her brain came up with for translating the half-pained, half-surprised noise with a little bit of laughter mixed in. Pushing back the thought, she kept her attention on the older woman who’d turned her ice-cold glare toward Clover.

“So please let me be clear,” Clover continued. “You don’t build a company of Carlyle Enterprise’s prestige by spending your days dallying with women more likely to cry over the loss of a nail than flooding in the Yangtze River, so shoo before I call security. Mr. Carlyle’s schedule is jam-packed today, but do call ahead next time you want to ‘do lunch.’”

“And who exactly do you think you are?” the other woman asked, each word enunciated with crisp, clinical disapproval.

“Just exactly who I am.” She smiled with as much warmth as the other woman’s voice. “Clover Lee.”

The woman blinked, looked at Sawyer, and then turned her focus back to Clover. “Are you saying,” the woman started, each word coming out slow and distinct as if she was pissed as hell but too classy to yell, “that my son would rather work than go have lunch with his mother?”

Son? Son? SON?!?

Oh shit.

This was why Clover shouldn’t get anxious. Only bad things happened when she let her nerves get the best of her. She needed to say something. She needed to apologize. She needed to find a hole big enough to swallow her completely.

She couldn’t get a single word out.

The woman’s mouth—Sawyer Carlyle’s mother’s mouth—twisted up and her eyes narrowed, but her freezer-burn level stare moved away from Clover and onto her son. “Sawyer, this is not over.”

Without another word, one of the most powerful women in Harbor City high society whirled around and joined the woman still holding open the elevator doors.

“Analisa, let’s leave Sawyer and his…person to their ‘jam-packed’ schedule,” she said.

The woman who’d walked into the office with Mrs. Carlyle gave Sawyer a sexy wink and then joined the other two. Maybe it was the woman’s sky-high heels. Maybe it was just her natural gait. Whatever it was, the slow roll of her hips as she strolled back onto the elevator snagged the attention of everyone in the office, even Amara stopped typing long enough to look up and shake her head.

The quiet hum of panic-tinged white noise buzzed in Clover’s ears as the elevator doors closed and took the trio of women down the sixty-three floors to the lobby. Heat beat at her cheeks. The agony of oh-hell-what-did-I-do-now was a brick in her stomach.

She turned to face Sawyer, who still stood in the middle of his open doors, staring at her as though she were an alien and he wasn’t sure what to do with her. She really hoped he chose to send ET home instead of dissection or worse. “That was your mother?”

Wow. Ah-mazing conversational skills there, Clover.