A host of smartass retorts sprung to Poppy’s lips, but she clamped the urge to use them. If Beck Blackwood was serious about the offer of twenty big ones, she couldn’t afford to piss him off. Time enough for that later, after he’d signed on the dotted line.
“I was busy going over my presentation.” She injected the right amount of subservience to appease the arrogant puppet-master. “What can I do for you?”
“Sure you want me to answer that?”
Was he flirting with her? Maybe she should’ve fortified those granny panties. With steel.
“We’re meeting shortly, Mr. Blackwood. Unless there’s a point to this phone call, I’d like to get back to my presentation.”
He snickered. “Snark. Like your blog.”
“You read it?”
She mentally slapped herself upside the head. Of course he would’ve read it. If his investigators had discovered her link to Party Hard, they probably knew everything from her preferred cereal to her cup size.
“It’s entertaining in its own way.”
Way to go with the backhanded compliment.
She should let it go. But she’d had enough of his condescension, mega payoff or not.
“In its own way?”
“For a fluff piece.”
She heard the hint of amusement and it was the only thing that prevented her from telling him where he could stick his divorce party. That and the memory of the last time she’d seen Sara: pale, listless, morose, and overmedicated.
“Did my reference to your fluff piece offend you?”
He was baiting her. He wanted her to bite back. Let him wait.
“Lucky for me that fluff grabbed your attention long enough for you to fly me out here to organize a party you’ll never forget.”
This time he laughed out loud. “I like confidence in a woman.”
“Then you’ll love me.” She winced, instantly regretting her sassy comeback. She didn’t want any guy to love her, not in any sense. Love was for losers. Masochistic losers.
Though she shouldn’t knock it, considering those losers would keep Party Hard afloat, courtesy of her Divorce Diva Daily ingenuity.
“We’ll see,” he said, the uncomfortable edge underlying his tone matching her squirm-factor at the remotest mention of the L-word. “See you soon.”
Before she could respond, he’d hung up, leaving her perplexed as she stared at the phone.
What the hell was that all about?
She had no idea why he’d called, and second-guessing his motivation didn’t help her burgeoning nerves.
For despite a foolproof presentation designed to wow, she was nervous.
This had to work.
For all their sakes.
Poppy smoothed her skirt and tugged at the hem of her jacket as she stepped onto the tarmac. She’d gone for understated elegance: pinstriped ebony suit with a below-knee pencil skirt, three-inch patent heels, and stockings. Her only concession to her usual flair was a crimson silk shirt that elevated the suit from prim to possibilities.
She wanted to wow Beck Blackwood. To show him she wasn’t some underling who jumped when he snapped his fingers and flung his cash around, even though that was exactly what she’d done.
She squared her shoulders, tucked her satchel under her arm, and marched toward the limousine waiting nearby. In a town where limos were the norm rather than the exception, this one stood out: long, silver, shapely.
After the jet, it figured. Beck Blackwood had the best of everything and wouldn’t settle for anything less. Lucky for him, she intended on being the best in the party planning business.
As she neared the limo, the back passenger door opened and a hint of premonition strummed her spine. The limo had a passenger, and with the chauffeur waiting a few discreet feet away, that passenger had to be important enough to command privacy.
Her step faltered as Beck Blackwood stepped from the limo, imposing and arresting and way too gorgeous to be legal.
Hell.
When he said See you soon she’d assumed he’d meant his office. She hadn’t expected a welcoming committee, though by his shuttered expression he was none too welcoming.
He watched her approach and her skin prickled with every step. There was nothing overtly sexual in his steady stare, but every nerve ending in her body went on high alert the closer she got.
Ashlee had labeled him a hottie. He was so far beyond hottie in the flesh it wasn’t funny.
When she’d envisioned their first meeting, it had been in an office with neutral furniture and high-tech gadgets. She’d mentally rehearsed a hundred professional greetings for when an über secretary ushered her into that office.
Sadly, her carefully constructed vocab designed to impress deserted her the moment she got within three feet of the guy.