Who's on Top? Read online

  Jane wore all black. Or rather, the black wore her

  Displayed her. Intimately. Right down to the hot-pink hoochie-mama sandals on her feet.Dazed, Dom focused on her hot-pink toenails, and then ran his gaze up every luscious curve to her hot-pink siren’s lips. Say something. The message flashed to his muddled brain. “You’re late.”

  Her chin rose. “Yes. You have a problem with that?”

  He slowly shook his head. His eyes moved from her lips to her breasts: gifts from the gods, cruelly covered.

  He lurched helplessly on his bar stool and forced his curiously rubbery legs to the ground. Dom peeled his dry lips apart. “You’re dressed to kill.”

  Her mouth curved. “It’s appropriate for the occasion.”

  Oh man, oh man. She’s here to lose on purpose! As soon as he’d shown her who was boss and tossed her out of his life, she’d come back apologizing and now she wanted him badly enough to lose at a game of pool.

  Dom grinned, displaying every tooth he owned, feeling in control again. “Well, then. Let’s get this game over with.”

  Dear Reader,Have you ever found yourself thinking, “That guy would be perfect if only…”? Maybe it’s his attitude. Maybe it’s his clothes or his posture. Maybe it’s his table manners. Something stops him from being that man of your dreams.

  Well, I sure have! And in this world of being able to upgrade a flight to first class, a room to ocean view, or your wardrobe to fabulous—I wondered, wouldn’t it be great if we could also upgrade our men?

  That’s how I came up with the concept behind my new miniseries, THE MAN-HANDLERS—women who make over their men. Who’s on Top? is the story of lovable control freak Jane O’Toole and alpha male Dominic Sayers, two incredibly strong-willed people who are each determined to best the other. Watch as the sexual sparks between them blaze a trail from the office to the bedroom! And place your bets on the winner. You’ll be the final judge of who’s on top! I hope you enjoy getting to know Jane and Dom as much as I enjoyed creating them.

  And I love to hear from readers! Visit me at my Web site at www.KarenKendall.com, where you can enter my monthly contest and find information about upcoming releases. Or you can write to me in care of Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

  Happy reading!

  Karen Kendall

  P.S.—Look for the next book in the series, Unzipped?, Blaze #201, coming in September 2005!

  KAREN KENDALL

  Who’s on Top?

  To my husband, Don, who has resisted most of my attempts to upgrade him—because, of course, he is perfect! And to my wonderful editor, Wanda Ottewell. Thanks for everything.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  1

  IF ONLY MONDAY WERE A HOT , half-naked man, I wouldn’t mind starting every week with it. Jane O’Toole yawned.

  Whether you’re a sanitation worker or a CEO—or in my case, both—Mondays just…suck.She emptied the last wastebasket into the trash bag, tied a knot into the top of the bag and set it outside the office door, breathing deeply of the crisp October air.

  Farmington, Connecticut, was at its most beautiful in autumn, nestling among the fall foliage under royal-blue skies. A town of twenty-one thousand, Farmington personified New England, abundant with neat Cape Cods punctuated with maple, oak and elm trees. Window boxes hadn’t yet lost their colorful blooms to the winter, and the wind sang through leaves of spectacular gold, rich tawny cinnamon, eggplant and even burgundy.

  Such a gorgeous day to be stuck in the office. She left the door open to let the sunshine in, bathing the room and its antique-reproduction furniture in gold. Wryly Jane noted that the light also illuminated every dust mote stuck to the dark wood. And the once-pristine arrangement of dried roses on the coffee table looked…hairy.

  Is it possible to dust dried flowers? she wondered. If she blew on them, she’d sneeze. If she vacuumed them, she’d be left with headless stems. And surely the duster in the closet would only add blue feathers to the unappetizing hair.

  Jane dreamed of a cleaning service one day, but the business was too fragile, too new, to justify the expense right now. She’d conceived Finesse a year ago, while working at her miserable job in corporate employee assistance. Her M.A. in psychology had qualified her to be a glorified babysitter and paper pusher, and after eight years she’d had enough. So had her friends Shannon Shane, a would-be actress, and Lilia London, who’d been a receptionist for a law firm.

  Jane had envisioned a business of their own: a training center for personal and career enhancement. Open now for nine months, Finesse did consulting on employee management issues and some general counseling (Jane’s specialty), image/communication (Shannon’s) and business etiquette (Lilia’s).

  Thanks to hard work and tireless marketing, they’d enjoyed great success so far—though like any business in its fledgling stage, they had loans to pay off. And salaries? Actual salaries for each of them were still a dream on the horizon.

  Jane put off donning those snappy pink rubber gloves and heading for the bathroom. Ugh. She’d do it after she had a doughnut.

  She listened with half an ear to Shannon and Lilia discuss the pros and cons of…thong underwear? Yes, she had heard right.

  “I don’t see how you can stand it,” Lilia said to Shannon with a shudder. Lilia’s dark hair was demure, as usual, clamped at her neck with a conservative clip. In her well-cut gray silk suit, she looked every inch the etiquette consultant.

  Shannon marched to an altogether different drummer. In fact, Jane was pretty sure she had an alternate orchestra. She didn’t look anything like an image consultant—unless it was for rock stars in L.A.

  “A thong eliminates the pantie-line problem.” Shannon shrugged, winding her long, curly blond hair into a knot on her head. Her motorcycle jacket hid most of a screaming-orange tank top—just not enough of it for Jane’s taste.

  “I haven’t tried them,” Lilia said, “but I’ve heard those new boy shorts hide pantie lines, too.”

  “Nope—they crawl.” Shannon was indisputably the authority on undies.

  “Better a little ‘crawl’ than…than…rope burn in a private place!” Lilia stood her ground.

  “Thongs are really not uncomfortable,” said Shannon. “The only problem I have with them is that I’m forever putting them on sideways, since they’re your basic isosceles triangle.”

  Lilia shook her head. “Never. I just can’t go there. Thongs are so…slutty.”

  Shannon exchanged a glance with Jane and both started to laugh.

  “Ah,” Jane responded in a dry voice. “It’s so much less slutty to wear nothing under your stockings, for fear of those dreaded pantie lines.”

  Lilia colored. “That’s not the same thing at all—”

  “No,” Shannon chortled in between mouthfuls of a Krispy Kreme doughnut. “It’s worse! Lilia, you fallen woman, you.” She turned to Jane. “Now, execu-babe, tell us all about your unmentionables.”

  Jane grinned, dried her just-washed hands and helped herself to what was left of the Krispy Kremes. “The only thing you need to know about my underwear has to do with maintenance. You go into Vi
cky’s Secret, and let’s say you choose beautiful lace tap pants. Or some sheer panties in chiffon. You feel pretty the first time you wear them. Then you toss them into the washing machine—’

  “You didn’t!” gasped Lilia. “Surely the salesgirls told you to hand wash—”

  “Yes, like I have all the time in the world to gently swish each of my freakin’ undergarments in the sink. Get real.”

  Lilia tsk-tsked.

  “So I threw them into the machine. And now they’re wound around the bottom of the post thingy in the washer and I can’t get them out! I’m also afraid to use the darn machine in case they destroy it or set it on fire or something.”

  Shannon laughed.

  Lilia stated the obvious. “You should call a repair guy.”

  “Sure, Lil. You try explaining to a guy your father’s age that the problem lies with your ruby-red lacy tap pants. That it’s going to take a blowtorch and some needle-nose pliers to get them unstuck.”

  Lilia’s lips twitched.

  Jane mock-glared at her friends before rounding on Shannon. “By the way, thanks for leaving me only the squashed glazed doughnut and significantly less than half of the chocolate-frosted one!”

  Shannon rolled her eyes. “I have two adages for you. ‘First come, first served.’ And ‘It’s for your own good, honey.’ Be glad they’re on my hips and not yours.”

  “Why?” Jane muttered. “Why have I maintained a twenty-year friendship with the two of you? Not to mention going into business with you. Next Monday I’ll eat all the crème ones before reaching the first traffic light, and you’ll be sorry you treated me this way.”

  Lilia said, “Now, girls.”

  Shannon stuck her tongue out.

  “Speaking of panties and Vicky’s Secret,” Jane went on, stalking to the prissy camelback sofa and retrieving a catalogue. “How on earth is anyone supposed to wear—” she flipped through some pages “—this? It’s only got a—”

  Suddenly Shannon made a weird face, rolling her eyes wildly, and Lilia coughed and waggled her index finger behind her ear.

  “—string of pearls for a crotch!” Too late she noticed their odd expressions.

  Both her business partners closed their eyes and winced.

  Slowly Jane lowered the catalogue and looked gingerly behind her, only to behold a Hugh Jackman type in pinstripes—her first client of the day. Oh. My. God. His shoulders filled the doorway and he gazed down at her from a height of at least six foot two. His dark hair was cut short in an attempt to restrain a tendency to curl. Dark eyes gleamed at her over Serengeti shades that he’d tugged down just a bit. Besides his suit, he wore a quizzical expression, and his eyebrows formed two interested, sex-charged squiggles.

  She cleared her throat; resisted putting her hands up to her incinerated cheeks; looked at her watch. “You must be Mr. Sayers. I wasn’t expecting you…quite so early.”

  DOMINIC SAYERS FROZE IN HIS tracks. String of pearls for a crotch? The concept was undeniably appealing—he was only human, after all. But he could not possibly be in the right place. Had he stumbled into an upscale escort service? He took a step back; looked up at the discreet, silver wooden letters. Huh. He raised a brow and returned his gaze to the rosy cheeks of the woman before him.

  “Jane O’Toole? Of…Finesse?” He didn’t try to conceal his irony.The color in her cheeks deepened to burgundy, but other than that she didn’t bat an eyelash. He was, however, too irritated to admire her composure. He didn’t want to be here.

  “Yes, that’s right.” She raised her chin and stuck out her right hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sayers.”

  “Oh, I doubt it.” His gaze, which he’d meant to keep cool and distant, roved over her body without his permission, dipping into the neatly buttoned but still provocative valley where the plackets of her blouse met—and downward from there. Hmm, pearls…

  She blinked. “If you’d like to have a seat, I’ll get you started on some paperwork. Just some simple questions. Your employee ID number for Zantyne Pharmaceuticals, their billing address—that type of thing.”

  “Ah, yes. The paper trail,” he said, returning to reality and not bothering to hide his bitterness. But he sat and accepted the pen and file folder she handed to him.

  Arianna “the piranha” DuBose was no doubt furiously adding as much as she could to the paper trail that would indicate he should be fired.

  The trail would not include certain important information: that Arianna had lied, backstabbed and schmoozed her way into her current position as his boss; that she was extremely threatened by Dom and didn’t want him around to expose her or show her up; and that she’d deliberately picked a fight with him so she could get him some “help” for his “negative attitude” and “tendencies toward insubordination.”

  He shouldn’t have fallen for her tricks. Damn it, he knew better. What had gotten into him? Why had he let her anger him? And why hadn’t he made sure someone else was in the room during the entire standoff?

  The only blessing Dom could count was that Arianna-the-piranha hadn’t accused him of sexual harassment.

  Still, he was here in Jane O’Toole’s office to be evaluated—probably to commence “sensitivity training,” anger management and who knew what else. General kowtowing, he supposed.

  In the meantime, he had a market analysis due, the regulators breathing down his neck and the licensing agreements to sign off on. Arianna would be nosing around every step of the way, erasing the dots from his i’s and smudging the crosses on his t’s. Anything she could use to trump up a case against him—she’d latch on to it with those flesh-eating fangs of hers.

  Dom realized that Jane O’Toole was saying something to him. “What?” he asked gruffly. “I didn’t catch that.”

  His eyes went from her mouth to her neckline, where she was fidgeting with—hoo, boy—a string of pearls. Again his male radar perked up. Hmm…

  As soon as she followed his gaze, she dropped them as if they were hot.

  He lifted a corner of his mouth. He didn’t mean it as a sneer exactly, but she seemed to take it as one, since she stiffened.

  She was extremely attractive, with a mess of dark curly hair. This was cut at a sensible chin length and offset by huge brown eyes. Her cheekbones weren’t high but soft and rounded, blending into a surprisingly strong square chin.

  She had plenty of interesting curves, too, though they were mostly hidden by a dark green pantsuit. He had a suspicion that lush, heavy breasts nestled against the lucky lining of her jacket. If Dom had met her in a bar—not that he usually went to bars, except to play pool—well, hell, he might have stiffened, too. So to speak.

  His eyes strayed once again to the pearls at her neck, and he fought off an image of them in a darker, duskier place—attached to a scrap of silk.

  “I asked you if you’d like a cup of coffee, Mr. Sayers.” The flush in her cheeks had spread down to her neck now, providing an interesting background for her pearls.

  “Coffee would be great,” he said. He accepted it with thanks, omitting sugar or cream. He focused on the hot, black stuff and not Jane O’Toole’s possible tastes in lingerie. Grow up, Sayers. But hell, he felt all of thirteen, having been sent to the principal’s office.

  Ms. O’Toole mixed her own coffee with as many cancer-causing substances as she could scrape together and stirred the disgusting brew with a long stick, which she tossed into the trash. “Why don’t we go into my office?”

  The other two women involved in the kinky undies discussion—a six-foot Harley babe and a prim china doll—had vanished behind their respective doors. Dom shrugged and followed Principal O’Toole into her den of discipline. They might as well get on with his knuckle rapping.

  “Have a seat,” she told him. She walked to a filing cabinet and bent over the second drawer, retrieving a sheet of paper from a manila folder. “This is a permission form—I always videotape my first session with a client. Then I’ll make a couple of tapes midway through ou
r course together and one during the very last meeting. It’s just to document progress. I don’t release them to anyone, under any circumstances. But I do need you to sign off on the form.”

  Dom folded his arms across his chest and told her he didn’t like the idea at all.

  “Why not?” she asked calmly. “Is there something about being taped that threatens you?”

  “No, Ms. O’Toole. I don’t feel threatened. But I would like to discuss a few issues with you and I don’t necessarily want them on record.”

  She sat in her cushy leather chair opposite him and crossed her legs. Then she folded her hands across a leather-bound notebook in her lap. A pen emerged from the bundle of fingers, punctuating her air of cool disapproval like an exclamation point. Damn Arianna. He’d already been tried, judged and found lacking. But all Jane O’Toole said was, “Fine.”

  “I want you to know that I’m not a behavioral problem,” he said. He could hear the anger in his own voice; saw her note it. “I do not have insubordination issues. I am not a chauvinist jerk who is unable to work for a woman. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” she said. “So now that you’ve told me what you’re not, how about telling me what you are?”

  “I’m a red-blooded American guy who doesn’t enjoy being manipulated by a power-hungry bitch.”

  Her jaw dropped open and he heard her teeth click together as she shut it. Gotcha.

  “Mr. Sayers, I’ve been called a lot of things during the course of my career, but that is a first.”

  “I meant Arianna DuBose, not you!”

  “I’m relieved to hear it. So tell me more about your working relationship with Ms. DuBose.”