Tall, Dark & Reckless. HEATHER MACALLISTER
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in action to know it had power and speed under the hood. Or needed extra maintenance. However, she wanted no part of a selfish, self-centered, arrogant, unaware … Except hadn’t Mark opened the door for her? Twice? He hadn’t said or done anything to make her feel bad when her bag had hit his leg, either. So maybe he wasn’t totally self-centered and unaware, which would make him unique among the double alphas she’d interviewed. But he still had the looks and power that made her want to take him for a test drive.
“Ladies!” Travis saw them and beamed his showman smile. “May I pour you a mug of coffee?”
“You’d better, since you stole the good pot!” Dancie said to her brother.
“Just for you.” Travis pushed forward an oversize mug with a crazed stick-figure woman that said, “Forget sugar and spice. Give me caffeine and then I’ll be nice!”
All the other mugs were plain. It was a subtle way to diminish Dancie, who didn’t notice as she eagerly gulped coffee. Piper would take care of it later.
As Travis poured more coffee, Piper looked behind the chair and saw that Mark’s knee was bent and one booted toe rested on the hardwood floor. He was keeping the weight off his leg, which made her feel awful knowing her bag had bashed it.
She probably wasn’t his favorite person at the moment. So why was he staring at her, clearly sizing her up?
Piper suddenly understood. She was the competition. Mark was not only the big moneymaker for Travis, he contributed to the OMG news division. At the moment, Piper was the big moneymaker for Dancie, but only wrote for the Living Fabulous division. However, they were presenting a proposal for expansion today and Mark was probably wondering how much of a threat to his budget she was going to be.
A lot, Piper hoped.
“Hey, Piper. How’s it going?” Travis asked.
“Fine.” She smiled. Travis was an alpha-beta, always striving to prove his alphaness, where a true alpha didn’t need to prove anything. He wasn’t her type, either.
He handed her a mug. “Good to see you, as always. You take cream and sugar?”
“Cream.” It was real cream, Piper knew, because the twins’ father wanted cream and not “that blue water they try to pass off as milk.”
As she poured a dollop into her mug, she was aware that Mark continued to watch her. He hadn’t said one word since she and Dancie had walked into the room.
Dancie must have noticed, as well. “I don’t think Piper and Mark have met, Travis.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Travis touched Piper’s elbow and turned her to face Mark’s blue-eyed gaze. “I guess I assumed everyone knew Mark Banning.”
So Travis was going to be a pain. Piper gave Mark a polite nod of recognition. “Piper Scott.” She held out her hand before Travis introduced her. “We ran into each other earlier.”
“And really hit it off,” Mark said with an easy smile and a warm, solid grip.
She felt a flutter of attraction. Oh, he was good. “About that—”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Princess!” sounded from the doorway.
Mark released her hand. “Seriously,” he said under his breath. “Don’t mention it.”
Before she could ask why, a short, older, barrel-chested man with Dancie’s former nose strode into the room. B. T. Pollard, the twins’ father and head of OMG. Actually, the head of several companies. He was the man who’d bankrolled the twins’ college business project and expanded it into a vast online conglomerate. It had been one of his better business decisions.
“How’s my baby?” He held out his arms. After planting a big kiss on Dancie’s cheek, he held her hands away from her. “Look at you! Hey, Travis! Look at your sister!”
Travis gave her a thumbs-up. “Lookin’ good!”
Contrary to Dancie’s whining, she was wearing the perfect business-casual outfit for the occasion. The denim skirt was genius, if Piper did say so herself. And the chino khaki jacket echoed the slacks both Travis and BT wore. Honestly, even the breast-cancer awareness tank worked.
Straightened, Dancie’s hair was a couple of inches longer and the ends curved just below her shoulders in a feminine wave. She could stand an eyebrow wax, but all in all, it didn’t look as though she was trying to alienate her father by looking as asexual as possible.
Naturally Piper had typed B. T. Pollard for Dancie’s sake—he was a beta-alpha who craved an alpha’s status—and she was using all the strategies she’d learned to position him to be receptive to what Dancie had to say. Even Piper was wearing a swirly skirt, stiletto sandals, and had dug out an ancient set of hot rollers to give herself Texas big hair.
Dancie’s father was as old as Piper’s grandfather and clearly of the “little housewife” generation, but he loved his kids and his wife and wanted what was best for them. The problem was that he and Dancie disagreed on what was best.
Piper wished BT could see how different Dancie was from her beauty queen mother and stop trying to force her to be something she wasn’t. She wished Dancie didn’t care so much. Maybe if Piper had grown up with a father, she might care about gaining his approval, too.
Dancie desperately wanted to show her father that she was as valuable to the business as Travis. And Piper desperately wanted a way to pay Dancie back for all the years she’d let Piper live with her virtually rent free so Piper could stay in school. Dancie being named a partner today would do it. And then Piper could move on, guilt free.
She needed to do something different with her life, to shake things up. But what? She’d never lived anywhere but Austin and she was just … restless. Twitchy. Tired of coaching others from the sidelines. She was ready to get in the game of life, herself. That, she knew. Figuring out what she wanted was the tricky part.
Before she could stop herself, she looked at Mark Banning. He and Travis were murmuring, but while Travis watched Dancie and his father, Mark was watching her. Again. Still.
Awareness prickled her skin and she couldn’t look away. Not only that, she caught herself raising her hand toward her hair. Preening. It was a typical female response when a woman found a man attractive. But Mark wasn’t signaling romantic interest, he was studying her, no doubt looking for clues for ways he could manipulate her if he needed to. If he knew she found him attractive, then he’d use it.
Keeping that in mind, Piper stopped from touching her hair and instead grasped her mug in both hands. Then she raised the mug from waist level and held it in front of her chest. A shield—body-language talk for “I’m not interested.” Which was a total lie because parts of her were shouting, “Look! Look! A prime male. Let’s have his babies.”
Mark smiled slightly and shifted his torso to face her, the rat. It signaled interest and intent and he was doing it on purpose. Piper wasn’t surprised he knew something about body language. As a reporter, he’d have to.
And it was such a lovely torso, too. She wouldn’t mind spending quality time with that torso, preferably without the jacket and shirt. Would it be so terrible to allow him to think he was manipulating her? Just for a little while?
No. No, no, no. Wrong game for her. Mark was a major-league all-star. Piper wasn’t even ready for the minor leagues. Little League, maybe. And she’d have to warm up before she was ready to go to bat.
And Mark Banning? Who was she kidding, anyway? Talk about a guaranteed strikeout.
Why was she using sports metaphors? She didn’t particularly like baseball. Maybe it was because she was standing near him and she’d breathed in some of his manly essence or something.
Oh, good grief. Dancie was seconds away from speaking to her dad in a baby voice and Piper was getting high on Mark Banning fumes.
Forcing