A negotiated surrender Read Online Free PDF Page B

of reach you'll go through two stages."
    "I'll cry?" he suggested hopefully.
    "Not at all. You'll decide you want me more than ever. I shall move into the category of challenge. If I were to surrender at that point, you would find the challenge conquered. Your ego would be satisfied, and after a time you would go on to other interests. If I don't surrender you will begin to switch from seeing me as a challenge to resenting me. You will eventually convince yourself you don't want me after all and you will go on to other interests. Either way, it's the same result," she concluded with a small lifting of one shoulder. "You can't blame me for preferring the latter route of arriving at that result. Much easier on me !"
    "Fascinating. But what happens if I don't fall into that pattern? What happens if I lose my head completely and fall in love with you?"
    "I doubt that's much of a viable possibility, given your track record with women. I believe I mentioned earlier that you don't seem inclined to form long-term relationships."
    "But if it were to happen?" he insisted, his gritty voice tantalizing and slightly urgent.
    "If it were to happen," she repeated obligingly, her own husky tones hardening as she confronted his amber gaze with absolute certainty, "then a slight variation on the pattern would develop. If you were to fall in love, then, for a time, you would naturally see everything about me through a rosy haze, including my career. You would probably even be proud of me and that emotion might last indefinitely. Until, that is, the career became a threat to you."
    "Hah!" he interrupted, appearing enormously pleased with himself. "How could your career threaten me?"
    "You think that because you would be my boss you would always be safely in the dominant position?"
    she mocked. "I've got news for you. A lot can go wrong with that scenario. The most obvious, naturally, is that I reach a point where I've gone as far as I can with your firm and I decide to go to work for someone else. If I became too successful under another man's influence you would begin to resent it. On top of that, I'm at a point now where I already do a certain amount of traveling for the company. Even if I were to remain with the firm, I have a hunch those important little out-of-town trips to sales conferences and state-of-the-art seminars would quickly cease. Men get very nervous when the women they love travel on business."
    "There's a good reason for that," he retorted at once, frowning severely. "Those conferences are still largely male-oriented and a woman alone…"
    "Without the protection of her lover?" she murmured encouragingly, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes.
    "Yes, dammit! A woman traveling to one without the protection of a man is going to face a lot of difficulties."
    "You mean a lot of temptation , don't you?" she smiled sweetly.
    "You're deliberately trying to set me up," he accused flatly, his hand on her naked back tightening perceptibly.
    "I'm trying to point out the impossibility of us working together now that you've convinced yourself you want me! Men like you are possessive, arrogant, and demanding. While they're involved with a woman they have to dominate the arrangement or they turn resentful and sulky.' Eventually they seek another woman who doesn't pose a threat to their egos. It's all very simple and straightforward, really."
    "You sound as if you've been through it before," he noted coldly.
    "I have. Four years ago. I do not intend to go through it again."
    "Well, we're progressing at least," he suddenly sighed, humor edging his mouth. "Out there on the patio you refused to discuss your former husband. Now you've just finished telling me why your marriage broke up!"
    Calla stared at him, at first stunned and then infuriated by how easily he had dragged the bare outlines of the story out of her. And she had fallen into the trap like a witling victim.
    Without a word, she pulled free of his hold and came to a halt. "I