An Irresistible Bachelor Read Online Free PDF Page B

curse.
    Jesus, he’d nearly kissed her.
    Any more clear thinking like that and he was going to end up in some serious trouble. He’d come here to talk about a job. Not to cheat on his fiancée.
    â€œLet’s go, Franky—we’re late.”
    â€œSure thing, Mr. Walker.”
    The limousine surged ahead.
    He had just twenty minutes before he was supposed to meet Blair and that new client of hers at the ballet, and now he had even more reason not to look forward to the evening. He didn’t like having to sit still for so long and the dancing never really held his attention. He was looking at a good two hours with nothing to do but mull over what had just happened on Callie Burke’s doorstep.
    He shook his head, telling himself he shouldn’t make a big deal out of it.
    Besides, he had a feeling he’d won. His instincts told him she was going to call tomorrow and say she would do the work. In the end, her ambition and her attachment to the painting would win out over her suspicions of him. And courtesy of her commitment, he would be giving someone a leg up, something his father had maintained was completely outside of his character. He’d also have taken care of Grace’s request.
    So he was doing the right thing. In spite of that flash of insanity back there.
    Jack relaxed and leaned back against the leather seat. He told himself the only thing he had to worry about tonight was how to feign interest in a bunch of men with stuffing down the front of their tights.
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    As Jack Walker’s limousine drove away, Callie stood in the lobby of her building, aware that she was trembling. She told herself that whatever was going through her body was not attraction. It just couldn’t be.
    People shivered in the cold, she thought. That had to be it.
    Oh, hell, who was she kidding.
    She glanced at his card. Jackson W. Walker, CEO, The Walker Fund. There was a Boston address underneath his name and title.
    Even the paper was expensive, she thought, testing its creamy stiffness.
    Although she could still remember how good his cologne had smelled, it was hard to believe that he’d come looking for her. She couldn’t have been more surprised if Bill Gates had been standing in front of her building, and it had taken all of her self-control to walk up to him.
    The man made her nervous, but then, why wouldn’t he? He was offering her something she wanted badly. He was rich and that meant he had power. And she sensed that he was the type who got whatever he wanted out of life—even if someone else paid for it. Which pretty much described her father in a nutshell.
    Mostly, though, it was because when she was standing in front of him, she felt like someone had hooked a pair of jumper cables to her toes.
    He was right. She wanted to work on his painting. Desperately.
    But turning him down was the right thing to do. Her financial straits put her in a position of vulnerability, of wanting to believe in miracles because she was in need of one. Coming home to him and the job offer of a lifetime just seemed too good to be true.
    Or maybe she was making excuses. Maybe she was a little scared to tackle something like that portrait on her own. And maybe her attraction to him was just one more hazard in a minefield of complications.
    She put his card in her coat pocket, the one that didn’t have the hole in it, and checked her mailbox. After taking out two overdue bills, she walked up the six flights to her apartment. The stairwell smelled of Indian cooking from the family who lived on the first floor, and turpentine from the artist who lived on the second. As she opened the door to her studio, the dog across the hall started yapping and its owner, a frail, older woman, chastised him in her surprisingly hardy voice.
    Callie shut the door and leaned back against the wood. She could hear the shower dripping in the bathroom.
    Taking off her coat, she went over to her bed and sat down at the