Sticks and Stone by Jennifer Dunne

she be
long?” What the hell did ‘adjusting her travel arrangements’ mean? Her flight
back to Ireland was booked for next Tuesday, and he’d already canceled her
reservation at the Niko since she was staying with
him. Neither needed adjusting.
    A chill rolled down his spine. Unless
she wasn’t planning on staying with him after all. Whatever had just
upset her hadn’t upset her that badly, had it? Surely she was going to give him
a chance to correct the situation.
    “No, not very,” Royce answered. “In fact, here she comes
now.”
    Eileen breezed into the room, the wind of her movement
rippling the fringe on her shawl with eye-catching waves. All he could think
about was chasing everyone else from the room, ripping it off of her, and
turning the cherry conference table into an impromptu bed. Far from getting his
fill of her, after their night of passion, he was well and truly addicted to
the pleasures of her body.
    A slight smile slipped his iron control. Technically,
that wasn’t correct. The mind-blowing ecstasy she’d given him using that wych elm branch had been a pleasure of his body. But
whether they’d been making love skin-to-skin or pleasuring each other in one of
the other creative variations they’d found, it had been great, and he wanted
more. He didn’t think he could ever tire of making love to her.
    Numbly, he took his seat at the table, across from
Royce. Where had that thought come from?
    Royce began his presentation, introducing the people at
the table, but Dermot had no attention to spare for the man. He hadn’t given
the matter any particular thought, but had simply assumed that any affair with
Eileen would run the normal course of his affairs, a brief flare of passion
followed by growing disinterest until the embers were completely cold and he
moved on.
    Could he possibly be thinking of something more with
Eileen? Something like marriage?
    But that was ridiculous. They were completely unsuited
for marriage. She’d said it herself—they came from two entirely different
worlds.
    Royce had finished his introductory comments, and Sara
Combs stood up to give her presentation of the proposed publicity campaigns.
    “Our goal is twofold. First, we want to identify in the
consumer’s mind the name Eileen Lyons with the female-empowering neo-pagan
revival.”
    “But I’m not—”
    Sara shot a brittle smile at her, silencing Eileen’s
objection. “Those are just the buzz words. We’ll address your actual beliefs in
your product differentiation.”
    Sara glanced around the table, checking for any
additional objections. When none were forthcoming, she plunged back into her
presentation.
    Dermot listened to the ideas with a sense of impending
doom. Eileen had tried to warn him. She’d known that they were embarking on
more than a casual affair. That’s what had angered her so badly
this morning—not that he didn’t want to disclose their relationship, but
by refusing to plan for a future disclosure, he was announcing that he was only
interested in a brief fling.
    His skill at manipulation that had engineered her
arrival so smoothly now worked against him. He’d bought into the publisher
under the pretext that his money would be used to fuel growth and expansion.
The publicity campaign was central to that growth.
    Eileen was going to be associated irrefutably in the
public mind with witchcraft, bizarre and scandalous pagan rituals, and weird
occult powers. The news rags would be thrilled to exploit any personal
connection between the two of them. Eileen would be accused of bewitching him.
Dermot’s business judgment would be called into question.
    He remembered how, after one of his parents’ legendary
scandals, the reporters had circled the family home like sharks scenting blood
in the water. An enterprising photographer had snapped a picture of a very
young Dermot playing in his sandbox, catching him in the act of demolishing a
sand castle, and used it to highlight an article about