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“Skin,” he finished under his breath, willfully ignoring the eager lurch of his cock. “I’ll speak to Margarite. I asked her for sexy-discreet, not jaw-dropping and eye-popping.”

“I don’t see your jaw dropping,” she said lightly, turning so he could slip the cover-up over her shoulders. When he didn’t immediately put the sleeves next to her hand, she glanced back, catching him staring at her luscious ass encased in the clinging fabric.

“It’s dropping on the inside,” he mumbled before he slipped the sleeves over her hands and she shrugged on the cover-up. He grasped her shoulders and turned her toward him, examining her. “You didn’t wear this particular dress to make some sort of point, did you?”

“What point would that be?” she asked, her chin going up.

“A point of defiance.”

“You asked me to wear one of the dresses, and I am.”

“Take care, Francesca,” he said in a quiet, ominous tone, brushing his fingertip across the soft skin of her jaw and feeling her shiver. Heat rushed through his cock. She really was going to kill him before this was through.

“Take care of what?” she asked.

“You know what I think of impulsiveness. You know the consequences for it,” he added quietly, before he took her hand and led her out of the suite.

* * *

Sixteen was housed in the Trump International Hotel & Tower, the dining room dominated by the modern, clean lines of cherrywood-paneled walls and an enormous, stunning Swarovski-crystal chandelier. They dined next to thirty-foot tall floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down at magnificent views of the city, some of the buildings so close she felt like she could reach out and touch them.

Francesca initially thought that the best way to describe their dinner companion, Xander LaGrange, was polished, but she quickly altered the descriptor to slick. She learned that Ian and he knew each other through the University of Chicago and were old rivals—or at least from Xander’s viewpoint.

“So you were in college together?” she clarified when Xander made a vague reference to how long he and Ian had known each other.

“I was a graduate student when Ian was a freshman at the University of Chicago,” Xander explained. “Once he came along, myself and the rest of the computer-science department were constantly trying to find our ways out of his brilliant shadow. Ian and I shared an academic mentor. Professor Sharakoff asked me to grade his papers and Ian to write a book with him.”

“Don’t exaggerate, Xander,” Ian said quietly

“I thought I was downplaying things,” LaGrange said with a swift smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

LaGrange was in his mid-thirties, with short sandy-blond hair graying at the temples. He was handsome and charming enough, Francesca supposed, for a dinner companion. She immediately sensed the underlying conflict between Ian and him, however. By the time the waiter came to take their drink orders, she’d gauged that while Ian was the epitome of polite charm toward the other man, he despised him. She sensed his dislike from where he sat next to her, with his rigid posture and strained muscles.

Xander LaGrange, on the other hand, was full-out envious of Ian . . . possibly even aggressively so. She studied his white-toothed smiles, which reminded her more of a snarl, and wondered if LaGrange’s jealousy wasn’t at the bottom of his reluctance to Ian’s terms for the acquisition of his company all this time.

“Would you like club soda?” Ian asked her when the waiter arrived.

“No. Champagne, I think,” she said, returning LaGrange’s smile of appreciation at her choice. She was feeling a little daring tonight . . . euphoric. Maybe it was the sexy dress, or the stunning view, or the appreciative gleam in LaGrange’s eyes as he studied her from across the table—or Ian’s quiet threat before they’d left his bedroom—but she was definitely feeling rebellious and . . .

. . . stirred up.

Was this the power that Ian wanted her to own?

“Where did you find this long-stemmed rose, Ian?” LaGrange mused, his eyes hot on Francesca, after Ian had placed an order for a bottle of champagne. Ian explained about her winning the commission to provide the painting for his lobby. “Gifted in addition to being beautiful,” LaGrange complimented when Ian was finished. He gave Ian a glance that struck her as wolfish. “I can understand why you wanted to bring her tonight.”

Her gaze immediately flew to Ian. Was LaGrange insinuating that Ian had brought her as a piece of arm candy to make final negotiations go more smoothly? She’d wondered herself why he’d asked her to the dinner. A shadow flickered across Ian’s countenance and was gone.

“I brought Francesca because I’ve been so busy on this deal with you that I haven’t had the opportunity to see her much.”

“And it’s greatly appreciated,” LaGrange assured, his dark eyes flickering across Francesca’s face and chest. The waiter uncorked their champagne, adding to Francesca’s giddy mood. “There’s no deal that a beautiful woman doesn’t sweeten,” he added, making her flush in embarrassment.

Did Ian stiffen next to her? She thought not when he began to converse with LaGrange amiably enough about some final details of their deal. She gathered from their exchange that a major holdup in negotiations thus far had been that LaGrange wanted partial payment in stock from Ian’s company, while Ian insisted on a cash-only purchase. She could well imagine Ian refusing to give a hold—even a relatively minor one—to any other person over his company. Apparently, he’d finally offered LaGrange a cash amount that couldn’t be walked away from.