All of Me (All of Me #1) by Tamsyn Bester, Bailey Townsley Read Free Book Online

I?”
    “No, but you want to. Your eyes keep darting to the exit, and your posture is rigid, like you’re getting ready to bolt.”
    Damnit. So much for no longer being an open book.
    I sit up, and push my empty cup to the middle of the table.
    “Wow, you must feel pretty good about yourself right now huh?”
    His lips dip into a smirk. “How so?”
    “You walk in here, all confident, and cocky, and then try to read me like you used to. You look at me and think you can figure me out. And maybe you can, but what you can’t see is the contempt for you hiding just beneath the surface.”
    His smirk falters, and I want to jump up and down because he shows me the cracks in his own bravado.
    “You don’t hate me,” he says, sounding sure.
    “You’re right,” I admit, watching my admission take him by surprise. “But I don’t love you either. I don’t know how to love someone who breaks people for fun, and then walks away. I don’t know how I fell for you to begin with, and how I was dumb enough to think that anything between us more than a game to you.”
    I stop myself from saying more, reminding myself that I’m in a very public place. I didn’t meant to say all that, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t keep it in any longer.
    Jason’s face contorts into something resembling a scowl. “Be careful,” he growls. “I’m in a very bad mood today.”
    “Really? Has the realization that you’re a complete asshole put you in that bad mood, or have you just not fucked enough people over today?”
    I hope the double insinuation doesn’t escape him. Not only does he screw people over in his personal capacity, but in his professional capacity too. He preys on small, struggling companies, breaks them into small pieces and then sells it to the highest bidder for a generous profit. Looking at him now, the way his eyes harden into glaciers, and the way his chest rises and falls in anger, I see what the rest of the world doesn’t. The monster beneath the prince.
    “You’re going to pay for that,” he says.
    “You’re threatening me?”
    He stands up slowly, pushing his chair back, and rests his palms on the table. He brings his face as close to mine as he can without making it look like a public display of affection. To anyone else around us, we might look like nothing more than quarreling lovers, but I feel the storm circling us, getting ready to rain and thunder. The energy pulsates between us, and I can feel his anger wrap itself around my throat and squeeze.
    “You know I don’t make threats, sweetheart,” – my heart stutters at the term of endearment, much to my chagrin – “I make promises, and I promise that I’ll make you pay for thinking you see me. I will ruin you for any other man, and I will do it with a fucking smile on my face.”
    His breath fans my face as he talks, and I can’t help the shiver that erupts through me. His threat should scare me. But it doesn’t. It turns me on.
    Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. (That’s the idea)
    I watch him disappear through the door, and merge into the pedestrian traffic outside like he didn’t just reduce me to a puddle.
    Asshole.
    I shake my head, more so at myself. He wins every time, and if he’s winning that means I’m losing. Doesn’t he understand that I’m trying to leave him behind and move forward? Maybe he does, and maybe that’s why he’s trying so hard to prove that he still knows me. Or maybe he’s trying to prove that he’s the only person who has ever known me.
     

CHAPTER 8
    J ASON
    “Mr. Tate!” Natasha jumps up from behind her reception desk, and scurries behind me. “You can’t go in there! Mrs. Tate is in a meeting.”
    My wife’s receptionist looks flustered, but I storm past her and push open the door to Gemma’s office. She has her back to me, and Steve Johnson plastered to her front. They break a part, and he has the decency to look embarrassed. Gemma turns around, and tries to button up her blouse.
    “Jason, what are