Bedding the Geek Tycoon by Desiree Crimson Read Free Book Online Page A

Icy shock slapped her in the face. Ryan’s full lips were spread into a smile, and his ordinarily distant blue eyes were warm. Happy. Like no time had been lost at all.
    It took a long time for her brain to process who, exactly, she was seeing. And when she did, she was pissed.
    But not as pissed as Oscar.
    He struggled to his feet. “You’ll pay! You’re going to hear from my lawyer, and you—you’re going to—”
    “The lawyers at Turner will be happy to hear from you,” Ryan said. “And about your attempted abduction. Considering what’s on your juvenile record—the other women you’ve ‘invited’ to visit your house—I bet they would love to hear what you did tonight.”
    The blood vanished from Oscar’s face.
    He swung at Ryan, who easily side-stepped it, kicked him in the back, and sent him plunging to the pavement. He groaned and didn’t get up.
    “Are you okay?” Ryan asked, massaging her shoulders.
    Jenn drew her arm back and punched him across the face. His head snapped to the side.
    “What the hell, Jenn? It’s me!” Ryan said, stumbling back.
    “I know it’s you, you bastard!” She wound up for another hit, but he dodged it. The kickboxing classes were even more useful than she expected. “You left me without a word, and then you show up grinning like I’m supposed to be happy to see you? You bastard!”
    He held up both hands. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have lied to you.”
    “That’s right. You shouldn’t,” she said, breathing hard. “Why were you following me?”
    “I wanted to apologize—and tell you I deleted the files. I got so used to stepping on people to reach the top that I never thought about who I was walking on. But I want to make it better.” He shot a glare at Oscar. “And now I’m glad I did.”
    She didn’t hear him past the first sentence. “You deleted it? I worked hard on that!”
    “I thought you’d be glad,” Ryan said. “I put your job at risk.”
    It was hard to be upset about the way he endangered her job now that she had submitted her resignation in the form of breaking her boss’s hand.
    She tilted her head to the side, watching Oscar writhe on the driveway with his hands over his face. There was something deeply satisfying about seeing him bleed on the ground. He even made pathetic, gurgling whimpers, which warmed her down to the cockles of her heart.
    Jenn didn’t expect to see her office ever again, so she didn’t think she would be seeing Oscar, either. She wanted to remember him exactly like this: bleeding through his manicured fingers and getting it all over his expensive Armani suit. She savored the image.
    “I forgive you,” Jenn finally said.
    Ryan gave Oscar one more solid kick. “Ready to go?” he asked over Oscar’s groans.
    “Definitely.”

Six
    Ryan didn’t take Jenn on the familiar roads back to her apartment. “Do you mind if we visit my house first? We’ll need to shower off your boss’s blood, and my bathroom’s bigger than yours.”
    She gave him a weak smile. “I take that to mean we’re showering together?”
    “It’s more economical,” he said, totally straight-faced.
    “You know, Ryan Stone, I think you do have a sense of humor.”
    The corner of his mouth only twitched.
    They turned into a neighborhood higher on the hill than Oscar’s. The mansions made his house look pathetic in comparison. There were statues, manicured topiaries, and more marble than Jenn thought could be quarried in a single country.
    Ryan pulled up to the biggest one in the neighborhood.
    She gasped. “Where are we?”
    “This is my house.”
    “You afford this on an engineer’s salary?”
    The corners of his mouth drew into a frown. “Not exactly.”
    A butler greeted them and took the truck. An actual, for reals, pencil-mustache-and-white-gloves butler . Jenn stood in the middle of his circular driveway, feeling numb.
    “I don’t understand,” she said.
    “I haven’t been honest with you. This