Complete We (A Her Billionaires Novella #4) by Julia Kent Read Free Book Online

came along and made his guard go way, way up. Unlike Dylan, he wasn’t hyped up. Unlike Laura, he wasn’t scared.
    Mike’s view of this was more tactical. Figure out the guy’s weakness. Figure out what he wanted most. Manipulate those two pieces of information to strategic advantage. Develop a plan. Execute it.
    And then walk away from the entire mess.
    If it could be so easy, though, it would be. Nothing was ever that simple. As he picked up Route 2 to head into the city, his mind was everywhere but where it should have been.
    Home.
    With the people he loved most.
    * * *
    The meetings in Boston had gone well enough that he drove back to the ski resort’s corporate offices with a much lighter heart. The conservation group advocates were well informed and pleasant to work with, and his lawyer had given him the most basic of advice regarding Frank, which boiled down to one simple word:
    Delay.
    Whatever Frank hinted at wanting, assuming it was money, just buy time. The lawyer also recommended hiring a private investigator (off the record) to learn more about Frank’s past. Dylan was already on that one, and Mike felt like they had this. Frank could be managed out of being any sort of a threat. Or even a bother.
    Feeling like a nine-hundred-pound weight had been lifted from his shoulders, Mike found himself practically whistling as he walked into the resort’s offices, his pleasant mood cut short by the look on Shelly’s face when he walked in.
    She looked a bit sick.
    Her fingers dug into the wool of his suit jacket, slipping on the soft material, then tight again as she yanked hard to get him to walk into a small, unused office. Considering their size difference, her efforts were futile. It was like watching an ant try to move a brick.
    Nice of you to try, but good luck.
    “Sorry. Did that hurt?” she hissed as her fingers dug into his arm and she tried to make him move. He took pity on her and followed, giving her the impression her efforts had any effect.
    “No. Not a bit. What’s going on?”
    “You know some guy named Frank?”
    He went cold. His entire body went frozen and numb, from scalp to toes, and when you’re six and a half feet, that’s a lot of frozen tundra.
    “Is he here?” The look on Shelly’s face told him just how deadly his voice sounded.
    Which meant it reflected exactly how he felt.
    “Yes. Been waiting for an hour. Says it’s important and he’s your uncle.”
    “My what ?”
    Shelly gave him a sour look. “I knew you’d never mentioned an uncle, so…I stalled.”
    “You’ve been wasting the past hour just hanging out here?”
    She looked nervously toward the reception area. “I don’t trust him.”
    “Hackles up that fast?”
    She nodded, auburn hair spilling over intelligent eyes that nothing got past. “Right away. He’s too smooth. Too oily. Someone like that will talk you out of your pants while draining your bank account, and expect you to make scrambled eggs and coffee in the morning for them.”
    Mike wanted to laugh. Really. It was funny, and he knew she made the joke to add some levity here, but it wasn’t funny.
    And Shelly knew it, too. Because she was serious.
    Dead serious.
    He pulled out his phone and tried to call Dylan. No answer. Laura. No answer. Machines both times, damn it.
    He sent a group text, cringing at the thought of Laura’s reaction:
    Frank’s here at my office.
    And with that he squared his shoulders, tucked his phone in his breast pocket, and quietly thanked whatever deity watched over him that of all the days, today he’d dressed in his best Christian Grey imitation.
    He would need all the power-tripping domination skills he possessed to get through this.
    Bzzzz.
    Before he could take ten steps, his phone jumped like a scared rabbit in his pocket. He took a long, deep breath and checked it.
    WHAT? Laura’s text only needed one word.
    Then his phone rang. The second he answered it, the panicked stream of words just didn’t