Curvaceous Heart by Terri Pray Read Free Book Online Page A

sensual lips curved into a smile as he leaned closer. Her skin tingled, nipples crinkling into fine points beneath her blouse. No, she had to keep this under control. Letting him see how she was affected by him would be a mistake.
    “Are you saying you have a slight temper issue?”
    “Only on matters I feel passionately about.” His breath caressed her face. “And I’m afraid when it comes to matters of business, I, I’m very passionate indeed.”
    Oh, I bet you are .
    “Fair enough.”
    “So, you’ll stay and give me a second chance?” He stood there, his hand still resting lightly on her shoulder, each slight twitch of his fingers triggering a new wave of heat through her body.
    “For now, at least.” She didn’t want to move, to step away from his touch, but if they were going to get any work done then there was no other choice. “So, did you want me to sit back down or were we planning on holding the rest of our discussion standing by the door?”
    “Well, I hope you will give me a chance to apologize for my behavior, say, over dinner tonight?”
    Dinner?
    Her? Him? Them?
    Sue opened her mouth to reply only to clamp her lips tightly shut. How could she possibly go out with him?
    Except it was just an apology, wasn’t it? And maybe a chance to go over some of the details about the blogger ring? And it wasn’t exactly as if he was asking her out on a date. No, that would have been silly; a man like him could have any woman he wanted, so the last person he’d be interested in was a woman like her.
    “Well, do I have to beg for you to join me tonight?”
    She glanced over at Barb, searching for some clue as to what she should do, but all her friend did was smile.
    “All right, I’ll join you for dinner then.”
    “Good, then I’ll need your address and phone number, and I believe I’ll be able to pick you up around eight…unless you have any other plans?”
    Pick her up?
    “She’ll be ready on time, don’t worry about that.”
    Sue shot Barb a quick look.
    “Right now I’m not even sure she’ll join me for dinner. Perhaps I’ve scared your friend off.”
    Oh no, he had not just gone there! “Eight will be just fine.”
    “Good, now we’ve got that part of it settled perhaps we can go back to discussing the issues raised by this blogger ring?”
    “That sounds like the best idea you’ve had all day.”
    “So you stumbled across this -- no, I’m not trying to find out how, by the way -- and you decided to come to me with it because?”
    “The other companies listed were ones I couldn’t be sure about. I thought I had the abbreviations worked out but yours was the only one I could confirm.” Sue took a long, slow breath and met his gaze head on. Damn, why did he have to be so bloody good looking?
    “We have looked into this, but with the meeting being so soon we didn’t think it would be wise to delay bringing this to your attention,” Barb explained.
    Alan glanced over towards the other woman in the room, blinking for a moment. Had he forgotten Barb was there?
    “I see, and just what do you think is behind the posts?” He turned his attention fully back on Sue.
    “I think, at first, it was a way of making themselves feel like better men, getting back at women who didn’t like what they saw. Or just a couple of guys being jerks over things. Then it grew into something more. I’m not entirely sure who started off the office secrets side of things, we didn’t have time to dig that far into the background of the ring, but it’s been going around six months.” She was missing something here, a piece of the puzzle that should have been obvious, but her brain refused to hand it over. “ Real Man is the one making the posts about our building, the one in yours uses the name Dangerous Liaisons .”
    “Pranks that went too far?”
    “I think so.” Damnit , why hadn’t she dug into matters a little more before bringing it to him? There could have been a dozen other clues in the