Her Perfect Stranger by Jill Shalvis Read Free Book Online

slept with someone she was going to work closely with. God, more than closely, they were going to be practically glued at the hip for the next four months. This was some sort of cosmic joke. It had to be. A nightmare. For the first time in her life, she was truly speechless, with no idea of how to react. But she could see he did. In fact, he was already reaching out his hand, not to shake hers as a stranger would, but to hold it and squeeze gently, in that very familiar way he had, a way that would scream to anyone watching what they'd been to each other, only hours before. "You're—" "Mike. Mike Wright." He had a name. Fancy that. She jerked her hand away and carefully schooled her features into a cool passivity. "Nice to meet you." He wasn't only surprised at her civil tone and refusal to acknowledge that they knew each other, he looked shocked as wel. But she couldn't register that at the moment; all she could think was ...he was Mike Wright! Not her first choice for pilot, or even her second, but those men had been taken from her by circumstance. When American-born and Russian-trained astronaut Mikhail Wright had been suggested for emergency secondary backup, she'd agreed, because his amazing talent and precise control were well known. Though she'd never met him, she'd thought he'd be perfect. Perfect. God, he was. He had been. And now she'd paythe price. "It was very good of you to leave Russia and your projects there to come join our team," she said evenly. "Thank you." He just stared at her. "Wel..." Her voice trailed off, because for just a moment she wasn't the commander, but Corrine the woman, the one who'd let a man in, and because of that had seen possibilities she couldn't imagine. The situation couldn't be worse. Wel, okay, actualy it could; everyone in the room could know she'd slept with him. That would be worse. If her team found out, she'd lose her tough, intense edge, at least in their eyes. AD her control would be taken away, and much of their respect, and that would be a fate worse than death be cause of how hard she'd worked to get where she was. Straightening both her spine and her resolve, Corrine forced a little smile, hoping he got her silent message and urgent plea. "You'l want to get started immediately. First we'll acquaint you with what we've been doing. You've got an all-day meeting with the mission specialists, whom I see you already know." Frank and Jimmy beamed. Mike never took his eyes off her, his big, leanly muscled body taut as wire. He said nothing. "Then tomorrow, at 0800 hours, we'll get started on our SIM," she said, referring to their simulation in a huge tank of water that projected the approximate weightlessness of the environment in space. She was already wondering how she could get out of that exercise herself. "After training together for a week, becoming a team, we'l leave for Johnson Space Center, where we'l stay for the remaining months before launch, training on a daily basis." He still just stared at her, his mouth grim, and in the depths of his fathomless eyes she saw things she didn't know how to respond to—surprise and shock, not to mention bitter disappointment at the way she'd handled this impossible situation. Finally, after a long, hard moment in which she sweated buckets inside her far too stuffy suit, he slowly nodded, every inch of him serious and businesslike in a way that made her want to cry. "See you then," he said, in a voice made of steel. Turning on his heel, he left the room, and Corrine could only watch him go. And wonder at the odd sense of loss she experienced. THE REST OF THE DAY was pure torture, and it was only day one. She had months left to go before she could be alone to lick her wounds and get over it. Get over what exactly, Corrine wasn't sure, but she wasn't going to allow herself to think about it, not yet. Not surprisingly, she ran into Mike twice more before the end of the day. Each time was more difficult than the last. The