His Favorite Mistake (Baby Its Cold Out) by Mary Eason Read Free Book Online Page A

as if she belonged to him completely. Sharing her bed. To have her this close after all the long months of trying to put her out of his every thought and struggling with his feelings for her was far too dangerous.
                  He looked down at her, wondering if she had any idea how much he wanted her. Now just as strong as that one night. The night of Cade’s funeral. It had taken everything inside of him to refuse what she was offering him that night. Because she’d been offering to fulfill all his dreams.
                  Did she know her touch sent him up in flames? He closed his eyes and hoped she didn’t. Otherwise, she would never let him near her again.
                  The last thing on earth she wanted was for someone whom she openly proclaimed to be a friend to be thinking the thoughts he was thinking about her. She was strictly off limits. She was his best friend’s wife, for God’s sake. His recently deceased best friend’s wife. He had no claim to her beyond that.
                  At the thought of Cade, Brody found himself wondering once again if Cade’s confession to him just a few weeks before his death were true. Had Reyna cheated on her husband? Hadn’t she all but admitted as much to him just now? He’d certainly seen the proof with his own eyes, hadn’t he?
                  Cade had made it graphically clear that Reyna actually enjoyed men who were physically rough with her. The fading bruises on her body seemed to confirm that fact.
                  So why then did everything else about the woman he had come to know so well, in spite of her resistance to reveal anything about herself to him, tell him that something in Cade’s words didn’t quite ring true. He hoped he was right about her, for his sake as well as hers.
                  For the past eight torturous months, he had thought of her and tried desperately to deny his unexplainable reaction to her. He’d made it a point not to see her again until Cade’s death. During that time, Brody had to remind himself she was strictly off limits. Most of the time, it didn’t work. Every woman he went out with only reminded him of the one he wanted. The one he could never have. He found himself constantly comparing them to Reyna, but there really wasn’t any comparison for him.
                  At that point and out of sheer frustration, he’d thrown himself into work with a fervor that both surprised and alarmed those who were unfortunate enough to come in contact with him.
                  Brody had gone through more assistants than he cared to think about, with the last one quitting after only an hour of working for him. Now, he was forced to borrow assistants from the secretarial pool his company employed, to help keep the workflow from becoming completely out of control. He was quickly becoming his own company’s joke. No one wanted to return to the empty assistant’s desk after sitting outside his office for more than one day. Even though his personnel department had tried to find someone to fill that need, as of yet, there weren’t any takers.
                  As much as Brody hated admitting it now, with Cade gone, his friend had been made to suffer the most for his choice of wives. On more than a few occasions, Brody had deliberately given him the worst possible assignment, sending Cade to parts of the country that few would ever choose to go willingly. Cade had been forced to work on advertising campaigns that were all but doomed from the start.
                  The long hours had eventually taken their toll on Brody’s health as well. The endless trips abroad he was making on a weekly basis had made it virtually impossible for him to wind down, or acclimate enough to find peace in sleep.
                  On more than one occasion, he’d had been forced to call his personal physician to