Loving Mr. July by Margaret Antone Read Free Book Online Page B

tried to focus on Blake’s face, his
thoughts still a mile away. “Huh?”
    “You’ve been after me to get this BOM to you
for weeks. I thought you’d be jumping up and down.” Blake picked up
the spreadsheet and dropped it back down on the desk with a thump.
“Instead you’re miles away. What’s up?”
    Kurt motioned to Blake to shut the door.
    Blake gave him a salute, but complied.
    “I know you’re loyal to your wife, but what I
say here stays in this room.” Kurt gave Blake a hard stare.
“Agreed?”
    “Not going to lie to my wife, Kurt.”
    “Wasn’t asking you to. Just want you to keep
a confidence.”
    “What the hell?” Blake gave Kurt an
incredulous stare. “When have I ever broken your confidence?”
    “Well there was that time involving Missy
Bender.” Kurt grinned at Blake.
    “And we were what, thirteen, fifteen?” Blake
pulled up Kurt’s visitor chair, straddled it. “Geez, Kurt.”
    “I know, I know.” Kurt dropped into his own
chair. “It’s just that this involves Cynthia, and you know how
close she and Sharon are.”
    “Bond runs way deep.” Blake nodded. “But I
thought you couldn’t stand the woman.”
    “Thought so too.” Kurt picked up a pen from
his desk, started fiddling with it. “She’s always gotten under my
skin. Don’t have a clue why. And I seem to get under hers. She’s
never been as friendly to me as she seems to be with you all.”
    “Then why the hell did you insist on her
working out with you twice a day?”
    “Heard about that did you?” Kurt leaned back
in his chair, looked away for a moment then looked Blake in the eye
again. “Thought she should pay for coercing me into doing that damn
photo shoot.”
    Blake squirmed in his seat a bit. “About that
photo shoot, Kurt, and remember when you hear this that you love
your new sister-in-law and she’s kind of partial to my face looking
the way it does.”
    Kurt raised his eyebrows.
    “Wasn’t Cynthia’s idea. Was mine.”
    “What!” Kurt shot to his feet. Blake followed
suit, eyeing him warily across the desk.
    Kurt’s assistant, Holly, knocked on the door,
started to enter, took one look at the two of them and changed her
mind. “Think I’ll come back at a better time.”
    Kurt turned from glancing at the doorway to
look back at Blake. “Did you see the look on her face?”
    Blake grinned, hands unclenching. “Yeah.
She’s remembering the dust up we had over the new office
design.”
    “New office design?” Kurt snorted. “I don’t
think so. It was because you were mooning over Sharon and you’d had
that fight with her over the land lease.”
    “I needed to let a little frustration
out.”
    “So you rearranged my face.”
    “You’re still too pretty, even with the
broken nose.”
    “Up yours.” Kurt sighed and plopped back into
his chair. “And sit down. I’m too tired from all these workouts to
return the favor.”
    “Thank God.” Blake took a seat. “You’d cream
me. I haven’t been to the gym in ages.”
    “Too busy being the happy husband?”
    Blake leaned back, a satisfied smile on his
face. “There are some great perks to being married.”
    Kurt put up a hand. “Don’t want to hear about
it. Especially not from the guy whose dingus was close to falling
off from disuse before you met Sharon.”
    Now Blake gave Kurt the finger.
    Kurt grinned. “Just saying.”
    “Haven’t had any in a while. That your
problem?”
    “I know it sounds hard to believe, but I
wasn’t really missing it. Wasn’t anyone I connected with in a
while.”
    “This my little brother talking?” Blake sat
up, put both feet on the floor, hands hanging loosely between his
knees. He leaned forward to peer at Kurt more closely. “The guy who
has had whomever he wanted since high school?”
    “Exaggerating just a little, aren’t you?”
    “Not really. No.”
    Kurt grinned. “Okay, I admit. I like women.
Doesn’t mean I sleep with everyone I date.”
    “Even a small percentage of the