Lucifer's Lover by Tracy Cooper-Posey Read Free Book Online Page B

she was aware of Otto’s glare and Luke’s victorious grin.
    She’d lost the bet. She’d been outflanked by a master strategist and her own stupidity.
    Now she must suffer through a date with the victor. If he took her out to dinner, she knew she would be dining on ashes…and crow.

Chapter Four
     

    Lindsay would have paid anything for a reason that would get her out of going into the office the next day but she knew no one was going to give her the excuse she needed to duck it.
    Might as well get it over with.
    She walked in with her chin high and wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses she had bought that morning, borrowing deliberately from Luke’s arsenal of effects.
    Everyone, including Timothy, was busy at their desks, heads down. The studiously busy people, the averted heads, made her spirits sink.
    They already knew, then.
    She stopped off at Timothy’s desk. “Where’s Luke?”
    He jerked his thumb toward the ceiling. Gormley’s office.
    Lindsay looked at her watch. “Nine twenty-three. Remind me to congratulate him, Timothy. It only took him twenty-three minutes to grease his way to the top with his news.”
    Timothy winced. “Sorry, Lynds.”
    “ Lindsay ,” she snapped.
    “Right.”
    “I assume he’s given everyone the four color details, then?”
    “Well, sort of. He was kinda in a hurry.” Timothy frowned. “Actually, he was really vague about it, now I think about it.”
    Maybe he had kept his word, after all. She felt the tension in her gut ease a little, enough for her to draw breath. She could look people in the face if they didn’t know the full extent of her humiliating loss.
    “When Luke bothers to grace us with his presence, tell him I want to see him.”
    “Okay, boss.”
    Lindsay gritted her teeth. Only Luke had once dared to call her “boss.” Now they were all doing it.
    On her desk was the morning’s mail, neatly arranged in logical piles. This morning, even more than many other mornings, her heart was not in it.
    She sat down and stared out the picture window, instead. She studied the mountains and the snow and another knockout day.
    * * * * *
     
    Luke made his way back to Timothy’s desk.
    Timothy saw him coming and pointed. “She’s in. She wants to see you.”
    There was something in Tim’s face. “Bad?”
    “She’s been in there forty minutes. She hasn’t made a single phone call yet.”
    “That’s bad?”
    Tim nodded. “It’s the worst it could be.”
    “Angry?”
    “You beat her at the game she considers her own. You figure it out.”
    Luke nodded. “Well, thanks. Guess I’d better get it over with.”
    He really was bracing himself, he realized. He walked down the corridor to Lindsay’s office, wondering how he was going to justify himself. ‘You’re so beautiful, I’d do anything for a date with you,’ would be more likely to earn him a slap across the face than a flattered smile.
    He tapped on the door and pushed it open.
    Lindsay was standing at the picture window, quite patently doing nothing but stare out at the spectacular scenery and the busy town below. She didn’t even turn to look at him.
    “Hi,” he offered.
    “Good morning.”
    He winced. No, not a good mood at all. He stepped in and shut the door. “You wanted to see me?”
    She turned then and Luke felt his heart give a little jump. There was no anger there. The crystal green eyes were surrounded by flesh that seemed almost bruised.
    She’s tired. And…defeated.
    And hard on the heels of that realization came the confirmation, You’re the one who defeated her, you jerk.
    Well it had seemed like such a superb opportunity at the time.
    “You know why I wanted to see you,” she said shortly and there was no tiredness in her voice at all.
    “You want to know why I…” He paused delicately.
    “Why you cheated.”
    “I didn’t cheat, Lynds.”
    “Don’t call me that!”
    “Sorry. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t lie. You did it all yourself.”
    “That’s supposed to