Messing With Mac by Jill Shalvis Read Free Book Online Page B

all her life, she’s…frugal.” She let out a harsh laugh. “The richest frugal person you’ll ever meet.”
    â€œWhat about your dad?”
    â€œHe’s remarried. Lives in Europe, and I don’t see him very often.”
    â€œThey were talking about your mother as if she were there tonight.”
    â€œShe was,” she said. “She’s Isabel Craftsman.”
    Mac’s eyes widened. “The mayor?”
    â€œThe one and only.”
    â€œSo you’re one of those Wellingtons.”
    â€œThat would be me. One of those Wellingtons.” It usually went one of two ways from here. Either the person would stare at her in awe, because her mother, cold and precise as she was, had done excellent things for the city, or the person would sneer, because let’s face it, her mother hadn’t gotten to where she was by making friends.
    But Mac looked neither awed nor disgusted. “You really can’t go to her if you need help?”
    â€œI could, but…”
    â€œYou won’t,” he finished for her, his eyes filling with something she hadn’t seen from him before. Respect. “What about your sisters?”
    â€œLike I said, we’re not that close.”
    â€œThe building is worth a fortune.”
    â€œIf I sold it.” She opened her eyes and with fierce determination said, “Which I’m not doing. I’m not walking away from this. I’m not like them, Mac, those women in there, I’m not going to be like them if it kills me.”
    â€œYou’re not anything like them,” he agreed.
    She’d wanted someone on her side tonight, she’d wanted blind comfort, and this man, her virtual opposite, the thorn in her side, was offering it.
    No one had done such a thing for her since Jeff.
    Just the thought of him now, with Mac right there, felt like a betrayal to his memory, a stab to her al ready wounded heart, but Mac was throwing her, re acting the way she’d expect Suzanne to react. A friend. A girlfriend.
    Not a man.
    But she didn’t need him to react this way. She’d learned to depend on no one but herself. She was all she needed, she’d always simply comforted herself, and—
    Mac continued to stand there when she sniffedagain, not running, not reacting to her tears with his own reasoning.
    He simply opened his arms.
    And she stepped right into them. Stepped into them and steeped herself in his giving heat and overwhelming strength. Then she did as she’d wanted to, she buried her face in the crook of his neck, deeply inhaling the scent of wood, soap and one-hundred-percent man.
    Sinking his fingers into her hair, he lifted her face so he could look into it. She looked back, at the chiseled angle of his jaw, his slightly curved lips, his light golden eyes as they ran over her face before locking on hers.
    Taylor felt the jolt of his gaze all the way to her toes. She didn’t know how it was possible, but in his arms her problems seemed to fade away, chased by equal parts awareness and a morbid excitement she couldn’t, wouldn’t, deny. Winding her arms around his neck, she pressed a little closer, absorbing the helpless growl of awareness that rumbled up from Mac’s chest.
    A matching awareness combined with a heady female power that sizzled through her, because he felt it, too, whether he wanted to or not, he felt it, too. Proving it, his hands tightened on her, skimmed down her back, then slowly back up again, chasingany lingering chill with a blooming desire she hadn’t expected or wanted but wouldn’t deny. “Um…this might be a good time for you to tell me you’re married,” she said. “Or something.”
    â€œI’m not married.” His mouth quirked. “Or something. I’m not anything with anyone.”
    Chest to breast, belly to belly, she stared at him, and he stared at her right back. In that moment, he was the only person in