Sweeter Temptation (Kimani Hotties) by Phyllis Bourne Read Free Book Online Page A

in from the cold.
    Kyle scanned the book spines and frowned.
    “What’s wrong?” Nia asked. “They’re a bit dated so the pages have yellowed with age, but they’re still readable.”
    He pulled a few of them from the shelf. “Bought by the Billionaire, The Doctor’s Secret Baby, The Cowboy’s Bride.” He read the titles aloud. “They’re all romance novels.”
    “It won’t kill you to read one,” she teased. “Maybe you can pick up a tip or two.” The flippant comment popped out of her mouth before she could stop it.
    The air in the room thickened with unspoken tension as Nia watched his gaze slide from her eyes to her lips.
    “I can handle myself in the romance department.” His eyes lingered on her mouth.
    If she didn’t know better, Nia would swear he was about to kiss her. She swallowed. Hard. Good thing she did know better, and no way Kyle wanted anything more from her than a warm place to stay.
    “If these titles don’t appeal to you.” Her voice came out like a squeak, and she cleared her throat. “I have a copy of yesterday’s newspaper in my bag.”
    “Does it have a sports section?”
    She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
    “Then it’s perfect.”
    With Kyle in the living room studying the sports section as if he were prepping for an exam, Nia retreated to the dining room to resume work on the proposal for Peppermint Village.
    This is where her focus should be—not on a man she’d just met.
    A few hours later, Nia frowned at the numbers on her computer screen. The mayor and council members’ ever-growing wish list had upped the ante on her original idea for a sixty-million-dollar family entertainment venue to a hundred-and-twenty-five million-dollar project. Each time she tried to get them to scale back, they added more.
    Nia bit down on her bottom lip. This plan had to succeed if her friends and neighbors were going to keep their jobs and Amy and Matt remain in the community they loved.
    Nia also had her own, more personal reasons for wanting Peppermint Village to come to fruition. Pulling this off would show her boss back in Chicago she was more than ready for the promotion he’d been promising.
    She was so deep in thought she didn’t hear Kyle walk into the room.
    “Just wondering if you were ready to take a break?” he asked.
    “Not yet. I still have a lot of work to do.”
    “What do you do for a living, again?”
    “I’m a secretary in the economic and community development office in a suburb west of Chicago.” For now, she silently added.
    “You must have a very understanding boss to allow you to do your job long-distance from here.”
    Nia wouldn’t necessarily characterize her boss as understanding. She was the only member of the small office’s administrative staff not related to her boss, Gerald Randall, and she was often stuck doing both her job and those of his lazy relations.
    However, it paid well, which she couldn’t thumb her nose at in the current economy.
    “Actually, I took a temporary leave of absence from my job,” she said.
    “So what are you working on now?” he asked.
    Nia shrugged. “I’m just lending my expertise to some friends,” she said, not wanting to bore him with talk about the proposed development or her worries that it may never get off the ground.
    He braced his hands on the dining room table and leaned across it toward her.
    “Do you have the letters M.D. behind your name?”
    “No.” Nia couldn’t stop the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
    Kyle used his fingertip to push the lid of her laptop closed.
    “Then it can wait,” he said. “You have a bored houseguest to entertain.”

Chapter 6
    K yle stood openmouthed waiting for Nia to deliver the punch line because she had to be joking.
    “You are kidding, right?” he asked, incredulous. “You can’t honestly expect me to go romping around in the snow I nearly froze to death in last night.”
    He walked to the window and pulled back the curtain. Hell, it