Take Two: An Erotic Romance (Book 1) by Maddie Bennett Read Free Book Online Page A

first thing we’d
do would be to review the histories of the companies you’re invested in. That
way you’ll have a better understanding of their markets,” said Mathis, his tone
professional.
     
    The next forty minutes or so were a deluge of information, most of
it entirely new to me. From time to time, Mathis would fire a question at me
about one of the businesses. If I got it right, a curt nod of acknowledgement
was all I received. If I got it wrong, another lecture followed, with a whole
new barrage of facts. Whatever else Mathis was, he still possessed that
incredible focus and dedication to his work that I remembered from that summer.
     
    My own focus had never been nearly as good except for when I was
reading. I was starting to flag, and Mathis could sense it.
     
    “Alright , Amanda. This is an easy one. What is the net worth of
Dillinger, Inc.?”
     
    “Dillinger?” I frowned, trying to remember that one fact among the
flood of information which Mathis had provided me with. “A few hundred
million?” I guessed.
     
    “Pay attention, Amanda. We went over this already,” Mathis sighed.
     
    “Ugh!” I pushed my hair back with my hands, feeling my brain melt
like a marshmallow over a campfire. “It’s just too much to remember all at once,
Mathis. I need some time to digest all this information.”
     
    “You just need to focus, Amanda. I know you can do it if you try,”
Mathis said, and his tone bordered on encouraging, the soft, warm tone I
remembered from the days when we tried to climb the highest trees in the wood,
so high that we could see all the way back to Uncle Andy’s house.
     
    I took courage from his slightly more friendly tone. “Do you
remember when we climbed that old oak tree at Uncle Andy’s house in the
country?”
     
    “Amanda, I don’t—” Mathis started, but I interrupted him.
     
    “You made a bet with me that you could climb higher than I could.
I was so desperate to prove you wrong. I raced you up, climbing on the branches
that were too thin for you, the ones that wouldn’t bear your weight. You
shouted at me to be careful,” I grinned, remembering the worried look on
Mathis’ face as I sped on ahead of him.
     
    “I remember,” Mathis said, a slight smile quirking his lips, the
same smile which had made my heart beat faster when I was fifteen years old.
After all this time, that particular effect didn’t seem to have dulled in the
slightest. “You wouldn’t listen to a word I said. All you were interested in
doing was beating me.”
     
    “You came up after me to make sure I was okay, though,” I added.
     
    “And one of those damn branches snapped beneath my weight,” Mathis
laughed ruefully. “I fell about ten feet before I caught myself on one of the
lower branches. We were quite the risk takers.”
     
    “It was scary,” I giggled at the memory. “Uncle Andy was so mad
when we got back to the house – you were all cut up and bleeding.”
     
    “So were you,” Mathis chuckled, his eyes crinkling up delightfully
as he recalled the incident, his expression almost… fond? “You must have set a
world record for how fast you climbed down to check I was okay.”
     
    I smiled in response to his warm expression, and for a moment we
were the Mathis and Amanda of over a decade ago, adventurous and reckless,
laughing about all the stupid things we had done together. I felt warm and
secure as he looked at me, his face relaxed into a smile and his eyes once
again dancing with that impish expression I remembered so well. It made my
fingertips tingle and something stir in my belly, as if someone had let loose
fireworks inside me. It was a peculiar, heady feeling.
     
    In an instant, though, Mathis seemed to remember himself. His
friendly expression faded back into an impassive mask, his light blue eyes grew
cold and hard, and he leaned back, pulling a book off his shelf.
     
    “You’ll need to read the first five chapters before our next
meeting,” he