Taken by the Pirate Tycoon by Daphne Clair Read Free Book Online

saving.” Things her father had dismissed as “airy-fairy greenie-babble.”
    “And you left it to come back and run your father’s company.” He sounded almost disapproving.
    “Of course,” she said, oddly angry. “I always knew it would be mine one day. My inheritance.”
    He looked as though he wanted to say more, but then he nodded, and shifted so she could step by him.
     
    Jase let her move away, but his eyes followed her for minutes afterwards. He knew she was aware of his concentrated gaze. It was in the set of her head, the tension in her bare, smooth shoulders. Not looking back, she took cursory interest in several things before leaving the tables without buying any of them.
    She’d greeted Bryn tonight showing none of the unguarded emotion Jase had seen the first time he’d laid eyes on her. But he hadn’t missed the uncharacteristic warmth of her smile, nor the searching look she directed at Rachel, fleetingly revealing something strangely like sympathy.
    That thought brought his brows together and his mouth into an obdurate line as he watched Samantha greet someone elsewith what he’d come to think of as her company face—the serene, synthetic smile, not reaching the topaz-blue eyes with their enigmatic gaze.
    What was going on behind that beautiful, frustratingly emotionless facade? Why would she be sorry for Rachel? Surely that spelled trouble.
    His sister might seem to be a mature, successful woman—hell, she was . But there was a touching innocence about her all the same. He suspected she’d been so busy with her studies and career for the past ten years that she’d let personal relationships—male/female relationships anyway—pass her by. And she’d had a crush on Bryn Donovan since she was barely fifteen, something her whole family knew but had never mentioned to her.
    Jase was pretty sure that when the family moved away from Rivermeadows after Rachel’s last year at high school, his mother had been relieved. Not that she wouldn’t have trusted Bryn, but a pretty girl with her heart in her adoring big brown eyes must be a temptation to any red-blooded young man. Jase and his brother had found it rather hilarious that Bryn seemed to be the only one at Rivermeadows who hadn’t noticed how she felt about him.
    So when she’d come back into his life, it was nice that Bryn had fallen for her too. Or—uneasily Jase considered the possibility—maybe had been flattered into marrying her, because Rachel had never been that good at hiding her emotions.
    Not like Samantha.
     
    During Bryn’s first Magnussen’s board meeting Samantha gave a summary of the seminar they’d attended, skipping over Jase’s contribution as lightly as possible.
    But when she’d finished, Bryn strongly suggested that Magnussen’s could benefit from Jase’s expertise. It wasn’t, she thought ruefully, what she’d been looking for when inviting him to join the board. After he’d finished singing Jase’s praises, he said, “I should tell you that Jase Moore is my brother-in-law, but I know from experience that he’s very good at what he does. I’d like to move that Magnussen’s ask him to do a preliminary survey of its systems company-wide.”
    The murmurs of interest left Samantha no choice but to put the idea to the vote, with a foregone conclusion.
    This was business and—following in her father’s giant footsteps—she’d always put business first. Although she kept her hands firmly on the reins, unlike him she gave respectful weight to other opinions before making decisions. If she vetoed the idea the board members would wonder why.
    When she phoned, after she’d given him a brief outline of her reason for calling, Jase said, “I gather Bryn’s been talking me up to you.” His voice was level, and perhaps she was imagining the hint of censure in it.
    “As a member of my board. They want you to have look at our systems.”
    The silence that followed had an edge to it. She wondered if he was