The Passionate Mistake by Amelia Hart Read Free Book Online Page A

to dispassionate, until his gaze met hers with that avid stare of triumph. Her body responded to it like it meant something else. Like it was a gaze charged with lust.
    It wasn’t, of course. He was triumphant to have solved a puzzle. That was the limit of it. For with a sickening lurch she recalled how she looked, how unlikely she was to stir any man in this get-up.
    His was a professional interest, of course. Solve a puzzle, find a freak programmer, liven up one’s managerial duties. Woohoo. That was all it was.
    She considered for a long moment, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes at him. “Maybe,” she conceded.
    “So why hide? Why be something you’re not? And I get the feeling you’re not the best go-fer.”
    “You get the feeling?” she probed, and he laughed.
    “Okay, okay. I was trying to be nice. I don’t get the feeling. I know. People have complained.”
    “So you’re going to fire me?” she asked pertly , forgetting her goal of promotion in the heady desire to challenge him, to duel.
    “ Promote. I’m going to promote you to something more your speed. Oh, and we haven’t been properly introduced, Cathy Thorpe. I’m Mike Summers.” He held out his hand for her to shake. She took it, shook it once briefly, then let go. Warm, dry, lightly callused. A firm grip. A good handshake. But then anyone could learn to give a good handshake.
    Still, the contact made her even more conscious of his overwhelming presence in her space. The cubicle was pretty small. The heavy fringe and the glasses felt like some defense against that penetrating assessment, but not enough. She folded her arms across her chest, lifted her chin and returned him stare for stare.
    Her boldness seemed to amuse him, for he grinned.
    “You’re a conundrum, you know,” he said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Your attitude doesn’t marry up with your position or image,” he said with surprising bluntness, gesturing to her shapeless, dowdy clothes and unadorned face and hair.
    “Are you commenting on my clothing choice?” she asked in a loaded tone she was certain conveyed all she meant to say about the thorny question of how a male boss should address the subject of a female employee’s wardrobe. That is: not at all when she fit comfortably within the dress code of casual.
    He was untroubled by her salvo. His grin only grew wider.
    “We paint pictures for others with the clothes we wear, our grooming. We tell them what to expect from us, for better or worse. Your picture doesn’t match the reality. Are you trying to disconcert?”
    “Of course not,” she dismissed with casual certainty, while internally cursing her own habitual forwardness that she seemed unable to tone down, especially with him. “I just don’t give it much thought. I can’t see why you would either.”
    He didn’t take offense at the edge of rudeness. Perhaps he was used to employees with few social skills. All in a day’s work. “That’s my job.” His comment fell so perfectly in accord with her unspoken thoughts she blinked in surprise, before matching it up with her own words and making sense of it.  “Look, if that is you fiddling with the code – and I’m pretty sure it is – you’re wasted sitting down here waiting for an errand to run. I’ve got projects for you to work on. Come with me.”
    “Perhaps i t wasn’t me.”
    “Whatever,” he said in good-natured dismissal. “Come on.” He backed up several steps and made a beckoning gesture. As she looked at his bland expression, overlaid on that handsome face, she thought this was what the devil would look like, if he ever actually showed up to tempt a mortal: beautiful and sinister. Then he smiled and the impression was gone, lost behind the glint of his eyes.
    “Come on,” he said again , in clear dismissal of every lame prevarication she had offered, as if they had never existed.
    S he looked at that smile and went, unresisting, the duel lost but the ultimate goal