Intimate Surrender. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ he thought about how he had obsessed over her in the three months since she blew through his life, the energy he had wasted looking for her, he could barely think past his rage and self-disgust.

      A Crosby.

      Just the name left a sour taste in his mouth. What an idiot he had been to throw away years of family loyalty, of complete dedication to the Logan name and everything it stood for, all for a pretty face.

      All right, more than pretty, he admitted. Even now, when she wore no makeup to set off those sculpted cheekbones and full lips and when she had dark circles under her eyes and her features were pale, his body instinctively reacted to her.

      He wanted her, even knowing who she was, and the discovery infuriated him even more.

      “This is about the super router we’re developing, isn’t it?” he asked.

      She was a hell of an actress, he’d give her that much. If he didn’t know better, he would almost believe that shock on her face was genuine. “What do you mean?” she asked.

      “You went through my desk while I was asleep. Don’t try to deny it. Find out anything interesting about the project?”

      Color flared high on those cheekbones. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      “Right. Now you’re going to tell me you don’t have any idea Logan is close to revolutionizing computer networking with our nano-peripheral-interface-router. And of course Crosby Systems, which coincidentally just released its own router-controller software, would have absolutely no interest in stealing the technology that would create the fastest networking system in the world. Come on, Crosby. You really think I’m dumb enough to fall for your lies twice?”

      She gaped at him. “You think I was spying on you that night? That I was some kind of—of corporate Mata Hari, out for a little industrial espionage after I screw you into oblivion?”

      “At this point, sweetheart, I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

      “Because I’m a Crosby, right?”

      That wounded belligerence in her voice grated down his spine like metal on metal. “Not only because you’re a Crosby. Because you’re also a lying, deceitful little—” He bit off the derogatory word just in time.

      He was such an idiot. He hated to think about how his family would react to his abysmal lapse in judgment when they learned he’d been willing to risk the company’s entire future for a roll in the sack. He had a feeling he would be lucky if his name was still on the door of the CEO’s office at Logan. Hell, he’d be lucky if they even let him keep the name he’d been given as a six-year-old.

      He never forgot how much he owed Terrence and Leslie Logan, how very blessed he had been to be adopted into their family two years after their own son had been kidnapped. If they hadn’t rescued him from the Children’s Connection orphanage, he hated thinking where he might have ended up. On the streets like his mother, probably, or in prison.

      He owed them everything. His heart, his blood, his soul. When they read that damn tabloid article, he could just picture the disappointment in Terrence’s eyes, the hurt in Leslie’s. The knot in his stomach kinked a little tighter.

      No. He had worked too hard for too long proving to his parents he was capable of running the Fortune 500 company they had built from the ground up. He refused to let a Crosby ruin everything, especially not this particular Crosby.

      “Don’t you think you’re being a little paranoid, Peter?” she said now. “I never touched your desk.”

      Against his will, he had a vivid memory of her naked and flushed the second or third time they made love, her luscious skin glowing with perspiration and the soft little noises of arousal she made as he took her against the nearest surface, which at the time just happened to be the top of his antique walnut desk.

      Throughout that incredible night of passion, there had scarcely been a corner of his loft they’d missed in their hunger for each other.

      He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He knew the instant her own memory clicked in. A rosy blush spilled over her cheeks and she dropped her gaze.

      “Well, besides that time,” she mumbled, looking so charmingly disconcerted he wondered how she could possibly be so deceitful.

      “I’ve tried to think about what I might have had lying around about our NPIR project but I’m coming up empty. Why don’t you refresh my memory? What did you find?”

      “Nothing! I wasn’t thinking about NPIRs or anything else computer related. I didn’t go anywhere near your stupid desk, except that time with…you.”

      “Yet the note you left was written on my own personal stationery, which I just happen to keep in the top drawer of that stupid desk.”

      She stared at him for a long moment, then she drew a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice sounded weary. “What do you want, Peter? Why follow me out here to the middle of nowhere? You could have yelled at me over the phone.”

      He refused to let himself be sidetracked by how fragile she suddenly looked. “I want some answers. What did you learn about our project?”

      “I didn’t learn anything! I told you that. I never even gave work a thought that night. If you’ll remember, you didn’t give me time to think about much of anything but you.”

      They stared at each other for a moment and he remembered again the wild passion they had shared. Or at least he thought they’d shared it. Had it all been feigned on her part? All those long kisses, her sighs and moans, the way she acted as if she couldn’t seem to get enough of him?

      That was the part that he was finding most difficult to accept, he finally admitted to himself. He had been enthralled with her, completely entranced. He had wanted her with a fierce hunger unlike anything he’d ever known before.

      While she had been as cold-blooded and calculating as an asp.

      “Did your brother tell you to sleep with me?” he asked.

      With a swift intake of breath, she stared at him, her brown eyes huge in her pale face. In any other woman, he might have almost believed she looked hurt. But he obviously couldn’t trust anything his instincts told him about Katherine Crosby.

      “That’s insulting to Trent and to me. I shouldn’t even justify it with a response but I will tell you that he knows nothing about this, about the two of us and that night. If he did, he would be livid.”

      Peter slapped the folded tabloid at her. “Hate to be the one to break it to you, sweetheart, but there’s not a person in Portland who doesn’t know by now.”

      She gazed at the paper for a moment, nibbling her lip again. “Okay so everyone might know we kissed. As for the rest of it, no one else has to know anything about that. We were both carried away by the champagne and the night and the whole thing. Matters never should have gone so far. We should both just forget it ever happened.”

      “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

      “Oh, you have no idea,” she murmured.

      At her words, another wave of anger washed СКАЧАТЬ