With Love From Las Vegas. Cat Schield

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      He wrenched his attention back to her face. “Yes?”

      “I said, if you’ve come to drag me back to work, I’m not going without a fight.”

      For a second, the notion of tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her back to his suite blocked every sane thought in his head. “I’m not paying you to sit by the pool.”

      “Then consider this a vacation day. I have plenty to burn.”

      “You picked a hell of a time to go AWOL.”

      She sighed. “Everything is organized. The summit doesn’t start until the cocktail party tonight. There’s plenty of time for me to have a little fun. You should, too.”

      “I’m not here to have fun,” he reminded her.

      She wrinkled her nose. “Yes, I know. But you’re so prepared you could probably do the entire summit in your sleep. Why don’t you relax a little today?”

      “How do you suggest I do that?”

      She stopped in the act of spreading lotion on her arm and brought her gaze to bear on him. The unbridled hope in her eyes twisted his gut. Was he that much of a tyrant?

      “You could start by buying me a drink.”

      “It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”

      She snapped the lid of the suntan lotion closed and picked up a beige sun hat, adorned with blue forget-me-nots. Once she set it on her head, the wide brim hid her expression from him.

      “Make it an orange juice.”

      Sebastian held his hand out to Missy and braced himself for the contact with her skin. She wiped lotion from her palms before giving Sebastian her hand. As expected, a pulse of fire sped up his arm and struck below his belt. He released her before the temptation to pull her close gave him away. Instead, he set his palm at the small of her back and nudged her toward the tiki-style bar.

      From beneath her ruddy lashes, she peered his way. “I’m sorry I ran off without telling you this morning.”

      “I’m sorry you felt you had to.”

      “Am I hearing things or did the never-wrong Sebastian Case just apologize to his lowly assistant?” Laughter brightened the green in her eyes.

      “I’m wrong on occasion and am not such an ass that I can’t admit it.” Driven by compulsions too strong to fight, he grazed his fingertips upward until he encountered bare skin. “And you are far from lowly.”

      A faint tremor beneath his hand told him she found the skin-to-skin contact as disturbing as he did. This attraction between them was a distraction he couldn’t afford.

      He directed her on top of the only empty stool and stood behind her. Her sun-warmed shoulder brushed his chest as he leaned forward to order her a drink, increasing his temperature even further. With a dismayed sound, she scooted away.

      “You’re going to ruin your suit if you get suntan lotion on it.”

      “I don’t care.”

      “How can you not care?” she countered. “You spend a fortune on your clothes.”

      He lifted a shoulder. He’d ruin a hundred suits if it meant being close to her. The scent of suntan lotion rising off her skin aroused the craving to strip that boring bathing suit off her body and determine if the sun had marked her gorgeous pale flesh.

      She gasped as he hooked a finger beneath her bathing suit strap and tugged it out of place. “What are you doing?”

      “Making sure you aren’t getting too much sun.”

      “When you touch me, I have trouble thinking straight,” she whispered.

      Her admission awakened a rumble of pleasure. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

      “I don’t understand what’s going on between us.”

      Nor did he. “Nothing is going on.”

      “We made love last night.”

      It took a great deal of effort, but he locked away his erotic musings. “It should never have happened.”

      “But it did.” She met his gaze, her eyes soft with curiosity.

      She wanted to know why he’d made love to her when he’d been so determined it was the wrong thing to do. He hadn’t quite answered that question for himself. He could blame it on intense sexual chemistry, but that wouldn’t be the whole truth. Grasping the whole truth might just lead him into uncharted territory where his assistant was concerned.

      A familiar figure emerged from the pool and reminded Sebastian that he had more problems at hand than his wayward assistant. “Did my mother give you any hint of what my father is really doing here?”

      Reeling from what she’d glimpsed in Sebastian’s somber gray eyes, Missy scrambled to reorient her thoughts. “She said your dad went golfing this morning. I assumed they came here on vacation.”

      “He took Lucas Smythe golfing. Probably intends to talk him out of selling Smythe Industries to us.”

      Missy’s chest tightened. Sebastian’s relationship with his father was uneasy. During the years she worked for the eldest Case son, she’d had a front-row seat to Sebastian’s battle with his father over business strategies and the direction the company should move in the future.

      When Brandon’s health problems had surfaced and he’d announced his plans to retire, Missy had assumed Sebastian and Max would at last have the chance to run things their way. Then the surprise announcement—Brandon had convinced Nathan to return to Houston and join the family business.

      Although everyone at the company knew Nathan was a half brother to Max and Sebastian, Missy suspected she was the only one outside the family who knew that Nathan was a love child produced by Brandon’s long-time mistress who died when Nathan was twelve.

      Because Missy had gotten to know Sebastian’s mother fairly well, Susan had discussed those early days when her husband first insisted that Nathan move in with them. Missy wasn’t sure she could have put aside her hurt and anger at a husband’s betrayal the way Susan had. In fact, she’d treated Nathan no differently than if he’d been her own son.

      Nor had her biological sons made things any easier. Susan had described a house in turmoil. Sebastian and Max were old enough to understand how deeply their father had hurt their mother and resented the appearance of a half brother that didn’t belong. Bitterness led to bad behavior. It was no surprise when Nathan took off after college. And from what Missy had gathered, he might have stayed away if Brandon’s heart problems hadn’t grown serious. Too bad having Nathan work for Case Consolidated Holdings was just the first of many times Brandon had interfered since his retirement.

      “My father’s planning on attending the summit,” Sebastian continued.

      “Are you going to be okay?” She put her hand on his arm, sympathy spilling СКАЧАТЬ