Engaging the Boss (Heirs of Damon) Read Free Page B

showed it was after one in the morning.
Instead of complaining about his rudeness, she said, “It’s no problem. What’s
going on?”
    “I
wasn’t thinking before,” he explained, pulling himself together so she wouldn’t
think he was a complete spaz. “I can’t let you pose as my fiancée.”
    “Why
not?”
    “It
wouldn’t be fair to Matt. I’m sure he won’t like this. I’m not sure why I
didn’t think of it before.”
    “Matt?”
she asked, pushing up one strap of her top that kept slipping down her
shoulder.
    “Matt,”
he repeated, trying not to look at the generous amount of cleavage revealed by
the slipping of her tank top. Where the hell had that come from? “Your
boyfriend? It wouldn’t be right for us to do this. I can think of something
else.”
    She
stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “I’m not dating Matt anymore.”
    “What?”
    “We
broke up almost two years ago. How could you not know that?”
    Jonathan
froze, trying to wrack his brain. Had he heard about the breakup and forgot
about it? Surely not. He would have noticed if Sarah had moved from the “Taken”
compartment in his mind.
    He’d
always been comfortable with her, since she was smart, accommodating, and had
the same priorities he did. She worked for him and was thus off-limits for deep
friendship or dating, so he didn’t have to worry about dealing with anything
personal. For the first few months, she’d tried to thank him all the time and
made a big deal about trivial things, which he hadn’t liked at all. But, since
then, she’d always been perfectly safe and comfortable.
    Until
now, for some reason.
    “Did
you tell me?” he asked.
    She
shrugged, glancing down almost shyly, which struck him as uncharacteristic. And
kind of pretty. “I don’t know. Maybe not. But I figured you’d know. Everyone knew.”
    It
was true that no one had any privacy in the lab. In such a closed community,
keeping a secret was almost impossible, but he usually just ignored the gossip,
since it wasn’t of any interest to him.
    “So
you don’t have a boyfriend?”
    “No,”
she said, adjusting the wayward strap again and, in the process, hiding some of
the cleavage. “It’s totally fine. It’s no big deal. Really.”
    “Okay.
Good.” He stood for a moment, still feeling rather disoriented, like his
precariously balanced world was starting to wobble.
    Unfortunately,
in the process of staring, he noticed that he could see the outline of her
nipples beneath the thin fabric of her top.
    He
really didn’t need to see that.
    Her
breasts were gorgeous, full and rounded, their shape easily visible beneath the
clingy fabric. His body obviously liked the look of them, which was totally
wrong.
    He’d
tried to date when he first set up the lab here in Iceland, but there weren’t
many women around that matched his intellect and interests and soon it was more
trouble than it was worth. So he’d lived like a monk for the last three years.
It wasn’t an ideal situation, but his urges were simply physical. There were
ways to take care of those urges that didn’t interfere with work.
    But
his body knew it was being deprived, and was clearly taking revenge by reacting
quite wrongly to Sarah now.
    “Is
everything all right?” she asked, peering at him in concern.
    “Yeah.
Sorry. That is, sorry I woke you up.”
    “So
we’re still on for the trip?”
    “Yeah.
If you’re not with Matt anymore, then I guess it’s fine.”
    “Great.”
Her eyes scanned over him, as if she’d just noticed his condition. “Why are you
all sweaty?”
    “I
was on the treadmill,” he explained, gesturing with the comic book he still
held, as if that would explain why his t-shirt was sticking wetly to his chest.
    She
peered at the comic book, her lips turning up in a smile. “I didn’t know you
ran on the treadmill. Is that what you always read?”
    He
glanced down at it almost sheepishly. He’d managed for three years to keep his
habits