The Tycoon's Make-Believe Fiancee Read Free

themselves to achieve those results.
    This was the first time she’d ever interacted with the man face to face. She was hard pressed to keep her mouth shut, and not berate him for being such a horrible person towards all his employees.
    “The report is late,” he said very succinctly. He stopped when he was about two feet from her, his eyes moving over her lovely features. His mind was less concerned with the report and wondering if her very pale, very smooth skin burned with the slightest touch of the sun. Or would she turn a delicate shade of tan?
    Her lips were slightly chapped, he noticed. From kissing her husband or boyfriend? He instantly dismissed that idea, not wanting this woman to be encumbered by a relationship with another man.
    “Yes, it is a few minutes late. But I think you’ll find that the information is accurate and….” She tried to come up with another benefit, but he moved closer to her and her brain just fizzled to a stop. “What are you doing?” she asked when he moved even closer to her, not sure why her voice was barely above a whisper. Or why the man smelled so….incredible!
    “What’s your name?” he demanded.
    Miranda blinked, not sure why he needed to know her name. “Am I about to be fired? Because if that’s the case, I think I’ll just keep my name to myself.”
    He couldn’t stop the chuckle that escaped at her obvious attempt to hide from his wrath. “I’ll find out anyway.”
    Her eyes accidentally dropped to his firm, thin lips but she suddenly realized what she’d done and forced her eyes to look back at his. “Yes, but if you don’t know my name immediately, it will at least give me a running start.”
    She had a point. And she was funny. He was even more intrigued. “What’s your name?”
    Miranda knew she couldn’t keep it from him and she was being ridiculous to even try. But she instinctively knew that flying under the radar with this man was the best way to go. An innate sense of self-preservation reared its head and she suspected that giving him her name would be dangerous. But what was the alternative?
    “I can see that your name is a difficult question. So let’s try another one. What do you do?”
    She blinked, her lips pursing as she tried to remember her role. “Um….”
    That supercilious eyebrow went up once again. “I can see that I’m probably paying you too much. You don’t know your name and you don’t know what you do for my company.”
    “Miranda!” she snapped, irritated by his deep voice that sounded like he was laughing at her. But that couldn’t be true because Royston Carmichael was reputed to not have a sense of humor. “Miranda Lillith. And I work in your finance department. I help the chief financial officer with the quarterly and monthly reports.”
    He nodded his head, thinking that he liked her even more because of her spirited reply. “And how long have you been working for me?”
    She tried very hard not to fidget, but he was so close! She wanted to step back, put some space between them. Enough space so she couldn’t smell his incredible, male scent that filled her head with some sort of enticing spice that she couldn’t identify. “Two years.”
    “Where did you go to school?”
    She thought about telling him the name of her elementary school, but really didn’t want to be fired. “NYU,” she finally replied.
    Royston watched her, sensing something deeper than she was revealing to him. “Are you married?”
    “No!” she replied, bristling.
    “Boyfriend?” he demanded again.
    Had he moved closer? “None of your business,” she came right back, trying not to breathe in too deeply. Maybe if she stopped breathing, she wouldn’t smell him. Was that chocolate? Good grief the man smelled good…she shook her head, telling herself that she didn’t need to identify what this man smelled like. He was the enemy! “And why are you asking me all of these questions? Don’t you want to know about your profit margins