Read Online Billionaire's Contract Engagement by Maya Banks - Free Book Online

behind him. He held up another key card in explanation.
    He looked tired and resigned.
    “Look, I know you’re angry.”
    She held up a hand. “Don’t you dare patronize me. You have no idea how furious I am. Angry doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
    He blew out his breath and ran a hand through his hair. He tossed his suit coat onto the arm of the couch.
    She pointed to the door with a shaking finger. “Out. I won’t share a suite with you. I don’t care how many bedrooms it has.”
    “I need a drink,” Evan muttered.
    The man wouldn’t even fight with her, and by God she wanted a fight.
    “You never had any intention of listening to my ideas, did you?”
    He stopped on his way over to the liquor cabinet and turned back around to stare at her. He had the audacity to look puzzled.
    “I’ve been such an idiot. I can’t believe I fell for this crap. How this was the only time you could fit me in. Blah, blah, blah. How naive does that make me? How stupid does it make me?”
    He held up a hand and took a step in her direction. “Celia…”
    “Don’t Celia me,” she whispered furiously. It galled her that she could feel the prick of tears. He would not make her cry. She was through letting men make her cry.
    She needed to pull it together and be professional. A really nasty, vivid curse word, one that she’d learned from her brothers burst into her mind. It was certainly appropriate under the circumstances.
    Screw professional.
    “I have had it with men who manipulate me because of my looks. Here’s a clue. I can’t help the way I look and it doesn’t give you the license to use me or make assumptions about my character. And it damn sure doesn’t give you the right to use me to lie to your mother because your fiancée humiliated you by dumping you for your brother. Here’s another clue. Crap happens. It happens all the time. Get over it.”
    Evan’s hands closed over her shoulders. She tried to flinch away, but he held tight. There was honest regret in his eyes, but there was also determination. Stubborn determination.
    “Sit down, Celia,” he ordered in a low voice.
    She gaped at him.
    “Please.”
    It was the please that did it. Or maybe it was how tired and resigned he sounded. Or maybe it was the bleak light that entered his eyes. Or maybe she was just a flaming idiot who deserved everything she got for being sucked into this in the first place.
    She sank onto the sofa, her entire body trembling as he took a seat beside her.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t expect you to believe I didn’t do this maliciously or to hurt you. I swear, I didn’t.”
    She cast a sideways glance at him.
    He sighed. “Someone really did a number on you, didn’t they?”
    She turned away, refusing to give him confirmation.
    “Celia, look at me.”
    He waited, and she stared ahead. Still, he waited. Finally, she gave in and turned to look at him.
    “I completely and utterly messed this up. I freely admit it. I expected to have time to discuss this with you before we ran into my family.”
    She struggled to control her temper. He obviously wanted a reasonable discussion when she was feeling anything but reasonable. What she really wanted was to crack his skull on the coffee table and leave, but then she’d be without a room, and if anyone was sleeping in the hallway, it wasn’t going to be her.
    “First, this has nothing—and I mean nothing—to do with you landing my account. You’re going to have to do that on your business and advertising savvy. I’m not putting my entire company in the hands of a woman based on her looks or anything else. Can we at least be clear on that?”
    She swallowed. “That’s not how it looks to me, Evan. It looks to me like I got played for the fool and that you led me here on the premise of listening to my pitch when you never had any intention of this being about business. Tell me this much, have you already signed with Golden Gate? You owe me that much honesty at