Read Online Protecting His Assets by J.K. Coi - Free Book Online Page B

out a few times, but it’s not serious.”
    Really? After the way they’d acted together outside the restaurant, his idea of serious must be different than hers. On the other hand, the woman had been the bolder of the two of them. Surprisingly, he hadn’t taken advantage of her blatant invitations and had even managed to send her home alone without seeming to cause any disappointment or hurt feelings.
    “And you are not running a check on her,” he finished.
    April said nothing. She didn’t need his permission to do her job. And her job was protecting him, even when he thought it was a joke. She’d get the information she required one way or another.
    “Don’t think you can go behind my back, either.” His voice was suddenly sharp and cold as ice. “Or you’ll be out on your ass so fast, you won’t know what hit you.”
    She snapped her gaze up to his with a gasp, surprised that he’d figured out exactly what she was thinking. “You can’t do that.”
    “Watch me.” His tense jaw seemed carved from stone, and she was startled to realize that she’d mostly bought into that laid-back, playboy act he’d been trotting out all day.
    For a second, she had peeked behind his easy-going, approachable CEO face. Just for a second, but it was long enough to confirm that there was definitely more to Steve Nolan than the public got to see. She suspected there was more to him than even most of his friends got to see.
    Her shoulders stiffened. At one time, she might have been intrigued and drawn in by those sharp glimpses of intensity, by the hint of danger. But that was a more naive April from a different time. She was no longer interested in guys like that…she wasn’t. Besides, with her father’s illness, she didn’t have time for intense romantic entanglements anyway.
    She curbed her tone. “I am diligently trying to do my job here, Mr. Nolan. But if you insist on curtailing this investigation and putting unreasonable limits on my duties, it’s only going to take longer to get to the bottom of this.” She shrugged as if it was no skin off her back. “That’s fine because I get paid by the hour no matter how long it takes, but I was under the impression that time was not on your side.”
    He ignored her and pressed forward, crowding her backward until the handrail along the wall of the elevator bisected her spine. She schooled her features. His face was inches from hers, so close she could see the brilliant flecks of gold in his deep brown eyes.
    She realized it was one thing to tell herself she wasn’t interested, quite another to mean it. Especially when Nolan was looking right at her— into her —as if he could see and feel the pounding of her pulse. Especially when he still smelled of a fresh shower, which reminded her of the sweat that had poured down his chest back at the gym. Especially when she hadn’t had sex in so long, and his exact brand of strength, confidence, and magnetism was her drug of choice—notwithstanding that it was a drug that would only add complications to her life that she wasn’t equipped to handle .
    “Whoever’s playing these sick games is a stranger,” he murmured darkly. “It isn’t anyone close to me, so you do not need to interrogate my friends.”
    “How can you be so certain?”
    “Because no one who knows me at all would dare fuck with me like this.” He smiled, but this time he didn’t try to hide the dangerous predator lurking behind the perfectly cut suit and stiff silk tie. He was a sleek, powerful shark whipping silently through the dark water. And as his gaze flicked to her mouth, she knew he’d set his sights on her as an appetizer.
    It wasn’t hard to imagine what he would do to someone who betrayed him, but she also knew from personal experience that no matter how safe you thought you were, the pain of betrayal could come from anywhere. The people closest to you were often the ones who ended up hurting you the most…whether they meant to or