Read Online Sweet Nothings: A Karma Café Novella by Tawny Weber - Free Book Online Page A

the right words. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought through his closing arguments. But none of his cleverly worded pitches had taken into account mind-blowing sex.
    Her clothes balled in her arms, one hand still gripping the sheet tight against her, Bianca glared.
    Then she swept into the bathroom and slammed the door.
    Jacob dropped to the bed, his head in his hands.
    God. What had he been thinking?
    He’d slept with the daughter of a good, albeit dead, friend.
    He’d had mind-blowing sex with a potential client, a woman who was critical in a multi-million dollar settlement.
    And he’d lied by omission to a woman who was as sweet as she was passionate, as trusting as she was gorgeous.
    He was scum. And now he had to convince Bianca to go along with his plan to stop Lynn from gutting her inheritance.
    Somehow.
    It was like wading through quicksand, but as deep as he was, Jacob couldn’t bring himself to regret having sex with her. It’d been too good.
    As if she’d heard his thoughts and not only wanted to remind him of how good, but to rub his face in the fact that he wasn’t going to get any more, Bianca strode out of the bathroom.
    Without her blouse.
    Jacob gulped. He’d spent hours exploring the glorious bounty of her naked body. But seeing her in only her jeans and bra sent a shaft of desire south so fast he figured it was a good thing he was sitting. Otherwise he’d fall over from the swift loss of blood to his brain.
    “Bianca, can we please talk this over,” he started.
    She didn’t even look at him as she stormed out of the bedroom.
    Jacob hurried after her, moving fast and grabbing her blouse before she could. Holding it hostage, he shook his head and repeated, “We have to talk.”
    “But I don’t want to hear anything you have to say,” she told him, crossing her arms over her chest. The move pressed her breasts high against the black lace of her bra, making his mouth water.
    Get a grip, he warned himself.
    “Lynn White has filed to have you declared dead. I don’t know whether it’s because she’s tired of waiting to get her hands on the bulk of your father’s estate, or because she’s worried you might pop up to claim your trust next year. Either way, she’s planning to steal what’s yours.”
    “She can have it,” Bianca said with a shrug that made her breasts bounce and his libido whimper.
    Focus, dammit. Jacob clenched his fists to keep himself from reaching for her.
    “You’d rather be declared dead than stand up for yourself?”
    “The last time I tried to stand up for myself, she tried to kill me,” Bianca snapped. Her eyes spit fury, her stance so combative that Jacob had trouble believing that this woman had ever let anyone push her around. But her trembling lips told him she wasn’t exaggerating.
    “Your client, my dear stepmother, was furious when I refused to go to boarding school in England where I’d be well out of her hair. She pushed me down the stairs, then stepped over my broken body on her way out to dinner.” Bianca sucked in a deep breath, as if trying to steady her shaking words. “The next day, because I’d had the nerve to tell the emergency room doctor the truth of what happened and force her to call me a liar, she locked me in my bedroom. It took me three days to find a way out.”
    The fury drained, leaving her face devastated and her eyes filled with remembered pain.
    “Do you know how hard it is to climb down a tree with a broken arm and sprained ankle? I did it, though. And then I ran.” Her eyes were huge, bruised and tired as she shook her head at him. “The last thing she said to me was that if I ever defied her again, she’d kill me.”
    He’d always hated Lynn White.
    Jacob’s jaw clenched with the effort to hold back his fury. The last thing Bianca needed, though, was him spewing the many ways he wanted to tear her stepmother apart.
    Reason, he told himself, breathing deep. Use reason.
    “But that was then. This is now. She’s