Read Online The Boss's Mistletoe Maneuvers by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom - Free Book Online Page B

simple, and she’d nearly been flat out on top of it. So what if she had liked the kiss and his hard body pressed to hers? It was best not to think about those things now. The guy, gorgeous as he was, charming as he could be, shouldn’t have taken such liberties. The vice president should have known better.
    With a stern bite to her lower lip, Kim used her purse to snap the button inside the elevator that would close this case once and for all. Was she proud of how she’d accomplished this?
No.
Happy about it?
Absolutely not.
She felt dirty. Yet she had remembered the recorder at the last minute and done what had to be done.
    Monroe wouldn’t fight her. Nothing good ever came of a lawsuit. So, the hope she maintained right that minute was that he would realize this and stop bothering her to change the terms of her contract. Life as usual would be the result.
    The dark clouds she had been trying so hard to shake off drifted over her. She pictured her mother smiling. In reaction, Kim felt her face blanch. She swayed on her feet, truly hating what she had done and the memories that wouldn’t stop invading her mind, all because of her mother’s far-reaching influence.
    This night was over, and it was too late to take anything back. She had made her bed, but at least Monroe wasn’t in it.
    “Good night,” she said to him with a catch in her throat.
    He stood in the corridor, motionless, his eyes on her as the elevator doors finally closed.

Five
    W
ell, well...
    Kim had called his bluff. She thought she’d done pretty well in this game, and he had to hand it to her. She’d hung in there and had been fairly creative about it. Still, the result was a disappointment. He hadn’t figured she would go so far in the wrong direction.
    As the elevator doors closed between them, Chaz shrugged his shoulders. He knew that Kim had to be feeling a little guilty after hearing him state his case. She wasn’t dense. The telling detail about her current state of mind was that aside from the tape recorder, she hadn’t slapped him again.
    Hearing the clink of rapidly approaching heels on the marble floor, Chaz turned and said, “That wasn’t remotely close to what we had discussed.”
    Brenda Chang strode up to him wearing a frown. “I don’t feel very well. I feel like I’ve just stabbed my best friend in the back because—oh wait—
I have.
”
    “You left us alone out of the goodness of your heart,” he pointed out.
    “Yes, but you didn’t pay me enough to betray her.”
    “I didn’t pay you anything at all.”
    “That’s what I mean.”
    “I had to try to reach her. I did try.” Chaz shook his head, eyeing the elevator.
    “You have no idea how much she’d like to capitulate. She’s just not ready,” Brenda said.
    “There’s no way to help with that? You won’t tell me what her problem is?”
    “Not for love or money. Wild horses couldn’t drag Kim’s secrets from me without her permission.”
    Chaz ventured another lingering look at the elevator.
    Brenda’s voice sounded small. “What next?”
    “My hands are tied. She wants to be left alone.”
    “You already knew that.”
    Chaz shot her a look that indicated quite clearly that he wasn’t in the mood to prolong this discussion.
    “All right,” Brenda said. “But you’d better turn out to be a good guy, that’s all I can say, or you’ll have problems added onto problems. That’s a promise.”
    Chaz leaned back to read the numbers on the elevator panel above the door. “If she’s going back to the office, will she stay up there long?”
    Brenda shrugged.
    “Does she need your shoulder to lean on?” he asked.
    “I doubt it. Besides, she’ll probably get out one floor up and use the stairs to leave the building, knowing she’d get past you that way.”
    Brenda’s eyes widened when she realized she’d said too much.
    “That shrewd, eh?” he asked.
    She blew out a sigh. “Every woman knows how to do this, Monroe. Avoidance is coded into