Bidding on the Billionaire Read Online Free PDF Page A

was Hannah, he fished his phone from his pocket and drew up Hannah’s number from his favorites. Yeah. He’d had her number for all of a week now, and she was in his favorites already. The first ring sounded across the courtyard. The woman’s cheeks blazed bright red. As she fished her phone out of her back pocket, her hands shook so much it slipped from her grasp onto the ground. As she bent to retrieve it, the odd jingle sounded again and heads turned.
    She punched something on the screen and held the phone to her ear. “I guess the jig’s up, huh?”
    A full-on grin spread across his mouth. Christ, he couldn’t help himself. That was Hannah. He couldn’t get ahead of himself, though. She had some questions to answer first. He wouldn’t play the hopeless fool again, with his heart on his sleeve. “Was anything you told me true?”
    She shrugged. “If I told you I was five foot three and ten pounds too heavy, would you even have met me here?”
    His heart twisted. She had him there. Insecurities. He knew them well. Which meant if he expected the truth, he needed to give it as well. He had to be honest with her, even if this went nowhere.
    “You don’t look too heavy, baby. You look healthy. The women in my circles are too damn thin, starving themselves to meet someone else’s idea of beautiful.” Hannah had curves on top of curves. She had small breasts he suspected would fit perfectly in his palms, topped by strong shoulders. Her round ass filled out her dark jeans to perfection. He couldn’t wait to get her out of them. He ached to discover if her skin was as soft as it looked.
    “Besides, it’s you I’m addicted to. You’re the reason I go straight home to my computer at the end of every night despite swearing I was done with women seven months ago. That’s the answer to your question, by the way. Why I don’t find a real woman. My ex killed the need. She used me and she cheated on me, and, sadly, she wasn’t the first. I found her in bed with my best friend. She used him, too, pitted us against each other for her own gain. I’m curious, though. How much of our exchanges were just you playing a game?”
    He focused on his work these days. He’d had it up to his eyeballs with phony women and being used. Women who saw him as nothing more than a bank balance or a plaything had long ago worn out their welcome. His ex had been the last straw. She’d slept with Sebastian, his childhood best friend, then dropped the bomb on both of them—she was pregnant, and she didn’t know which of them had fathered the child. He and his lawyer had taken her to court, forcing her to prove her claims, but so far, she hadn’t complied. She was still game-playing, trying to blackmail him into paying her off.
    One. That’s all he wanted. One woman who’d be honest with him. Which made him wonder about Hannah.
    When she didn’t answer his question, he smiled, tight but polite. “I take it you did your research on me? What did you discover?”
    She watched him for a moment, her gaze locked on his. Then she drew a breath, her shoulders softening. “You’re a corporate lawyer. You work for your father, Declan McKenzie, in one of the largest and oldest law firms on the West Coast. Your father is worth billions and you made full partner last year, the youngest lawyer in your firm to do so. Your family also owns a small but up-and-coming software company.”
    He nodded. “Mmm. My sister’s baby.”
    Impressive, but he had no desire to let her off the hook yet. She’d lied to him but shown up anyway. What was her game?
    “You should have discovered by now I want the same thing you do. I want someone who can be straight with me, who doesn’t see me as a means to lining their closets or stroking their inflated ego. How much of what you told me was the truth?”
    Meeting Hannah had been a fluke. They’d met in an online discussion about a hot novel seated on the top of the New York Times bestseller list. The erotic