Bound to You Read Online Free PDF Page B

running a business,
I reminded myself.
    I retrieved my phone. I’d make this quick.
    I had one single message. The number and the name was new, but familiar now.
    I backed up to the bed and sat.
    The message read:
are you up?
    My fingers hovered over the keypad. He had no business messaging me right now. I took a deep breath. This was easy to handle.
It’s only nine, Mr. Quinn.
    I moved to put the phone down, but the response was lightning fast. What was he doing?
so what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?
    I’ll send you an email early in the morning with our plans.
    The reply appeared:
nothing else tonight?
    My breath skittered and my thigh muscles clenched. No, nothing else tonight. Even as tempted as I might be. I quickly typed:
There’s nothing to discuss yet.
    My brain lost focus for a moment. This part should be easy. Just tell him to watch a pay-per-view fight or a flick on Netflix and call it a day.
We
    And then I had nothing.
We…
We what?
    My finger hovered over the G key. There were so many things I could say. That we were going to whatever event the PI determined would be best. That we should have a breakfast meeting—in public—to go over a plan of attack.
    The phone rang. He was trying to call me. By the third ring I finally gave in and picked up.
    “Is everything all right, Miss Ashton?” He had amusement in his voice. The casual timbre of someone who was relaxed. My imagination ran amok, feeding me an image of him sitting in his tiny bachelor apartment, propped up in a chair with his shirt slightly open….
    “Miss Ashton?”
    “Everything’s fine. It’s been a long day with clients and I haven’t had any downtime at all.”
    “You did mention during dinner that you’d only had a protein bar. Should I be concerned you won’t be up for the rigorous work I had in mind?”
    I didn’t miss the double entendre in his words and I tried to let them skim off my back. “I’ll keep up just fine. I’d say you should be the one ready for what comes up. We might be changing plans on the fly, so I’d be prepared for everything from golf matches to the opera. Pretty much anything.”
    Now that I was talking business the tension in my stomach melted a bit. This was the Sophie I depended on. The confident person.
    “Sounds good.” He grew quiet. Any moment now I expected him to hang up. In the silence I waited to hear the sounds of a television, the hum of something else.
    “Is there anything else you need, Mr. Quinn?” I held my breath. Would he say what he had been thinking during dinner? That he wanted to fuck me? That our evening wasn’t over yet?
    I detected his smile. Or maybe I thought he was smiling. The brief clink of someone drinking from a shot glass. “As of right now, there are many things I
need,
but tomorrow is a new day. Good night, Miss Ashton.” The
click
and then I was left sitting there like a fool.
    I connected my phone to the charger and got to work at my desk. There were things to tackle and little time to do them. But as the night stretched along, my gaze kept flicking to the drawer next to my bed. The hunger that had filled me all evening had left my stomach gathered in uncomfortable knots.
    Reluctantly casting my work aside, I went to the drawer and unlocked it. Scattered among my ropes, gathered in neat bundles, I spied a single handwritten note.
    A note I should’ve thrown away a long time ago, but I clung to Sato’s goodbye letter, or maybe I should say it still clung to me.

Chapter 5
    Sophie
    As expected, my bed didn’t bring any comfort. Every direction I lay seemed like an exercise in futility. By the time I settled upside down with my pillow under my feet, the clock read two thirty A.M.
    Lovely.
    Unfortunately
,
I still considered two a perfectly good time to work. From birth I had never slept more than a few hours.
    And with time to burn, I became pensive and restless. And when I got pensive, I thought about the past. Beside me, my bedside drawer was shut. I was