Captive but Forbidden Read Online Free PDF Page B

piece of her mind. She’d had quite enough of being told what to do lately. She had to conform to a schedule as president, had to take meetings and attend functions, had to let her day-to-day activities be far more structured than they’d been since she’d lived on her own.
    But she’d agreed to do those things when she’d decided to run for office. What she hadn’t agreed to do was let a dark, sexy stranger intrude on the very small slice of privacy she had remaining.
    Her gaze drifted to Raj. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he seemed engrossed in his call. He was even more golden in the candlelight than he’d been in the low lights of the powder room. So handsome. So dangerous. Like the tiger she’d first envisioned when he’d filled the small anteroom and made her aware of him on a level she wished she weren’t.
    A ring glinted on his right hand, a signet made of gold. She hadn’t noticed that before.
    His white tuxedo shirt stretched across his chest, and onyx studs winked at her in the flickering light. He reached up and loosened the stud at his neck before yanking the bow tie off and tossing it aside.
    She started at the small wedge of bare skin he’d revealed. He glanced up then, straight at her, and she twisted away, cursing herself for getting caught. A momentlater he ceased talking and tucked the phone into his trouser pocket.
    “Was that Brady?” she asked.
    “No.”
    Frustration knotted her stomach. Since she didn’t know what else to do, she reached up and began to unpin her hair, dropping the pins onto the glass side table with a
clink, clink, clink.
Then she threaded the fingers of both hands through her hair, loosening the glossy mass.
    When she stopped, Raj was watching her. He stood in the same place he had been, his gaze hard.
    Her stomach flipped, her pulse humming with energy. She looked away and began to remove her jewelry.
    “Have you been doing this kind of thing long?” she asked. If he insisted on staying, then the least she could do was bore him with questions. Maybe he’d decide to leave her alone after all.
    “A few years.”
    “How exciting.” She slipped off the jewelry—bracelet, necklace, rings—and dropped everything on the table with the pins. “Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever worked for?”
    “Confidential information.”
    She glanced up at him, her heart squeezing as she took in the masculine beauty of his face once more. “Ah, of course.”
    “Are you trying to interview me, Madam President?” he asked, one corner of his mouth twitching with humor.
    She swallowed. Humor was not at all the effect she’d been going for. Veronica pulled her feet up beneath her and began to absently rub one instep while her blood beat in her temples, between her breasts. “Not precisely.But if we’re to be stuck here together for the foreseeable future, it seems a way to pass the time.”
    It took her several moments to realize that the side slit in her gown had dropped open to reveal the curve of her legs. She resisted the urge to cover herself, though she suddenly wanted to do so. But she would not let him think she cared that his hot eyes skimmed her form.
    “How does one get into the bodyguard business anyway?”
    “You’ve certainly grown chatty,” he observed, meeting her gaze once more. She felt heat rising in her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. Then he shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I was in the military. It seemed the logical thing to do when I got out.”
    “Oh, I see. And do you work for a company that sends you out on these jobs?”
    “In a manner of speaking,” he said.
    The humor was back, but this time she didn’t know why.
    “If this
were
a job interview,” she pointed out, “I don’t think I’d be inclined to hire you based on these answers. You’re almost monosyllabic.”
    He sank onto the chair opposite, his big form sprawling comfortably—as if he belonged here, in her suite. As if
he
were the