Counselor Undone Read Online Free PDF Page A

successful immunotherapeutic
drug Davrosil, and forced to disgorge to the opponent all profits made from
selling the drug.
    While this would normally be enough to concern him, today a
whole other distraction worried his brain. A week had passed since he’d touched
her for the first time. Fleeting thoughts of her hounded him from time to time,
but for some reason, today the memory of her wouldn’t leave him alone. Juliet .
    Where was she? What was she doing? Whom was she doing it
with?
    The last question in particular bothered him.
    He slid his hand into his right pant pocket and fingered the
sterling silver chain he’d been carrying around for six days. He tended to
finger it absently when his mind wandered to Juliet. He needed to get to work.
If Chase caught him daydreaming about her, Michael would never live it down.
His buddy already ragged him heartlessly, and without remorse, about being hung
up on what Chase had dubbed his “mystery woman.”
    Michael knew better. Curious? Definitely. Hung up? Hardly.
He had no intention of letting any woman put the shackles on him. Of course,
you couldn’t tell Chase anything. Chase and his wife had been happily married
for four years before he lost her. Marriage wasn’t for Michael, but he’d more
than love another chance to experience the sumptuous creature he’d kissed by
accident on New Year’s Eve.
    He’d searched for her. He’d tried to let it go, let her go,
but by the end of the next day, he’d felt a driving need to find her. The
search had required Chase’s help since Chase had served on the party planning
committee. Chase had contacted every guest and inquired about each of their
companions. Strangely, no one could identify the mystery woman or the
original Juliet as legitimate invitees. He and Chase had concluded, on top of
everything else, his Juliet might have crashed the party. It figured.
    The guest chair to his right squeaked, and Michael pulled
his hand from his pocket. What was that old expression? Think of the devil and
the devil shall appear. Okay, so maybe it was “speak” of the devil, but for the
moment, it was all the same.
    “Chase.” Michael acknowledged his partner with a bland look.
    “Welcome back.” Chase took a seat opposite Michael’s desk.
    Michael’s perplexed expression made Chase grin. “I stood in
your doorway for several minutes. What were you thinking about?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Or should I ask whom were you thinking about?” Chase
made absolutely no effort to hide the amusement in his sky blue eyes.
    Annoyed, Michael turned squarely to his desk, picked up his
stylus, and let it resume its somersaults between his fingers. “Did you need
something?”
    At Michael’s curt avoidance of his question, Chase sighed.
“Man, tell me you are not still hung up on your beautiful party crasher.”
    “Don’t start with me, Chase. I’m not hung up. Let it go.”
    “I don’t understand what it is about this woman. You
couldn’t have spent more than thirty minutes with her tops.”
    “Forty-five minutes.” He’d looked at his watch when she’d
ridden off in the cab. She’d pulled off at twelve forty-five a.m. exactly.
    “I stand corrected,” Chase deadpanned then leaned back in
his chair. “I’m starting to worry about you, man. It’s not like you to become
so preoccupied with a woman.”
    Michael shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you,
Chase. I really can’t explain it. Something about her won’t let me go.”
    Chase studied him. For the first time, Michael saw his
friend’s dawning acceptance that his interest in Juliet wasn’t some passing
fancy.
    “I can’t believe the untraceable, unnamable duplicate Juliet
bewitched you so completely.” Chase ran a hand through his ash blond hair.
“Michael, I did what I could to determine who she may have come to the party
with. You’re going to have to accept you might never find her.”
    “Intellectually, I know that, but my head isn’t winning on
this.