Dark Cover (The DARK Files #2) Read Online Free PDF

and there softened his severe features.The intensity of his gaze beneath the raven brow rattled her.
    She cleared her throat. “I’m in the bedroom beside the hall bathroom.” Only the bathroom between her room and his. Too close. She swallowed. Detachment, detachment.
    The brows crimped again. “Danielle would be sharing my suite with me. Janine, my housekeeper, will wonder about our … relationship.”
    At the humor in his eyes, she felt heat in her cheeks.“I took the liberty of placing some of my things — extra cosmetics and some clothing — in your suite. Your housekeeper will understand that a high-maintenance woman like Danielle would want her own bathroom and dressing area.”
    “I see. If you don’t find towels, I’ll have to search. This house is a maze, and Janine’s off weekends.”His mocking tone slid into a courteous one, but artificial, as if he pretended she was his invited house guest instead of a government operative on duty.
    As if he didn’t want to confront how they’d first met.She’d like to forget that brief encounter too, but the time to face the firing squad had arrived. She trailed a finger along a bookshelf as she perused art history titles.“Um, about that episode five years ago…”
    “Ah. How is Diana these days?”White teeth gleamed against his olive skin, but somehow the expression didn’t project good humor. And yet his heated gaze still raked her. Was it male arrogance or attraction or anger? He folded his arms. Below the T-shirt sleeves, dark hairs swirled over sinewy forearms.
    “Fantastic! Couldn’t be better,” she said with forced brightness. “She’s doing television commercials and magazine spreads for L’Oreal. And she’s engaged. Whitley’s the ad exec on the cosmetics campaign.” Finally Diana had found a man who appreciated the real woman behind the beautiful facade.
    One day Vanessa too, would find a man who appreciated her as a real woman, not just a buddy or an undercover persona. Definitely not undercover, where no one saw Vanessa at all. She could dream, couldn’t she? She shored up the corners of her smile, which had begun to sag.
    His jaw firmed. “Either he sneaked by her sister the pit bull or he passed muster better than I did.”
    Bookshelves reached to the high ceiling. Afternoon sunlight streamed through a wide window to the desk at the far end. But the room seemed to shrink to a closet as Vanessa closed the space between her and her steel-jawed companion.She hated confrontation and dealing with angry people. In most of her FBI career, she’d played the good cop, a role DARK capitalized on when she transferred. Honesty and compassion suited her better than deception and smoothed most bumps.
    “Look, I apologize for getting paint on your suit that day. I never meant to do that.”
    His unblinking blue glare told her he wasn’t buying. “That’s what Diana said when she hustled me out of there. What did you mean to do?”
    “Diana was just getting over a painful affair. I came over to paint the bedroom in her new apartment. I saw you as the same type of controlling, high-powered executive who’d used and dumped her. I didn’t want to see her hurt again.”
    Philip had romanced Diana and moved her in with him. When he met someone new, Diana came home one afternoon to find her bags packed.
    “So you were warning me off.”
    “Not exactly. Advising you to be gentle. Considerate.”
    “Sounded more like back off. Or else.”
    Had her clumsiness paint-rolled over a potential relationship between him and Diana? They had only that single whitewashed date. Diana reported an enjoyable evening at the theater. Then he simply never phoned again. Vanessa couldn’t tell from his poker face, but did he still have a thing for her stunning sister?
    But he was engaged.She didn’t like the pang either thought gave her.
    A dark ring outlined his irises and intensified the blue. His aftershave teased her senses, and she backed up a step.“I let