Dragon and the Dove Read Online Free PDF

her face.
    “Now look what you’ve done,” she said
accusingly, pulling up the tight skirt of her dress so she could
kneel beside Leeds’s supine body. “You’ve completely unnerved the
man.”
    “No, I didn’t,” Cooper said, his gaze
riveted to her rising hemline. “I couldn’t unnerve George Leeds on
my best day.”
    “He was fine until you showed up
.” She tucked loose
strands of George’s gray-streaked hair into his ponytail and
smoothed her fingers over his brow. “Dammit. He’s out cold, and I
was just this far away from closing the deal.” She lifted her hand,
her thumb and index finger barely half an inch apart.
    “I thought you were waiting for Strachan.”
By his estimation, her legs went on forever.
    “I came to the conclusion,” she said
tightly, “that it would be better for Daniels, Ltd. if I worked out
the initial deal with Leeds. Then, if Strachan wanted to sweeten
the pot, fine, and if he didn’t, I would already have Somerset
Shipping on board at our price. I did not expect you to show up
from out of nowhere and frighten my client half to death.”
    She kept touching George, checking his
pulse, loosening his tie, removing the ridiculous collar bar, and
Cooper wished like hell that she would quit. He didn’t like her
fussing over the other man.
    He felt his jaw tighten in irritation when
she went so far as to unbutton the first two buttons of George’s
white shirt. Leeds had never worn a suit in his life. Never. His
normal attire tended toward mix and match and cheap and
serviceable, with a little leather thrown in for good measure. He
usually had two or three earrings in his ear, not a single,
discreet gold ring.
    “What made you think Leeds would be more
agreeable than Strachan?” he asked, as if the truth of the matter
wasn’t lying at her feet in a drunken stupor. Over the years he and
Leeds had swilled enough gin and beer to float an oil tanker, and
he’d never seen the old man flat on his back—until now.
    “I checked Strachan out,” she said, finally
rising to her feet. “He doesn’t have a reputation for taking women
seriously.” She smoothed her dress, and Cooper did his best not to
follow the movements of her hands as she straightened her neckline.
After her shoulder had been covered, he looked down just in time to
catch the slight shimmy she gave her hips to shake her hemline back
down to her knees.
    “You checked him out?” he asked around the
growing lump in his throat.
    “I made some phone calls. Half of what I
paid Stanford for was good connections. It’s about a tenth of what
you pay me for.”
    “What are
the other nine tenths?”
he asked. She’d finished rearranging her dress, which still didn’t
cure his staring problem. They were closer than they’d been in his
office, and he couldn’t help but notice things he’d missed then,
like her scent, and the pale dusting of freckles on her chest and
across the bridge of her nose. She looked sun-kissed, sweet, and
sultry. It was a deadly combination.
    He hadn’t eaten much on the plane, and
nothing since his arrival. He could only hope that was his problem.
He did not want his problem to be her mouth and what looking at it
made him want to do. That was trouble he didn’t need.
    He shouldn’t have sent her to London. He
should have sent her back to Elise Crabb and demanded a refund.
    She met his eyes squarely and said, “One
tenth is for my accounting degree, two tenths for my MBA, and two
tenths for my natural intelligence.”
    “That’s six.” Damn, he thought. It was her
mouth and not his empty stomach. He could tell by the effect
watching her talk had on his groin.
    She waited a moment before answering, and
under her unwavering gaze, he felt sized up and measured from the
inside out. He only hoped she wasn’t able to read his mind.
    “The other four tenths,” she said, “are for
not turning around and walking out when I realized that counseling
you on your potential Pacific Rim investments