Haunting Rachel Read Online Free PDF Page B

about this, will you? You think I’m looking forward to being on the job market again?” Her family background held wealth, but Mercy always had and always would make her own way in the world.
    Instead of replying to her hypothetical question, Nicholas rose from his chair and came around the desk to her.
    “There’s no lock on that door,” she warned, but made no further protest when he pulled her to her feet and then into his arms.
    He was always careful with her, always consciously gentle—or so it seemed to Mercy. It was the trait of a physically powerful man who knew only too well his strength could hurt and damage, and it never failed to move her in some way she couldn’t explain even to herself.
    He kissed her with astonishing skill, his hard mouth so sensual that her knees instantly went weak. Her arms slid up around his neck and held on. Even after a year and countless hours spent mindless in his bed, the hunger he roused in her was sharp-edged and intense, demanding satisfaction. It was not something she could fight, not even something she could manage, but, rather, an elemental force that overwhelmed her.
    And it irritated Mercy no end that she was never the one to pull back, never the one to regain control easily and swiftly.
    He was always able to.
    Always—damn him.
    Raising his head and smiling very faintly as he looked down at her, Nicholas unlocked her arms from around his neck and eased her down on the arm of the chair behind her. “So sure you could turn your back on my bed, love?”
    He had always called her that when they were alone like this, ever since the stormy spring evening nearly a year before when he had offered her a ride home, and they had somehow—to this day, Mercy wasn’t sure just how it had happened—wound up naked on the rug in front of her fireplace.
    He called her love, but she didn’t deceive herself into thinking it meant anything. Nicholas Ross was a hard, abrupt, and rather secretive man with very strong physical appetites, and a “relationship” was clearly not something he wanted in his life. Just a woman in his bed three or four nights a week, with no ties or promises.
    Mercy had learned to play the game just the way he liked.
    So, when she caught her breath, she made herself say dryly, “It would naturally be a severe blow, but I think I could manage.”
    He let out a bark of a laugh and stepped back to half sit on the edge of his desk. Crossing his arms over his broad chest, he stared at her. “You’re not going to back down on this, are you?”
    “Afraid not.”
    “So once Duncan’s estate is settled and the bank back to normal, you’ll resign?”
    “That is the plan.” She shrugged. “Look, you know I’m not doing this just to make things harder for you or the bank. There are some lines I won’t cross, and sleeping with my boss is one of them.”
    “I’m your boss
now,”
he reminded her.
    “No, you’re my boss’s partner. Until Duncan’s estate is settled and the future of the bank decided, I still work for him. It may be splitting hairs, but that’s the way I see it.”
    Nicholas frowned. “Suppose Rachel decides to keep her interest. You could stay on here as her representative. Then she’d be your boss, not me.”
    Mercy was a little surprised. “I hadn’t thought of that. But, anyway, it isn’t likely, is it? You’ve always seemed so determined to buy her out. Aren’t you?”
    His frown deepened. “Yes, I’m still determined. But if she’s anything like Duncan, she has a mind of her own. Is she like him? I haven’t spent enough time with her to know.”
    “She’s like him in some ways.” Mercy considered the matter. “Smart, intuitive, creative. Like Duncan, she’s capable of flashes of inspiration. Problem is, Rachel’s carting around a lot of baggage right now, most of it painful. Until she sorts through that, there’s really no telling what her decision about the bank will be.”
    “Your brother’s death?”
    Mercy