Her Enemy Protector Read Online Free PDF

to you.”
    She frowned. “I don’t understand.”
    A slow smile curved his mouth and the thought of kissing it all but made her swoon. “How do you feel about getting married?” he asked.
    “Married?” she echoed, clearly one step behind in this conversation. “To whom?”
    “Me.”
    The room swirled around her and she grabbed the edge of the table as dizziness practically knocked her over. “We hardly know each other,” she choked out.
    “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and I think it could work. You have a reputation for being—” he paused delicately “—adventurous.”
    Now there was an understatement.
    Joe was talking again. “I’m betting your father isn’t too crazy about your rep. Am I right?”
    She snorted. “He hates the way I act. Have you seen the way my bodyguards are plastered to me these days, chasing off any guy who gets near me? Trust me. Daddy dearest despises my…lifestyle choices. And he’s doing everything he can to change them.”
    Joe nodded. “Perfect. I’m proposing that I sweep you off your feet and single-handedly mend your wild ways.”
    Whoa. Now there was a thought. Tempting, actually.
    “It’ll all be an act,” he added.
    Her stomach plummeted to her feet. Damn.
    He continued, “You and I will elope. After we’ve had a whirlwind romance, of course.”
    Of course.
    Joe continued. “I’m betting your father will let me into his house in profound gratitude that someone else will finally be responsible for curbing your wild impulses. In effect, he’ll transfer responsibility for keeping you on the straight and narrow from his pet gorillas to me.”
    She blinked, startled at the depth of insight into her father that his idea showed. It might just work. But a husband?
    As much as she’d love to play along with that particular little fantasy, she replied reluctantly, “He’d never buy it. He’d see right through a story like that, not to mention he’d check it out thoroughly. And then he’d slit your throat….” She gagged as bile leaped into her throat at the idea of another man, this man, lying dead in her bed, bleeding from a horrible gash in his neck.
    Joe’s dark eyebrows slammed together abruptly. “My God,” he breathed. “Is that what happened?”
    She frowned at him, unsure what he was asking.
    He leaned forward and reached for her hands, gripping her fingers tightly. “Is that why you ran out into the ocean? Whose throat did your father slit?”
    Wow, this guy was sharp. He’d made that leap of logic look easy. “My friend Tony. He was going to help me escape.”
    She clutched Joe’s big, surprisingly callused palms desperately. “And that’s why I can’t agree to your plan. I don’t want you to end up dead in my bed, either.”
    Joe’s eyes went black. Hard and flat. Gone was the warm, sympathetic man she’d been talking with. “Your father killed this guy in your bed?” he bit out.
    She nodded, suddenly afraid of the cold man seated across from her, radiating violence.
    He cursed viciously under his breath, so low she barely caught the muttered oath. And then he leaned forward, staring at her intensely. “This changes everything. If your father has turned violence on you, you’re in more danger than you can imagine. You are going to agree to marry me. As soon as it can be arranged. And I am going to get you out of there. Got it?”
    She blinked at the icy authority in his tone. He wore it easily. Like a man who’d given orders before and expected them to be followed. Where had the quiet, kind man disappeared to all of a sudden? Who was Joe Smith? And what was he?
    She answered her own questions. Did it really matter who or what Joe was as long as he could do what he’d promised? Aloud, she said, “I need to talk to Julia. To confirm who you are.”
    Joe blinked, but to his credit, he answered evenly, “All right.”
    He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a new-model cell phone and dialed a phone number. He