Scandalizing the CEO Read Online Free PDF

grapes but maybe apple, she thought.
    When she returned her glass to the table, she smiled at him. “I like this wine. Thank you for recommending it.”
    “Well, it has a bite, so I thought it might suit you.”
    She had to laugh at the way he said it. She knew she came across as a man-eater when she was in business mode. But tonight she wanted to enjoy the opportunity to just get to know Steven.
    “You mentioned earlier that your father was sick,” she said.
    “I don’t like to talk about Malcolm,” he said.
    She made a mental note that he referred to his father as Malcolm. Were they close? Somehow she didn’t think that question was appropriate. As an American in London, she’d learned quickly that some of the conversational topics she’d always thought acceptable weren’t here.
    “My dad had a health scare about six years ago…and it really shook me. I’d always thought of him as invincible and it was humbling to realize he wasn’t.”
    “Yes, it can be hard,” Steven said. “My mother is healthy as can be but she spends a lot of time in a sterile environment, so that’s to be expected.”
    “What does she do?” Ainsley asked. She had doneher research on Lynn but wanted to hear about her from Steven.
    A frown crossed his face so quickly that if she hadn’t been watching him she would have missed it. “My mother is a physicist. She’s won a few awards. Right now she’s working in Switzerland.”
    “I guess you don’t see her often,” Ainsley said.
    The waiter brought their dinners and they continued to discuss their families. It didn’t take long for her to notice that Steven always deflected the questions she asked about his family. Not that it mattered—her writers would get to him.
    “What brought you to London?” he asked as they were sipping a darkly brewed after-dinner coffee.
    She wondered if he’d remember her if she mentioned the interview she’d done with him. It was that article that had ultimately cost her her job. She’d been so nervous when she’d met Steven at his office that she’d spilled her coffee all over his desk. He’d been cordial to her at the time but when she left she overheard him on the phone with Joel, her boss. Heard him say that she’d been more concerned about her coffee and sweet snack than about interviewing him. When she got back to her office, it hadn’t surprised her that her boss fired her.
    She’d written the article anyway and sent it out freelance to a couple of magazines, finally getting it picked up by one of the Business Journal ’s competitors. It had appeared in WIRED magazine; they had been looking for articles on “young guns”—men under thirty who were changing and shaping the way businesses were being managed. That article put her on the map, so to speak, and gave her a chance to start fresh.
    She was a little miffed Steven hadn’t recognized hername but remembered that back then she’d been A. J. Patterson—something she’d thought made her seem more professional.
    “My job. I used to work as a freelance writer in the States. But it’s hard to pay the bills with freelance gigs only, so I transitioned to an editor position at Fashion Quarterly in the States. While I was there, a piece I wrote on young Hollywood wowed my bosses and they offered me a full-time position as an editor. Once I started editing—which is very different than writing—I found that I loved it.”
    “As much as writing?” he asked.
    She shrugged, but then she decided, why not tell him. “Some days but what I loved about writing was the discovery, digging deeper and asking questions that surprised the people being interviewed. Not in a bad way, but just in a way that pushed them to examine and expand their own responses. I liked that.”
    “Do you write anymore?” he asked.
    No one ever thought to ask her that, she observed. The truth was there were times when she did miss writing but being an editor, especially one in her position, paid so much