Seduced by a Dangerous Man Read Online Free PDF

Especially a few hours before we parted ways, with my dad fighting for his life on the operating table and Henry threatening to have me arrested.
    If I had kept my fucking mouth shut…
    “You home?” came Rob’s voice up the stairs.
    I sat up and looked at the clock. It wasn’t even 5:00 yet. Too soon for Rob to be back already. “Yeah. Up here.”
    My brother’s condo was carpeted, but I sensed him coming up the steps. I swung my feet off the bed and tried to assemble my sour mug into something that didn’t scream “nervous breakdown in progress.”
    But then I saw Rob’s face, his features pinched, his brown eyes weary. “What happened?” I asked. I already knew it was Henry, that he was punishing Rob.  
    Rob shook his head. Light glinted off his glasses, off his straight red hair. “Work stuff. I can’t wait until October. You still want to do the bounty stuff with me when our non-competes expire?”
    “And private investigation. Of course.” Even though I was worn thin from my own drama, I found a smile for Rob. It was the least I could do considering that this was my fault. “Come in and tell Auntie Audrey about it.”
    That was all the prompting he needed. He entered the room, grabbed the chair from the desk and whipped it around. “Henry is an ass,” he said, straddling the chair. “And I’m a jackass. Today he decided he wants me working volume. As in, let’s see how many five-hundred-dollar bounties I can snag in a day.”
    It was weird to hear Rob complaining about not getting enough work. He really had changed. “That blows. You still get a base salary, though.”
    “He cut it.”
    I gasped. “He can’t do that.”
    “He can. The contract I signed when he raised the salaries says he can substitute other pay structures. It’s dependent on how much each employee earns on average. Now that he’s brought in all his former cop friends and sheriff friends and other buddies, there’s no room for me. And here I’d thought Dad’s part-timers were the worst. I actually miss those guys. Henry’s crew is… not nice.”
    “Damn.”
    “Damn,” Rob repeated, dejected.  
    I scrabbled my curls into a messy ponytail. “If he weren’t following me all the time, I would help you.”
    “I know you would.”
    We were both quiet. Originally, Rob had wanted to bring me back as a consultant.
    “Maybe it’s for the best,” I said, picking at my fuzzy, pilling sweater. “There’s something appealing about starting over.”
    Rob looked at me as if I were crazy, but then his expression suddenly changed to one of… relief? “Maybe it is for the best,” he said softly. “How was work?”
    But I wasn’t ready to change the conversation yet. “You think Henry planned this?”
    “I don’t know. But we had a lot of contracts before Henry came on. Dad says Henry brought cash, and I guess he did, but he sure is borrowing heavily.”
    “You can’t put bribes on a credit card.” Henry loved to buy information. He had nearly ruined a lot of lives thanks to the FBI agents on his payroll. Corbin wasn’t FBI, but he worked with them at times.
    I contemplated what Rob had said about Henry borrowing. Dad had always run the company in the black. “What does Kat think about all this?”
    Rob aimed a disdainful look my way. “He’s giving her the good cases.”
    Kat was nothing if not practical. “I don’t see how he has the energy to do all this evil stuff. Half the time he’s up my ass.”
    Rob nodded. “The hemorrhoid is right outside. I don’t understand why you won’t get a restraining order,” he said a little angrily.  
    That had me shaking my head. With my Zachary-sized secret, I couldn’t risk stirring up more trouble. I wished I could tell Rob why Henry was suddenly coming down hard on him, but if I did, and if Rob confronted Henry, Henry would probably delight in sharing his suspicions about Zachary. I couldn’t risk that, so like a coward, I said nothing.  
    “Is it too early to