She's No Angel Read Online Free PDF Page A

that.”
    “Who will?” Brett asked, not understanding.
    Mrs. McKinnon shook her head. “Everyone.” She rolled her hand again. “Give ’em over.” And waited expectantly.
    Brett stood in the middle of the foyer surrounded by furniture that looked as though it might have been in Mrs. McKinnon’s family for a couple of generations—small couch, antique lamps, Oriental rug and long sideboard.
    He didn’t want to take his pants off here. It felt...wrong. So wrong. But she was blocking the only way up to his room and looked as if she planned to stay there all night. He could have picked her up and moved her. Or pushed past her. But she was small and wrinkled, and he just couldn’t make himself do it.
    Without any other option, Brett kicked off his shoes and reached for his fly. He hopped on one foot to pull off his pants. The memory of Lexi doing the same thing tonight as she’d pulled on her heels surprised him.
    With a grimace, he wiped the image from his brain. Folding his pants, he handed them to Mrs. McKinnon and moved to pass her. Her hard voice stopped him. “Socks, too.”
    With a sigh of defeat, he slipped them off as quickly as possible and dropped them onto the top of the pile in her hands.
    “Leave the shoes by the door and I’ll see if they can be saved.”
    “You don’t have to—”
    She cut him off. “I take care of my guests, Mr. Newcomb, even if they are here to put me out of business.”
    “I’m not here to do that, Mrs. McKinnon.”
    Her sharp eyes raked him from head to toe, missing nothing. Brett fought the urge to cover himself with his hands. The boxer briefs he’d pulled on this morning definitely didn’t cover enough. But then, he hadn’t intended to be standing in his underwear in front of anyone when he’d gotten dressed today.
    Finally, she said, “If you say so,” and moved out of his way.
    Brett could feel her eyes on his ass the whole way down the hall and up the stairs. Or maybe that was just his twitchy imagination.
    It had been a long damn day. Traveling from Philly, meeting with the mayor, dinner at the Harpers’. All he wanted to do was drop into bed and let go of everything for the next few hours.
    But he’d barely gotten inside his room before his cell rang. Glancing at the display, he bit back a curse.
    “Mr. Bowen.”
    “How was dinner? Tell me you got what we wanted and you’re heading home.”
    Kicking the door closed behind him, Brett pressed the phone to his ear with one hand while he rummaged in the suitcase he hadn’t bothered unpacking yet.
    After all the other humiliations of the night, it shouldn’t have bothered him to talk to his boss on the phone in his Skivvies, but it did. Peeling them off with one hand, he replaced them with a pair of sweatpants he’d brought to sleep in. Normally he didn’t bother, but sleeping on strange sheets gave him the heebie-jeebies.
    Not that he was going to tell that to Mrs. McKinnon. Not unless he wanted his pants returned with scorch marks and a hole in the rear. Which, all things considered, was still a possibility.
    “No, we did not get what we want.”
    “What? You had the perfect opportunity to win the mayor over, Newcomb.”
    “This isn’t something that can be done in one night, Mr. Bowen, and you know it. It’s going to take repeated conversations and assurances. Compromise.”
    Something hard crashed on the other end of the line. “Dammit! I need this project to go through, Newcomb. The sooner the better.”
    “I’m moving as quickly as I can.”
    The grunt that greeted him sounded full of skepticism. “What next?”
    Brett squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at the headache just starting to invade his temples. He really hadn’t thought past tonight. Brett was big on taking one step at a time. You couldn’t build the walls before the foundation was down.
    “Obviously I need another meeting with the mayor.” Although after tonight he wasn’t sure the man would agree to see him.
    He’d left the