Something Wild Read Online Free PDF

the driver to take me to the parking garage."
    Her slight hesitation made him wonder if maybe she didn't want him to go, if maybe she actually wanted to drink and commiserate together, but it was not to be. "Um, yeah," she said with a definite degree of finality.
    Looking over his shoulder, Ryan opened the privacy panel and gave the driver directions to where he parked his car. He grew suddenly embarrassed on Penny's behalf, wondering if the guy had heard anything.
    Thankfully, though, the driver's eyes betrayed nothing, and Ryan shut the panel, leaving him and Penny awkwardly alone again. As the limo continued winding through the downtown streets, they stayed quiet, simply passing the champagne back and forth until he offered her the bottle one final time with the words, "Last drink?" She took it, emptied it, then chucked it back in the ice bucket.
    She looked so despondent. Ryan wanted to hug her, tell her again it was all right, but this time do it while peering into her eyes and maybe stroking her hair.
    But she was practically engaged to his boss, for God's sake—or at least that's what he thought she'd said—and things were horrible enough already without him doing something stupid, such as being tender with her.
    As the long black car finally glided across the echoing garage toward the only vehicle still there, Ryan leaned forward and met her gaze. Despite this being what she wanted, and despite the fact that she belonged to his brand-new boss, he felt bad leaving her after what they'd done together. "Are you gonna be all right?" he asked, and this time he did touch her knee.
    She started to tremble—he felt it beneath his fingertips—and, taking a deep breath, she lifted her gaze. "Yeah. I guess."
    But when he reached for the door handle and began to step out of the car, she grabbed his wrist. He glanced back to find her eyes looking frantic again. "You won't tell Martin about this?"
    Tell his boss he'd just had wild sex with his girlfriend? "No, definitely not. It'll stay just between us. Promise."
    "Thank you."
    Not bothering to point out that she wasn't the only one with something to lose, he exited the limo, took one last look at her sitting there wearing her sexy dress and a distressed expression, then closed the door.
    * * *
    Ryan sat down behind Martin's desk early the next morning, although even sitting in the man's chair felt intrusive now, as if he were trespassing. He vowed not to think about that, though, since he'd come here to work. The office lay desolate on a Saturday morning, but it was just as well; it would help him concentrate, stay focused. All this work would get him firmly entrenched in Schuster Systems' operations, and it also seemed his only hope of getting his mind off what had happened last night, since hours of tossing and turning in bed hadn't done it.
    He shook his head as the unsettling truth assaulted him once more. Already this felt like another disaster in the making, another fist with a choke hold on his career. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first mistake Ryan had ever made.
    Only two months ago, he'd lost his job at ComData in Chicago, for missing a client meeting of all things. A missed meeting was an embarrassing faux pas , definitely, but he hadn't believed it would earn him a pink slip until it had happened.
    It had all occurred innocently enough. He'd planned to have dinner with a woman he'd recently met, then hook up afterward with David Collins and Roger Borcherding, the top guys at Fischer International, in their hotel lounge for drinks around nine. Ryan had been assigned to manage their system conversion and the two executives had suggested touching base that evening after their flight arrived.
    Ryan had picked up his date, Maggie, at her office after work, planning to eat and return her to her car by eight-thirty, but he'd been having so much fun that the first time he'd looked at his watch, it was quarter to nine.
    Then, after hurriedly paying the bill and racing back