Temporarily His Princess Read Online Free PDF

her as she leafed through the pages with unsteady hands, that amazing speed-reading ability engaged, letting memories sweep through him at last.
    How he’d loved her. Now he needed to exorcise her.
    It felt as if hours had passed before she raised her gaze back to his, her eyes reddened, her lips trembling. What an incredible simulation of disbelief and devastation.
    When she talked, her voice was thick and hoarse, as if she were barely holding back tears. “How long have you had…that?”
    “That particular accumulation of damning evidence? Over a year. I have much older files retracing the rest of their crimes, in case you’re interested.”
    “There was more?”
    Anyone looking at her would swear this was the shock of her life, that she’d never suspected the men in her family could possibly be involved in criminal activities.
    He huffed his disgust at the whole situation, and everyone involved in it. “They’re both extremely good, I’ll give them that. That’s why no one else has caught them at it yet.”
    “Why have you?”
    She was asking all the right questions. If he answered them all truthfully, they’d paint her the real picture of what had happened in the past. Which wouldn’t be a bad idea. He was sick and tired of the pretense.
    So he told her. “I’ve been keeping them under close scrutiny since the attempts to steal my research.”
    Her eyes rounded in renewed shock. “You suspected them?”
    “I suspected everyone with access to me, direct or indirect.”
    A stricken look entered her eyes, as if she was just now realizing he must have suspected her, too. Of course, she was still under the impression that nothing of value had been stolen. When everything had been.
    It had been so sensitive, even with all his security, he’d documented his results in bits and pieces that only he could put together. But they’d still been accessed and reconstructed and appeared in the hands of his rivals. Then he’d been given proof that the breach had originated from Glory.
    But he’d insisted it must have been someone who had total access to Glory. Only her family had that. Needing to settle this without her knowledge, only thinking of her heartache if she found out, he’d confronted them. They’d broken under his threats, begged his leniency. He’d already decided to show them that, for Glory, but he’d said he’d only consider it if they gave him the details of their plan, their recruiters and any accomplices. If they didn’t, he’d show no mercy. And they’d given him proof that it had been Glory. She’d been their only hope of getting to him.
    And how she’d gotten to him.
    She’d played him like a virtuoso. It hadn’t even occurred to him to guard himself against her like he did with everyone else.
    But a lengthy, highly publicized court case would have harmed more than helped him. Worse, it would have kept her in his life. So he’d groped for the lesser mutilation of cutting her off from his life abruptly, so the sordid mess wouldn’t get any bigger.
    Then something totally unexpected had happened. Also because of her.
    As he’d struggled to put her out of his mind, he’d restarted his work from scratch, soon becoming thankful he had. What he’d thought was a breakthrough had actually been fundamentally flawed. If he hadn’t lost the whole thing, he would have cost his sponsors untold billions of wasted development financing. But the real catastrophe would have been if the magnitude of confidence in his research had minimized testing before its applications hit the market. Lives could have been lost.
    So her betrayal had been a blessing in disguise, forcing him to correct his mistakes and devise a safe, more cost-effective and streamlined method. After that, he’d been catapulted to the top of his field. Not that he was about to thank Glory for the betrayal that had led to all that.
    Glory’s choking words brought him out of the darkness of the past. “But they had nothing to do