The Billionaire's Embrace (The Silver Cross Club) Read Online Free PDF

if his life depended on it.
    He was sitting at the table with his laptop, but he closed it and pushed it aside as soon as he saw me. “Sleeping Beauty,” he said.
    I blushed. “Is it late? I didn’t mean to sleep in.”
    “It’s only 10,” he said, smiling at me. “I know you keep odd hours. I didn’t expect you to be up at the crack of dawn. I haven’t been up very long, either.”
    Judging from the fact that he was fully dressed and already hard at work, I thought he had probably been up for at least a couple of hours, but it was sweet that he was trying to set me at ease. I said, “Is there coffee?”
    He got up and went into the kitchen, and I trailed after him. The tile in the kitchen was cold beneath my bare feet. Carter poured me a cup of coffee and handed it to me, and I leaned against the counter and sipped at it.
    “What kind of bagel would you like?” he asked. “I have plain, onion, and cinnamon raisin.”
    Did he really think I would eat an onion bagel in front of him and risk onion breath? Maybe that wasn’t the sort of thing men worried about. “Cinnamon raisin sounds good,” I said.
    He opened a paper bag on the counter and pulled out a bagel. “Butter? Cream cheese? Orange marmalade?”
    “Mm, cream cheese,” I said. Carter sliced the bagel and dropped it into the toaster, and then swiveled to face me, one hand on the counter on either side of my body.
    “How’s the coffee?” he asked.
    I reached over his arm to set the mug on the counter, and then, feeling incredibly brave, wrapped my arms around his neck and gazed up into his eyes. “Pretty good,” I said.
    He chuckled and leaned in to kiss me, slow and sweet—not one of the heated kisses we had shared the night before, but a sleepy morning kiss, fond and familiar. The kind of kiss I allowed myself, for a single, idiotic second, to imagine sharing with him every morning for the rest of our lives.
    I squashed that thought, mercilessly, like a cockroach. If I started down that road, I would never find my way back. Better to avoid temptation altogether.
    He pulled back and kissed my cheek and my forehead. “How did you sleep?”
    “Pretty good,” I said again. “I don’t think I moved all night.”
    “You were talking in your sleep,” he said.
    I groaned and buried my face against his shoulder. “I still do that?”
    “Oh yes,” he said. He stroked one hand up and down my back, slowly. “Something about muffins, I think. Then you started laughing.”
    “I hope I didn’t wake you up,” I said, mortified.
    “It was adorable,” he said, which didn’t mean I hadn’t woken him up. “You sounded very happy. I wanted to wake you up and ask you what kind of muffins you were dreaming about, but I thought it would be kinder to let you sleep.”
    “You should just wake me up if I do that,” I said. “I mean, not that I’m assuming we’ll do this again, or that—I mean, I obviously don’t—”
    “Are you still so nervous around me?” he asked, and tugged on my hair gently, tipping my head back. “Regan. What else do I have to do to prove that I want to spend time with you? Why is it so hard for you to believe that I find you beautiful and fascinating and easy to be around?”
    Because nobody had ever thought those things about me before, but of course I couldn’t say that to him. I shook my head, at a loss for words, and then the toaster popped.
    I could have kissed that toaster, because Carter was immediately distracted with fishing out the bagel, putting it on a plate, getting the cream cheese out of the refrigerator, and I was off the hook. I reclaimed my coffee mug and took a searing gulp, burning the roof of my mouth. Bullet dodged.
    We ate at the table—or, really, I ate, and Carter sat and watched me, and asked me what he thought he should buy his secretary for Christmas.
    “What does she like?” I asked.
    He looked stricken. “I don’t really know. That’s the problem. She’s a wonderful secretary, and