The Dangerous Seduction Read Online Free PDF

have a fiancée. But she’s used to me working late.”
    “I’ll bet. So, have you guys been together a long time?”
    “Six years.”
    Joseph raises his eyebrows. “Six years? That’s impressive.” He’s about to say something else when his phone goes off. He pulls it out of his inside pocket, glances down at the display, and grins, an unpleasant, sharklike sort of a grin. “Ray Collins. Should be interesting.”
    “Ray Collins? McNeil’s attorney?” Ryan asks.
    “The very same,” Joseph says. He smirks, lifts the phone to his ear, and says, “Well, hello, Ray, how are things your end?”
     
     
    T HE RESTAURANT is nice, swanky and expensive, and way, way out of Ryan’s price range. He swallows over the mini panic attack and quietly tells himself that surely Joseph (or more likely the firm) will pick up the check. Joseph doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would expect him to chip in with fifty-fifty at the end of the night. Not that he really has any kind of idea what sort of guy Joseph Van Aardt actually is, of course.
    The waiters seem to know Joseph and greet him by name as they lead the two of them to a secluded table in the corner of the restaurant. Someone materializes a moment later with a bottle of red wine, which Joseph runs an eye over before he nods approval, indicating for the waiter to pour for them both.
    Joseph picks up his wine glass. It’s one of those enormous fat-bottomed goblets that only seem to exist in really swanky restaurants. He raises his eyebrows at Ryan and says, “What should we drink to? A successful day’s work? Your second week on the job? You’re making quite an impression, Ryan.”
    “You really think so?”
    “Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”
    “Oh. Well that’s… that’s good. Thanks.”
    They clink glasses, and Ryan watches Joseph sip his wine and sigh in appreciation. He leans back in his chair and surveys Ryan interestedly. Ryan sips his own wine, feeling that same hot burn of self-consciousness that he felt in the car. Joseph is staring at him like he’s trying to make him out, and not making any pretense of doing otherwise. At least the wine is nice. It’s smooth and obviously expensive, just like the whisky in the Dallas Ritz Carlton three weeks ago, and it’s definitely helping to settle his churning stomach.
    “So, on a scale of one to ten, about how uncomfortable are you feeling right now?” Joseph says, breaking the silence.
    “Sorry, come again?”
    Joseph smirks, the corner of his mouth lifting as he runs his forefinger up and down the stem of his wine glass. He’s got nice hands, long shapely fingers and neat nails, the tendons in the backs of his hands flexing as his fingers move. “I’m guessing you’re at least a six. Am I right?”
    Ryan feels the warmth flood his cheeks, the stupid blush making him want to duck his head to hide his face. He forces himself to keep meeting Joseph’s gaze. He shrugs, says, “Yeah, six is about right, I guess.”
    Joseph chuckles, takes another sip of his wine. “Yeah, I bet.”
    Joseph is in just his shirtsleeves, unbuttoned and obviously relaxed. His suit jacket is placed carefully over the back of his seat. At some point when Ryan wasn’t looking, Joseph loosened his tie and unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt; Ryan can make out soft pale skin, a smattering of brown-gold hairs, and the shape of his collarbones in the exposed V. Joseph’s eyes are dark in the subdued lighting, and when he turns his head to gesture to the waiter, Ryan is caught suddenly by the line of his profile: the curve of his cheekbone and the stubby dark fringe of his eyelashes. Of course he knows that Joseph is a good-looking guy, he’s known it for a while. He’s long been resigned to the fact that he’s the kind of guy who notices such things about other men, no matter how much he doesn’t want to, but there’s a difference between knowing something objectively and actually noticing it, of being