The Singles Read Online Free PDF Page B

his touch was soft and yet commanding. It was a touch from a man used to getting his way.
    "Wait," he ordered, and my pulse skipped. Unhurriedly, I turned on my heel to look at him warily. Although he should have released my arm, he didn’t. Instead, he pulled me closer to him and touched my chin with his thumb.
    “What do you think—”
    He tilted my face up so we were eye-to-eye. "Your name. I asked you your name.”
    "Lizzie Connelly."
    "Lizzie...” His voice trailed off as he tested the pseudonym on his tongue. Smirking like the cat that ate the canary—or in his case, the petite blond lady—he started, “I'm Oliver—"
    I cut him off by tugging free of his distracting grip. Taking the hint, he moved his other hand from my face, and I released a breath of relief. "I already know exactly who you are."
    He didn’t look surprised. If anything, his grin only grew bolder. Man-whore here probably thrived on being infamous. "My reputation precedes me."
    Of course it did—hell, a photo of him at some red carpet gala with a Brazilian model had graced the lifestyle-and-entertainment section of a local paper just last weekend—but I wasn’t about to jerk off his ego by telling him that. "Not really." I absently trailed my fingers over the wrist his fingers had been wrapped around. My heart rate sped up and tingles rushed across my skin at the memory.
    "Honestly, it was impossible to ignore your name when it was attached to 'get the fuck out of my office',” I told him.
    “Dora likes to exaggerate.” His mouth twisted in annoyance, dragging my attention back to his lips. Damn, those lips. He backed up to his Viper. “There really wasn’t a need for theatrics.” He slid behind the wheel of his sporty car. If I expected him to simply drive off and forget I was standing there, I was sadly mistaken. The passenger window slid down, and his gaze trailed slowly down my body. I couldn’t remember the last time I let a man’s stare get beneath my skin, but Oliver’s did.
    That fact alone made my jaw tighten.
    “Believe it or not,” I said, tilting my head to the side, “Dora didn’t even mention you.”
    The corner of his lip tugged up. "I'll have your replacement phone on your desk by tomorrow morning."
    "That's really not necessary," I argued, but he lifted his shoulders. The pretentious asshole had just brushed me off. For a second, as I stared into his penetrating blue eyes, I wondered if he was the man who’d called me four months ago. But then I let the thought drift away as quickly as it came. Calling me like that wouldn’t have benefited him, and besides, the voice didn’t fit. Neither did the secrecy. Oliver Manning would have announced himself at the very beginning of that call if it had been him.
    “I’m serious, Oliver,” I said through gritted teeth. Besides, I wouldn’t even be at the office until Thursday—not that he needed to know that.
    "I fix what I break."
    I stiffened, remembering his words from fourteen years ago. I’d give anything to fix this for you. Drawing in a few quick breaths, I pinched my mouth. “It’s a phone, Mr. Manning; I promise it’s not the end of the world.”
    He started to pull off, but then he slammed on his brakes. I narrowed my eyes, but before I could ask him if he actually planned on leaving sometime today, he said, "I'm not sleeping with Dora."
    “What?” I blurted.
    “I’m. Not. Fucking. Dora. We’ve never had that kind of interest in each other.”
    Wow ... really? I looked down at a crack in the garage floor. "It's none of my business, and I really, really don’t want to know. You don't have to explain anything to me.”
    "No, I don't. I just didn’t want you getting the wrong idea about me." His vivid blue eyes examined me one final time, and then he put his car in gear. "Soon, Lizzie.”
    *
    O nce I was sure he was gone, I rushed to my Mini Cooper. With my phone broken, I was even more anxious to get home. I ignored the speed limit, shunning the