The Tycoon's Make-Believe Fiancee Read Online Free PDF

and walking faster, but he was simply too tall. Even in her heels, she barely came up to his chin and his longer stride kept him right next to her. “Well, you’re just going to have to figure out how to keep my name out of the tabloids,” she told him unequivocally.
    He thought she was cute as she tried to walk faster than he was. But even with her impatient stride, he was still walking slower than his normal pace. “That won’t happen. I get photographed all the time,” he lied, just wanting to see the anger in her pretty, green eyes. He liked her fire, her spunk. In fact, there wasn’t much about her that he didn’t like.
    She stopped when they were right outside of the restaurant, glaring up at him. “Then we eat dinner in private,” she told him, not willing to budge on this issue.
    He grabbed her arm, swinging her around so that she was facing him. The people on the sidewalk went around them, but several looked at them curiously. “You’re being ridiculous.”
    “Am I?” She paused, letting him think about the issue. “What would you think about a woman who was dating the head of a company? Would you really respect her? Or would you think she’d been promoted so that it was easier for the two of them to be together?”
    His scowl said enough. She looked up at him, not letting him intimidate her. At least not at the moment. This was too important. “Now that you see my point, we’ll either dine at your place or mine.” She gave him a challenging smile. “I’m a very good cook,” she told him with confidence.
    He rolled his eyes. “I’ll have my housekeeper cook something,” he said and put a hand to the small of her back, leading her back to the office. But before they rounded the corner to enter the building, he dropped his hand and let her walk in separately. He wasn’t very far away, but he put enough space between them that it didn’t look like they were obviously together.
    Miranda was pepped and plowing through her work load for the next couple of hours, but by the late afternoon, her lack of sleep and the stress of the past few days started to hit her. Thankfully, just the idea of seeing Royston for dinner that evening gave her a renewed blast of energy.
    When she arrived back at her apartment, she found a note on her mailbox letting her know that a delivery had arrived for her and was waiting in the manager’s office. She picked up the large box warily, then headed up in the elevator. She showered and dried her hair, pulling on a pair of black slacks and a sparkly sweater she’d bought for a Christmas party last year. She looked pretty good, she thought, glaring at the large box she was fairly certain contained a dress from none other than her personal dictator.
    By rights, she should be exhausted since she’d barely slept at all last night, but she actually felt very excited and refused to define why.
    The buzzer went off and she pressed the button to let him come inside the lobby, not sure what she was going to tell him but adamant that she wasn’t going to let him buy her things like expensive dresses. She had her pride!
    She opened the door with her coat already on and her purse in her hand. And when he didn’t arrive immediately, she became too antsy and pulled her apartment door closed, walking down the hallway to meet him instead of waiting for him. So when the elevator opened, she simply stepped in, surprising him with a bright smile as she pressed the button to go back downstairs again.
    Royston glared down at the top of her shiny head, wanting to drag her into his arms and kiss her so she would behave predictably. He was inordinately irritated that she hadn’t been in her apartment, waiting for him. He’d wanted to prowl around her place while she made him wait until she finished getting ready. The fact that she wasn’t following the rules he understood made him more than a little irascible. “Don’t you let a man pick you up properly?” he growled.
    She laughed