Trading Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

at large had trouble handling an independent person
     like herself, and men in particular had trouble with the notion.
     Last night wasn't the first time she'd run afoul of some male's
     embittered attempt to even his score with life by punishing her.
    But the last time it had been tried Sabrina had at least known
     why she had come under fire. Floating in the clear tranquil waters
     this morning, she made another stab at trying to understand what
     had gone wrong last night, and failed. It was decidedly disgusting
     to discover that her normally sound intuition had fallen short on
     this occasion. Perhaps she could just blame it on the Margaritas
     and forget all about it.
    She dismissed that approach when she recalled that August had
     used his one-too-many whiskeys as an excuse. Damned if she would
     lower herself to his level when it came to rationalizing!
    No, last night had been a mistake. It wouldn't happen again.
     Besides, in the end, she had handled a potentially dangerous
     encounter intelligently enough to emerge unscathed. Assuming one
     discounted the vague muscle ache in her thighs, of course, she
     added with a mental wince. Matt August was a strong, toughly built
     male. The struggle could have ended disastrously. Still, she had
     handled him.
    It was an entirely different situation from the mess in which she
     had become involved in California. She'd had no control at all
     over those events and the memory of how she had let a man cast her
     in the role of victim still rankled. In spite of her determination
     to put it all behind her, stray thoughts of that devastating
     experience on the West Coast flickered through her mind.
    Talbot Sheffield had been forty-nine, only twenty-three years
     older than his son Greg, whom Sabrina had been dating just before
     everything collapsed around the younger man. One year less than
     fifty, his body still astonishingly fit, silver hair thick and
     eye-catching, the president of his own computer software firm,
     Talbot Sheffield was a man at the height of his power and knew it.
     The quintessential aggressive, successful businessman. From the
     moment she'd first been introduced to him, Sabrina had kept her
     distance. He was exactly the sort of male she preferred to avoid.
    His son Greg, on the other hand, displayed absolutely no
     indication of following in his father's footsteps. Easygoing,
     amiable, and fun-loving described Greg Sheffield. Sabrina had
     liked him at once. Her feelings for the man had never gone much
     deeper than friendly affection, but she had empathized with him,
     knowing herself what it was like to grow up with a forceful,
     domineering father.
    In spite of his casual attitude toward life Greg had had enough
     perception to foresee the difficulties that would arise if he
     chose to work for his father. Instead he had taken a
     middle-management position at a computer design company elsewhere
     in California's Silicon Valley, and that's where he and Sabrina
     had met. She had been a low-level manager in the accounting
     department. It wasn't Sabrina's first entry-level management
     position. She had started out in a number of them at various
     companies since graduating from college. But because of an
     unfortunate tendency to tell higher management what she thought,
     she rarely climbed any higher on the corporate ladder. While Greg
     was not outspoken the way Sabrina tended to be, they had shared
     similar views of the corporate environment.
    But it wasn't Greg's sandy-brown hair and vivid blue eyes that
     Sabrina recalled this morning. It was Talbot's already
     magnificently silvered head and the blue eyes that had burned with
     a father's fury as he faced her in her own office.
    "You cheap, conniving little bitch," he had flung at her. "It
     should be you the FBI arrested last night, and you goddamned well
     know it. You're the reason Greg did it. If it hadn't been for
     you—"
    "Mr. Sheffield, I had nothing to do with it! I had no idea