Zoe and the Tormented Tycoon Read Online Free PDF Page B

chrome handles. A doorman leapt to attention as they approached and swung the doors open. Max stalked through them, in an almost military march, with Zoe hurrying behind in her heels.
    This wasn’t, she thought a bit resentfully, the most auspicious beginning to the evening. Yet even so, she wasn’t tempted to turn away. Max Monroe fascinated her, and more than that, he somehow managed to reach a place inside of her she hadn’t known existed, even now wasn’t sure was real. When he’d touched her she felt something stir to life that she hadn’t realised was asleep—or perhaps even dead. Something—someone—that had nothing to do with Zoe Balfour, and all to do with just Zoe.
    And that was why she followed him through the building’s foyer with its polished floor of slick black marble, to the bank of gleaming, high-speed lifts. Max stepped inside, his finger trailing along the buttons until he reached the top one, and pushed PH . The penthouse. Of course.
    The Balfour apartment on Park Avenue was a penthouse as well, with its dignified drawing rooms and separate servants’ quarters. It was a beautiful, well-preserved relic from another age, a different century, and Zoe knew instinctively Max Monroe’s penthouse was going to be something else entirely.
    And it was. The lift doors opened straight into the apartment, and Zoe felt as if she were stepping into the sky. The apartment had floor-to-ceiling windows on every side, and the Hudson River gleamed only a block away, the lights of one of Manhattan’s many bridges twinkling in the distance.
    She turned, and from the other side saw the Empire State Building’s needle point heavenward, a sea of skyscrapers behind it, filling the horizon.
    She turned slowly in a full circle, savouring the view from every direction, until she finally chuckled a bit in admiration and turned to Max, who had shrugged out of his jacket and was even now loosening his tie. He didn’t look at the view at all.
    â€˜Impressive,’ she murmured. ‘Do you ever grow tired of the view?’
    â€˜No.’ He spoke so flatly Zoe wondered if she’d said something wrong.
    Max moved around the apartment, flicking on a few lamps, bathing the room in a warm glow. Zoe glanced at the austere furnishings: all high-end bachelor pad withsleek leather sofas and uncomfortable-looking chairs made out of chrome, a designer glass coffee table she thought she’d seen featured in a decorating magazine, and a glimpse of a spotlessly clean stainless-steel kitchen that looked to have every gadget and appliance and was clearly never used.
    Her heels clicked against the Brazilian cherry-wood floor as she came to stand by a window. Actually, Zoe saw, it was a door, made so seamlessly it looked like a window except for a discreet metal handle that led out to a wide terrace.
    She heard Max cross the floor, felt him stand behind her. It amazed her how attuned she was to his movements, so that even before he reached out she knew he was going to touch her, was waiting for him to touch her.
    He lifted his arm slowly—so slowly—and Zoe tensed, ready for his touch. Yet when it came it still shocked her, the heaviness of his hand on her bare shoulder sending ripples of awareness along her arm and through her body, deep into her belly. Neither of them spoke.
    His hand slid along her shoulder, down her arm, as if he were slowly, languorously learning the landscape of her body. His fingers twined with hers as he pulled her around so she was facing him, his eyes dark and fathomless, his face seeming harsh in the yellow light cast from the buildings behind her, a sea of sightless skyscrapers. He moved so her back pressed against the glass and she could feel his heat, the hardness of his chest and thighs.
    Her heart hammered with slow, deliberate thuds and her knees actually felt weak. She’d never had such a reaction to a man—to anyone,