The Billionaire Op - Lori Ryan Page 0,24

them as though they really mattered to her.

That’s why she was so good at this. People wanted to connect with her. They were drawn to her. Chad was an expert on the topic of being drawn to Jennie.

He’d been drawn to her since the first time he’d spotted her at Sutton Capital. He had gone to ask Jack a question. He was having a bad day and was hurried and stressed, but he turned the corner and spotted Jennie at the desk outside Jack’s office and froze. And, then she looked up at him and smiled. That smile cut right to his heart every time she graced him with it.

The attraction only grew from there. When Jack married Kelly and they all started hanging out outside the office together, he got his first glimpse of Jennie laughing. She always tipped her head back and laughed with such abandon. He found himself trying to make her laugh over and over again.

Sitting on the boat with his hands on her bare skin, Chad knew he would regret the closeness later when reality came racing back to him. But, he couldn’t stop himself.

He’d let himself pretend, for the next few hours, that Jennie was his. That they had a life together, a future together. That this scenario wasn’t some masquerade to get information for Jack’s friend.

Yeah. It would suck when he came falling back to earth, but for right now, he would let himself fly high on the fantasy of Jennie.

Chapter 14

That evening, they were drinking beer out on the patio, sharing the double chaise lounge. The sexual tension that always whirled around them was present, but they were both getting better at living with it, or so it seemed to Jennie.

She suspected it wouldn’t ever go away but they were building more of a friendship than they ever had on other assignments. And, they were definitely getting good at forgetting they were supposed to have a professional, working relationship.

Chad opened a new beer and handed the icy cold bottle to Jennie.

“Truth or dare?” she asked. They’d been playing for a while now, each of them repeatedly choosing ‘truths’ and skipping the ‘dares.’ It was as if they’d both forgotten they worked together. That Chad was her boss. That they shouldn’t interact like this.

“Truth,” he answered.

“Most unusual place you’ve ever had sex.”

He shook his head with a laugh, but answered anyway. “Top of a mountain. We were hiking and we got to the top of a very isolated peak. We were hidden on one side by a boulder but anyone on the mountain peak across from us would have seen what was going on. They couldn’t see detail, but, uh,” he cleared his throat, “the general gist of it would have been clear.”

Jennie didn’t say anything in response. She was too busy picturing sex on top of a mountain with Chad. Would it be fast and dirty or would he take his time despite the fact that anyone could spot them at any time?

She was amazed at how quickly the images in her head had her breasts feeling heavier and the heat and anticipation of arousal swirling in her belly. She had to fight to draw her focus back to the game.

“Truth or dare?” Chad asked.

“Truth.”

“What’s your biggest fear?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but he quickly amended his question.

“Besides fish,” he said with a grin.

Forgetting my husband? Falling in love again? Losing my entire life, my reason for being—again?

“Pass,” Jennie said, invoking her one pass they’d negotiated for at the start of their game.

She continued before Chad had a chance to comment. “Truth or dare, Chad?”

“Truth,” he said, raising his beer bottle to his lips again. Her eyes fell to his mouth involuntarily, before she ripped them away.

“What’s your biggest fear?” She asked.

Chad turned to face her, answering without hesitation. “That I’ll turn out like my father.”

Chad’s father had left his mother when he was in his early twenties, after twenty-five years of what everyone thought was a perfect marriage. He didn’t cheat on her, didn’t leave because he fell in love with someone else.

He simply left one day and didn’t even bother to seek anything in the divorce. Kelly had told Jennie once that the last anyone heard of him, he was living on a beach in New Zealand or something.

Jennie started laughing, drawing a look from Chad that might have scared any other woman. Or, at least sobered them enough to stop laughing. For Jennie, it only made her laugh