Conflict of Interest - By Allyson Lindt Page 0,6

not have gotten intense enough to steam up his windows before he dropped me off.”

Riley’s jaw dropped. “Mackenzie Carter, are you yanking my chain?”

Kenzie flushed. Finally, she had shocked her sister. And she was considering doing it again. She did need to give Mr. G4M3G0D back his jacket, and she knew where he spent a lot of his Saturday mornings. “Completely serious.”

Riley smirked. “I don’t need details. Unless he was hot. Like super, extra sexy.”

Kenzie’s mouth twisted, and she stared back at her sister. “He wasn’t bad. He had a nice car. That’s sexy, right?”

Riley didn’t look impressed. “So in other words he was kind of bland and dim-witted. Not so much out of the ordinary for you after all.”

Kenzie glared at her twin, not liking the implication. “He was gorgeous, intelligent, and did incredible things with his fingers.” And lips, and mouth, and tongue. “Better?”

Riley rolled her eyes, dragged herself from the couch, and brushed past her, talking as she padded into the guest bedroom. “Whatever. Keep trying to build up the lie, and you might start to believe it. I know I don’t.”

Kenzie spun, glaring at her sister’s back and struggling to remember why she’d hurried home. Her phone rang, postponing the irritation. She knew from the ringtone it was work. It wasn’t like them to call on a Saturday.

“This is Mackenzie.” She adopted her most professional tone.

“What’s your calendar look like for the next few months?” her boss, Greta, asked.

The lack of formality didn’t surprise Kenzie. Greta didn’t believe in small talk.

She didn’t hesitate to accept the offer. As a contractor, work meant getting paid, and she was trying to pad her bank account as much as possible. Early retirement wouldn’t pay for itself, and if she stuck to her plan, in a decade she’d be spending her time in a remote villa south of the equator. “I’ve got some room, what’s up?”

“We’ve got someone requesting a presentation Monday. They think it’s an emergency. For you, it’s standard stuff—out-of-control executive making his company look bad needs to learn how to act like an adult in public, that kind of stuff.”

Monday didn’t give her much time to prepare, but she was used to bouncing with emergency clients. She had a sales pitch on standby that she could slide into without a problem. “I’m on board. Send me the info and I’ll be there.”

“Already done.” The line went dead.

Kenzie shrugged and flipped over to her email, scanning the guy’s basic profile. Scott McAllister. Chief technical officer and half owner of a successful international software company, public bad boy. Great, a geek who didn’t know how to hold himself around his peers. As long as he was pliable, the job would be easy.

She clicked the email shut. She could read the rest later. This was a no-brainer job. She should really try and make amends with her sister and find out what happened the night before.

Images and sensations still lingered on her skin from the stolen time in the stranger’s SUV. And maybe spend some more time dwelling on what had happened that morning.

*

Scott pulled to a stop at the red light. He flopped his head back onto the headrest, not able to shake his smile. Completely anonymous, completely hot, and surprisingly brilliant. He was going to be using that memory for a while, wishing business hadn’t interrupted the most fun he’d had with a woman in ages.

His phone rang. Speaking of business and interruptions. That would be Zach’s fifth attempt to reach him in the last fifteen minutes. Time to face the music. He hit a button on his stereo, switching off the music and switching on the Bluetooth, hands-free system. “Hey.”

“Care to tell me about Vegas?” Zach’s hollow growl filled the interior of the SUV.

That had taken at least a day longer than it should have. Scott had been back in town since last night, and it had been at least thirty-six hours since the incident. Still there was no reason to fess up unless they were both thinking of the same thing. “You know what they sa—”

“Wrong.” Zach cut him off. “I swear, if you say ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,’ you’re in charge of employee reviews for the next six months.”

Scott’s mouth twisted in disappointment. It was an effective threat. “Lame. But fine. What did you hear?”

“Uh uh.” A loud exhale filtered through the speakers. Zach was smoking. This was bad. Zach never smoked on phone calls. “You tell me what happened so I