Read Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1) for Free Online

wanted.
    He’d bought a ring. Proposed. Entered into an actual engagement. He’d promised something that he didn’t actually have to give.
    He cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Asking you to marry me is the biggest compliment I could pay a woman. I admire you. You’re brilliant, accomplished, beautiful. And I . . .” He searched for more. Found nothing to say.
    “And you thought that was enough,” Simone finished. “Until you didn’t.”
    He didn’t dare reply. He was in over his head.
    She turned away so all he could see was the sharp line of her jaw, the small gold drop earrings. “You know what, Noah? I really thought you were different.”
    He had no idea where she was going with this. Certainly nowhere good.
    “How?” he asked.
    “All that old-fashioned courtship. You, telling me you were happy waiting to have sex. I thought, aw, how sweet. How quirky and unusual and romantic. I thought you must have hidden depths. And that there would be so much more to discover. Hah.”
    “Simone—”
    “But it’s all a front. You have no hidden depths. There’s nobody home in there. I’m glad I never had sex with you.” She tugged her finger, pulling off the square-cut diamond he’d given her. “Take this back.”
    He held up his hands. “Wait. Simone, can’t we talk first?”
    “Take it, or I’ll flush it in the ladies.” She grabbed his hand, and closed his fingers forcibly over the ring. “Do you think I want to remember this feeling? Oh joy and fucking rapture. You want some advice, Noah?”
    He wanted advice from her about the way he wanted a fractured skull, but he had no right to show her any attitude. He clenched his teeth and gestured for her to have at. Stick it to him.
    “Give yourself a birthday treat.” She flung the words at him. “Celebrate your freedom. Play out your pathetic sexual fantasy right here on the conference room table . Better her than me.”
    She walked out, her elegant back very straight.
    Noah stared at the door. The diamond ring dug deep into his palm. He breathed slower, slower . . . until Simone’s kill plan winked off his inner screen in the absence of visual stimuli. He was glad when it did.
    He’d held back on sex with Simone, and he finally understood why. Because he was afraid of that inevitable moment afterwards. When she’d cuddle up to him with a hopeful, expectant look on her face, and there he’d be, like he always was. Wondering what the fuck to do with her now. And how soon could she leave.
    He pressed his hand against the table. The sensual grain of wood made him think of the dancer’s hair. That sexy fanning flare it did as she dipped and spun.
    Play out your pathetic fantasy right here on the conference room table if you want. Simone’s words unleashed vividly erotic images. Lust shocked his unstable AVP into action again. Enough. He’d never analog dived to stall a sexual fantasy before, but there was a first time for everything.
    When he had himself more or less together, he stepped out of the conference room and into an unnatural silence. Everyone in the place who had an office with a door that closed was behind it. The ones assigned to cubicles hunkered down and made themselves small while he stalked through the place.
    Hannah stood in the corridor by his office door, obviously worried.
    “Noah?” she asked.
    He shook his head and went into his office. Tossed Simone’s ring on his desk. He looked out the floor to ceiling glass window at Mount Rainier, towering in the distance. Barely visible in the fading light of the afternoon.
    His office door opened silently. He turned to find Hannah gazing at the ring on his desk. “If a four minute belly dance could break your engagement, then it really needed to be broken,” she said flatly.
    “Thanks for the advice. Like you know what you’re talking about. Your last relationship was over in less than a week.”
    “So?”
    He ignored her mulish look. “So what the fuck did you