Read Silk on the Skin: A Loveswept Classic Romance for Free Online

just about naughty nighties.”
    “You’d look great in one,” he commented.
    She felt a hot blush rising to her cheeks, andruthlessly forced it away. “I thought you were against them, Dallas.”
    “I lust in my heart, Cass,” he said, grinning at her. “As a matter of fact, there’s a little, and I do mean little, emerald green one that would really—”
    “I don’t want to hear about a green one. Or blue. Or yellow. Or black.”
    “Not yellow,” he broke in, his eyes full of mischief. “It would clash with your coloring. Now, black would be sensational on you, especially with the cutouts around the—”
    “Let’s talk about M & L,” she interrupted. The son of a gun knew exactly how to get to her!
    “You’re the one who’s no fun now,” he complained, leaning his hip against the counter.
    “The original party pooper,” she agreed, stepping over to the counter. She faced him and leaned her hip against the counter too.
    He gave a loud exaggerated sigh. She hid a grudging smile of amusement.
    “Okay, Cass. You’re the boss. Yesterday, I told you about the problems at the company. There is a solution. Go to the offices and check out everything I’ve said. As a major stockholder, you have every right to do so.”
    “I’ve also got a proxy agreement,” she reminded him. “Someone else votes for me, and I see no reason to change that.”
    “You can break that agreement with Ned at any time, and you know it.”
    Her jaw dropped in astonishment at his knowledge of the terms of her agreement with Ned.
    “That is private business!” she began hotly.
    “Half of Wall Street knows it.” he said in a coolvoice. “Ned is in the habit of bragging to his friends about how untroublesome that little clause is to him. It feeds his ego to think that you’re too flighty even to know you can invoke it.”
    “Flighty?”
    “Flighty. At M & L, you are considered to be a born-late hippy who has an unprofitable shop in a quaint little seaside town because she needs to do something to fill the hours.”
    She opened her mouth to vent a protest, then shut it as she realized it was exactly what he wanted her to do. He wanted her angry at Ned, angry at everyone, and determined to prove them wrong. She could see how people would get the wrong impression of her. They only knew she owned a Christmas specialty store on the Jersey coast. Even Ned really didn’t know much more than that about her. But they didn’t know
her.
She doubted very much if Ned “bragged.” He was probably relieved that she had confidence in him.
    She forced herself to shrug nonchalantly. “They’ve got a right to their opinion. But I’m curious about why you’d think that breaking my proxy agreement with Ned would cure the company’s ills.”
    “I told you before. Your shares give Ned the majority voting block on the board. How a board goes, so goes the company. It’s bad enough when stockholders don’t vote the right way, but it’s worse when someone else is doing it for them.
    “So you expect me to go up to M & L’s main offices, take a quick look-see, and be ready to make an intelligent decision?” She laughed dryly. “I could decide that Ned is doing a great job.”
    “Not if I’m the one showing you the operation, Cass.”
    Aha, she thought, while smothering a smile of satisfaction. So Dallas would guide her through M & L. It ought to be some guidance. She bet her last Mary Snead pillow he was the one who thought she was flighty—and pliable. He had to, if he expected her to fall for this.
    It suddenly occurred to her exactly how to teach Dallas Carter a well-deserved lesson and at the same time keep him from causing trouble with the other stockholders. It meant being around him for hours at a stretch, but she decided she could handle it. All she had to do was maintain her poise, and she’d just done that.
    “I do understand what you’re telling me,” she began slowly. “But M & L is a manufacturer. I