Read Uncovered for Free Online

By the time I
closed my apartment door behind me, my body trembled.
    Exhaling deeply, I dropped my
purse by my feet and closed my eyes. I opened them just in time to see Pen
coming out of the kitchen, holding a plate with a bagel slathered in strawberry
cream cheese. She paused the moment her slate blue eyes landed on me.
    "Oh shit." Her dark
brows drew together in concern. "You didn't freak out and tell them
everything, did you?"
    I shook my head. “I don’t go
back until Thursday. Margaret’s out of town, and she wants to be there when I
start.” Pen let out a sigh of relief that echoed through her body. Dropping her
plate a few inches from the red floral centerpiece on the dining room table,
she sat down and motioned for me to take the spot right across from her. As I
joined her, she studied me carefully.
    "Alright, why are you
shaking?" she demanded. “Being in that building didn’t get to you, did
it?”
    “I can handle the building,”
I promised. “I’m shaking because of Oliver Manning.”
    She repeated his name and
then fanned herself, laughing at the dark look I shot at her. “That man gives
me the shivers. Is he gorgeous in person? Or is he one of those guys who just
photographs well?” Observing my silence, she leaned forward and whispered, “His
mom was married to your dad for all of two years. It’s not wrong to—”
    “He’s arrogant.” I left it at
that because I absolutely could not look at her and tell her he wasn’t
attractive. Everything about Oliver—from his voice to his touch to his
knee-weakening looks—was overpowering and stunning. I recounted most of what
had happened this morning, from meeting Stella to bits-and-pieces of the
parking garage encounter, plunking my destroyed phone on the table between us
when I was finished. “He’s bow-down-to-me,
fall-into-my-Egyptian-cotton-sheets-right-effing-now arrogant.”
    “He’s rich,” Pen pointed out.
“You should be used to his type.”
    In the last three years, I’d
met my fair share of men with money, men who had gladly tossed out a few
thousand a night to have me on their arm with absolutely no promise of anything
more. But as I sat there trying to compare Oliver to them, I quickly found that
my brain refused to make the connection.
    He was in a class of his own,
and I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
    “Hmm … I’m used to them.
Doesn’t make it any better.” Thinking about the way his hands had felt flared
over my skin doused me with a bucket full of emotions, and I shoved away from
the table. “When are you leaving for Vegas?” I called out, walking into the
narrow kitchen. As bad as it sounded, I was determined to get Oliver the hell
out of my head, even if that meant powering through my fully stocked fridge.
    “About that,” Pen said. I
heard her make a noise that I associated with indecision. I knew what was
coming even before I returned to the adjoining dining room with blueberry
yogurt and a can of Diet Dr. Pepper. The thought made me ridiculously giddy
inside. When I slid into my seat and tucked my foot beneath my butt, she folded
her hands together and gave me one of those looks that made me feel like we
were negotiating a business deal.
    She should have known by now
that none of this was necessary.
    “So I called my boss, who was
totally cool with me doing some work remotely, and I was thinking…” she said
with a timid look that was so unlike her I bit my lip to suppress my own smile.
For the last couple years, she’d been with the same software company, working
in what she called a “white hat” position where she tested cracks in the
software. She was such an asset to the company that her boss had reached the
point where he let her do her own thing. “Well, hell, I was thinking—”
    “Of course you can stay with
me.” I pulled the foil off my yogurt and licked it clean. “I’d honestly love
for you to be here.” Something about having Pen—my best friend and the
mastermind who