Bring the Heat by Margot Radcliffe (13 ebook reader .txt) 📕

he made her look at him, his expression purposeful. “But they will try to figure out your vulnerabilities. So is your father solvent?”

“You mean does he have debt?”

“Yes, or any unwise investments? Does he secretly gamble? Did he ever cheat on your mom? What are his weaknesses?”

“And you, too,” Daphne continued. “Do you have any arrests, any former bosses with a grudge, bad employee reviews?”

Molly looked between both of them as they spoke. The outlandish possibilities made her head spin. The most her father ever gambled was scratch-offs he’d gotten at an office holiday gift exchange.

She shook her head, not truly comprehending what was happening or what it possibly meant for her family or career. “None of those things applies. I don’t know what our weaknesses would be. We’re just normal people.”

“That’s good,” Daphne chirped brightly. “The less they have on you means the less leverage they’ll have on Oliver, which is what we want.”

“But we’re not even together. Why would they use me as leverage?”

“Well, for example,” Daphne explained, “they’ll find out that Oliver wants to build yachts. And now they know he’s also acquired a genius rocket scientist.”

“The preferred term is actually aerospace—”

But Daphne ignored her to continue. “So what they’ll probably do is try to pay you off first. Offer you double the amount Oliver is paying you.”

“Oliver isn’t paying me anything—I’m not working for him,” Molly said, barely keeping up.

“Doesn’t matter.” Daphne shrugged. “Oliver doesn’t have friends, so either way they’ll know you’re a significant piece of whatever he’s doing next.”

“Oliver had tons of friends when we were yachting together.”

Daphne shook her head. “Oliver has acquaintances, not friends he travels extensively with.”

Oliver had been silent but squeezed Molly’s hand. “I’m sorry, Molly, but she’s right. I’d hoped we have more time before this started, but I guess not.”

“I thought you said they’d be fine with you leaving eventually.”

“Yeah, emotionally, like I could go back and we could do the whole family thing. But like I said, this business stuff, they’ll keep coming until they get what they want.”

Molly let all of this sink in, mulling over what could be done to thwart his parents and give Oliver the life he wanted. It didn’t take her long; she was a problem-solver by trade, after all.

“Well, the easy solution is for me to go back to Colorado.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

OLIVER STALKED ACROSS his bedroom toward Molly, who was standing in front of an open suitcase placing neatly folded clothes inside, looking extremely normal as if she had no inkling whatsoever that she was ripping out his heart.

Fucking Daphne, he cursed. As if he needed her to travel to Nassau to tell him what his parents would be planning? He knew the rules of the game, had contingency plans, and then plans for those, too, if they went to shit. Her curiosity over Molly disguised as her trying to help him was so classic her, always stirring things up. She’d been on the boat for all of an hour and completely ruined his life.

“I can’t believe you were serious,” he said, eyes riveted on her bag.

Molly’s head raised, her expression carefully easy. “Yes, this will solve the problem. If I remove myself from the equation, your parents can’t do anything to me and they won’t have any leverage. You get to keep moving forward with your plans and build the company of your dreams. Problem solved.”

Oliver’s eyes closed and his fists clenched. He needed to get himself together and focus if he was going to keep Molly with him. He’d known she was skittish, known she had her doubts about them moving forward, and now his interfering sister had made it all worse, tipped the scales in the exact opposite direction he wanted them when he’d still had so much time left with her.

He’d been so damned good the past weeks, tiptoeing around what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t let her leave now. He couldn’t bear it, not when they’d gotten so close and not when he couldn’t imagine waking up without her in his arms tomorrow or the next day or any day in the future.

“Molly,” he said softly, reaching out a hand. “Can you please stop packing so we can discuss this?”

She shook her head. “You’re just going to try to make me believe that your dream isn’t in danger when I know it is, Oliver. I can’t let myself be part of your downfall. So let’s just take this time to be apart a little longer, and when you’ve got your company up and running I’ll be waiting for you and we can continue this.”

This calmed him a little, to know that she did want to be together, but he still didn’t want her to go.

She turned to him then, taking his hand. “It’s probably not smart to get into another serious relationship right now anyway, Oliver. This is for the best.” Giving him a sad smile, she continued, “And for once I’ll be able to give you what you need instead of the other way around. It means a lot for me to be able to do that for you.”

“You always—” he started, but she cut him off with a kiss.

“Nope, it’s my turn to show you how much you mean to me,” she told him. Then pointed a finger at the bed. “It’s my turn now. Get up there.”

He pulled her in for a kiss that went from hot to volcanic in three seconds as their tongues tangled and fought for dominance. She’d been talking about tying him up since he’d done it to her, but they’d always been in too much of a hurry. But apparently it was his turn. The thought of Molly over him shot bullets of heat to his cock as it stiffened underneath his jeans.

“Clothes off,” she ordered as she moved to the closet and unearthed the duffel bag of toys. She dropped it on the bed as he had and he removed his clothes as she rummaged