Exposing the Billionaire (Corporate Affairs, Book #1) Read Online Free

into another fiasco, you’re through. Forget about journalism, no one will take you after this, not even if they wanted to. God knows I’d keep you, but there’s no chance with the kind of reputation you’d have.”
    “I’ll break this, Pete,” she said fiercely—mostly to hide her fear. “Everyone’s got secrets and the fact that these are buried so deep only means that they’re dirtier than everyone else’s. I’ll crack this story. I just need some time.”
    She heard him sigh. “You’ve only got three more weeks, Kate. We can’t sit on it any longer than that.”
    There was a click. He’d hung up and it was for the best. There wasn’t anything else to say after that.
    * * *
    T he following day was a Friday. Blaine had spent the majority of the workday in his office having phone conferences with people from everywhere: Paris, Tokyo, London. And Kate didn’t get to listen to any of it. Blaine hadn’t called her in for so much as a cup of coffee—though in all fairness, after the last time it was hard to blame him.
    Still. Last week he had been practically undressing her with his eyes. Now he didn’t even call her over the intercom?
    And while Kate spent the entire day convincing herself it was purely a sense of disappointment at not getting a crack at her story, even the back of her own mind told her it was something else. She had wanted him to call her in, attraction and lust shining in his eyes. Instead, he all but ignored her.
    “He’s not ignoring you,” she muttered under her breath, though there was no one in the room. “He’s just a corporate CEO busy running a company.”
    It made her feel a little better.
    Finally, the end of the workday rolled around. Kate was typing away on her computer, responding to inquiry e-mails, when Blaine came out of his office. He was carrying a briefcase and glancing at his watch as he closed the door behind him. His long, brisk stride propelled him across the floor quickly and efficiently, but he paused at Kate’s desk.
    He glanced at her, seeming to think something over. Kate did her best to simply finish her e-mail as he stared, then look up with a bland smile on her face. That smile nearly shattered when she saw his blue eyes again. The flickered and shone and she thought again that he looked hungry.
    “G-goodnight Mr. Blaine,” she finally said, cursing herself for stuttering.
    He gave her a curt nod, then continued his way down the hall towards the elevators, calling over his shoulder, “And to you, Ms. Kaufmann.”
    When Kate heard the ding of the elevator and the sound of closing doors, she finally got up from her desk. She had seen Clarice depart almost half an hour earlier, unusual for the workaholic, so Kate was pretty sure she was in the clear.
    Cautiously, Kate got up from her desk, checking down the hall to make sure no one was coming. She hastily grabbed several documents off her desk—just in case she got caught—and approached Blaine’s office. With a deep breath, she pushed opened the door, half-expecting it to be locked with an alarm or something.
    “Guess not,” she mumbled. She slipped into the office, careful to close the door behind her and went immediately to the filing cabinets lining the left wall.
    The first one opened without any trouble, revealing rows of thin folders labeled and alphabetized. She went through them as quickly as she could, but none of them looked very useful. Mostly they were just memos and notes, nothing like receipts, contracts, or ledgers. That would have been a goldmine.
    Kate tried the other drawers next, but they were all locked. She pulled out the bobby pin that had held up her mass of brown hair, letting it tumble over her shoulders. With a few curses and several minutes of struggling, Kate managed to get the second drawer open.
    Only to find that it was empty.
    “Damnit,” she cursed to herself.
    She glanced at the labels and realized they must have been filled with documentation for foreign