Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1) Read Online Free Page A

he needed to get through the firing squad. Somehow, the fact that Maddi seemed pissed off took some of the shock away and gave him the fire and audacity he needed to keep going.
    Now it was over, and he felt like he was in a well. The blonde receptionist was talking. Her cute little mouth was moving, she was smiling and working the body language and all the things that normally tweaked Zach’s attention, but he didn’t hear her. He wasn’t there. Every ion in his body was tuned into the group of people behind him, their business chatter about legalities and making copies and arrangements and—the subject didn’t matter. Maddi’s voice was like a magnet tugging at the back of his head. How he’d managed to sit across the table from her with a straight face, uttering somewhat intelligent words, was a miracle. Actually, he had no memory of the first five minutes after she’d sat down.
    He heard the group disperse, and he took a deep breath. This was ridiculous. He was reacting like someone he didn’t even recognize. He shook his head, and the receptionist whose silly name he couldn’t remember raised her eyebrows.
    “No?”
    Zach blinked. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
    One eyebrow came down while the other stayed up. “Really? Are you that old?”
    “What?”
    “You already forgot what I said?” she asked, leaning over her desk a bit, showing even more of what she was clearly proud of. “I asked you if you’d like to go get something to eat, old man.”
    Zach smiled. Old. Any other time, he would rise to that bait, turn on the charm, and go show this cocky little girl exactly what being old and experienced was all about. She was Zach’s kind of woman. High chemistry, low maintenance, no strings, no emotional attachments, just out for a good time. No judgment, opinions, or history.
    No Madison Hayes.
    That thought physically pushed him back a step. “Not today. Think I’ll take the stairs,” he said with the most charming smile he could come up with. “Nice to meet you.”
    Zach turned and headed for a door with a neon “Exit” glowing above it, thinking a jog down eleven flights of steps might be just what he needed to clear his head. He’d made it down one set when he heard the door open again overhead.
    “Hey.”
    He stopped. “Yeah?”
    Blonde Girl took the stairs slowly on the precarious heels, and from his angle, Zach could just about see all the goods. When she reached him, she wasted no time breaking personal space. She cozied right on up, and knew exactly how to fit her body against a man.
    “I wasn’t actually talking about eating,” she said, her soft honeyed voice dripping with all kinds of promises.
    “I know,” Zach said.
    “Then why are you leaving?” she whispered, pulling him closer still.
    Why was he leaving? Here he had a hot woman nearly humping his leg. But his head was still—
    Zach pulled her hands free and backed up, bringing them to his lips. He kept his eyes on hers and maintained the fantasy. He knew how to leave a woman breathless. Except in this particular case, he was much more focused on getting down those stairs than he was on Blonde Girl’s breathing.
    “I have to go,” he said.
    “Seriously?”
    “Sorry,” he said with a wink and two steps down.
    “Facebook me,” she said, covering her disappointment with a fresh new seductive look. “Blakely Ash.”
    “I don’t do Facebook,” he said, holding up his hands.
    “Who doesn’t do Facebook?” Blakely scoffed. “How do you keep up with everyone?”
    Zach’s everyone fit in his phone, and probably sadly also fit at his mother’s dinner table. He didn’t have time to be much more social than that. At least, the kind of social that required keeping up.
    He was down another flight of stairs, however, before the entire sentence was even out of her mouth. But it wasn’t the woman in red he was trying to escape.
    It was the woman in white and the ice daggers she’d thrown at him every time she