Million Dollar Mistake Read Online Free Page A

she found herself looking straight down into Nicholas’s alert gaze. She couldn’t pull away. Her breath caught as he took a small step forward, head lifted, eyes gleaming. Suddenly, she remembered that she couldn’t wrap him around her finger as she did most men. For a moment she faltered, then stiffened her resolve. Showtime.
    “Nicky,” she purred, loud enough to capture attention as she tilted her lips into her most alluring smile.
    Raven ran along the hall to the stairway and practically danced down the steps, her hand trailing lightly over the railing for balance. Her eyes never left Nicholas’s, not even when she saw the wary question in his.
    “Nicky, darling.”
    She spread her arms wide and raced toward him, giving everyone the impression that she was a woman on her way to her lover from whom she’d been separated for eons.
    “Oh, Nicky, you came.”
    She flung herself into his arms, leaping up to clamp her legs around his hips, her arms encircling his neck.
    Thank God the man had good reflexes. With a sharp exhaled “Whoosh!” he grabbed her and adjusted his stance as he wrapped his arms around her body to pull her close.
    Without giving herself time to consider the wisdom of the move, Raven fastened her lips to his, but not before she caught a glimpse of uncharacteristic astonishment in his eyes. That shocked her so much—Nicholas always seemed in control—that she forgot to be careful. Her lips sank into his, stunned by the soft texture of that firm, well-shaped mouth that was usually scowling at her.
    But not now.
    Her lips opened, relaxing into the kiss, the heat of him warming her, beckoning her to come closer, to singe her wings. Then for an instant, reality returned.
    What am I doing?
    The opportunity to stop was lost as Nicholas responded, his hand cupping the back of her head to hold her mouth on his when she started to draw away. His mouth took control, his tongue darting forward to open her lips farther before slipping inside for a light caress. She could feel her breasts swell, her nipples automatically harden, much as he was hardening against the sensitive V where her passion lived. Her legs tightened as she pressed closer. Where this might have gone was up for grabs. Luckily for both of them, the background noise rushed to the foreground.
    “Raven,” Jackson cried. “What are you doing?”
    “Good lord. This is outrageous,” Margaret sniffed.
    “I see you two know each other,” from J.R. with a manly chuckle.
    “Oh,” sighed Lorianne, “how romantic.”
    Recalled to the present, Raven lifted her head, her reluctant lips leaving those of Nicholas. With a small, “Oh, wow,” she unclasped her legs, allowing herself to slide down his body. Her eyes met Nicholas’s. The passion she’d surprised in them was rapidly being replaced by his guarded gaze.
    “Never a dull moment,” he muttered, so low she wasn’t sure if she imagined it.
    “What?”
    “What a nice welcome. Maybe I should go out and come in again,” he said in a light tone, which belied his tense mouth and firm jaw as he continued to stare at her, obviously wondering what was coming next.
    Raven slipped her arm through his, turning to half face the group while keeping her gaze firmly on his as she said, “This is my fi…” The word fiancé stuck in her throat. Suddenly the impulsive plan she’d concocted when she first saw Nicholas seemed a disaster. “This is my f-friend, Nicholas Demetrious.”
    She risked a quick peek around at their audience. They stood as if petrified, shocked into silence. Raven took that moment to seek Nicholas’s gaze, to try to read his expression. He was looking at her with a calculating gleam in his smoke-gray eyes that made her wonder if all of her brain cells had died. She might as well dangle red meat before a starving predator as involve Nicholas in one of her schemes.
    “Friend,” Nicholas queried with just enough playful suggestiveness to add fuel to the fire she’d