Rough Edges Read Online Free

do. Even if it meant controlling his inappropriate feelings for the woman of his dreams.
    â€œPayton asked me to speak to you,” he said. “You have to stop ignoring him.”
    â€œLike hell.” Bella held up her hand. There was a small cut along her palm. Victor wanted to pull her hand to his mouth and kiss away her hurt so badly he had to clench his fists to keep from reaching for her.
    â€œYou have to deal with him. He’s part of this whole mess.”
    Fury burned in her gray eyes, turning them the color of cold steel and hot ash. “He
caused
this whole mess, sweetheart. He was there from the beginning, helping drag kids in for those experiments. He covered his tracks. Hid the truth. From all of us. Don’t sit there and tell me I have to deal with him. He’s lucky I don’t simply put a bullet in his skull for the betterment of mankind in general.”
    She lurched forward, toward the house with the bomb still inside. Victor grabbed her wrist and pulled hard enough to make her turn to face him. “He’s trying to make up for what he did.”
    Anger was a living, breathing thing inside her. He could see it coursing just under her skin, tinting it a dark, furious red. “There is no making up for mistakes that big. What he did was intentional. He hurt
children
. Took them from their families. He used them.”
    She was hurting, and the wild feelings of anger and ferocity that evoked in him were barely controlled by his sympathy for the woman who stood before him now. He kept his voice calm and quiet, stayed as far away from pity as he could. Bella wasn’t the kind of woman who would react well to pity, no matter how well placed it might be. The children of the Threshold Project had been used as lab rats, subjected to experimental drugs and brainwashing protocols that were designed to alter them in fundamental ways. Permanently. Bella loved people who’d been part of that, and that made her as dangerous as those who had hurt those kids. “Who did you lose, Bella?”
    She swallowed hard. Cleared her throat. “No one important.”
    â€œThat’s not the whole truth. Tell me.”
    â€œIt’s all the truth you’re going to get. And don’t bother searching the file, either. I’ve made sure everything was removed from the data we recovered. My life is my business. Only mine. Keep your nose out, Vic.”
    â€œVictor,” he automatically corrected.
    â€œI mean it,
Victor
. You stay out of my business or you’re fired.”
    â€œYou can’t fire me. Not if you want to keep your juicy government contract. You’re going to have to find a bigger stick if you want me to be a good dog.”
    â€œI may not be able to fire you, but I can make you beg to quit.”
    â€œIf you think that, then you don’t know me at all. I don’t have an ounce of quit in me anywhere. Why do you think Norwood asked me to take this job? His daughter works for you, for heaven’s sake. The man isn’t going to put some wet-behind-the-ears kid on this assignment. He wants results.”
    She closed the distance between them, dropping the anger from her expression until all that remained was a relaxed, almost wanton look. Her lips were parted. Her pupils dilated. Her gaze fixed on his mouth.
    Victor didn’t know what the hell to think. If he wasn’t certain that she had no interest in him as a man, he would have been convinced she was about to kiss him. Instead, her voice dropped to a slow, sexy Texas drawl. “Honey, there are an awful lot of things a girl like me can do to a man like you that would make him beg for mercy. And only half of them would actually hurt. The rest would feel oh so very nice.”
    She was right. She had much more power here than he’d first suspected. She might not be able to make him quit, but she sure as hell could make this assignment one he would regret for a long, long