Undone by His Kiss Read Online Free Page A

warnings. Jasper swallowed his embarrassment, feeding the emotion to the flames of anger in his stomach which sparked when he’d first noticed the females congregating in front of his office. Their distracting presence would mislead any passerby who might consider his new enterprise a legitimate business venture. He straightened his shoulders and narrowed his eyes on the petite female commanding the other ladies to quiet down and be still.
    “What are you doing?” Any trace of civility evaporated once he found his voice.
    “I beg your pardon?” The icy cut of her words guaranteed it was no apology.
    “You can’t bring your flock here and gather in front of my building. No one can see the window. Your conversations are intrusive and I’ve business to do inside.” Feeling vindicated, Jasper eyed his nemesis, daring her to look away. He would not break their stare though a peculiar tension took hold. The breeze stilled and the birds stopped singing; his glare unwavered. He’d stand outside all day if necessary.
    Yet she didn’t bat a lash and as minutes ticked by, Jasper noticed her eyes were an unusual shade of blue. One that renewed memories of his childhood summers spent in Brighton with his brother and father. His mother had possessed lovely blue eyes, or at least he’d been told, too young to remember her before she passed away. Lost in the memory, he startled when the lady interrupted curtly.
    “Your building?” She tilted her chin and nodded to the left. “This building here?”
    An unexplainable ill ease crawled over his skin, warning he’d mis-stepped in an assortment of ways, but remained powerless to retract his initial bluster. It didn’t help that the accompanying aggregation had inched closer as the discussion evolved, while Randolph, his only reinforcement, had retreated to the shade of a nearby awning.
    “
Inventive Investment
.” He stood firm. “It’s my business you and your companions have obstructed.”
    One of her narrow brows winged high as he completed his sentence. Funny, how she expressed a plethora of emotion with the delicate movement.
    “Ladies, I believe we’ve discovered our building mate.” She offered a slight scan over each shoulder before bringing her azure gaze to rest on his face. “I could be mistaken—”
    Her flippant tone assured she knew better, yet her voice held a silky note that resonated inside him, akin to the pounding of his heart in his chest, where it remained for a spell before arrowing straight to his groin, no matter she’d insulted him.
    “But this walkway does not belong to any single pedestrian.” She continued her harangue, her shoulders held in obdurate erectility, her didactic tone self-assured. “Our league has leased the office above yours and we’re gathering for a celebratory meeting. We assemble bi-weekly, except for special occasions, such as this, when we may
congregate
more often.”
    He regretted the word for the hundredth time.
    “I feel no need to explain my actions to you,
Sir…
” She said the word as if spitting poison from her tongue. “Other than to make it implicitly understood no such conversation will occur in the future.”
    She finished with her hands on her hips and a tight-lipped tolerant smile that somehow expressed she thought him a goose-cap. She couldn’t be taller than five foot five, yet it felt as if she looked down on all six feet of him. He straightened his shoulders for the second time.
    The ladies appeared on pins and needles in wait of his response. Randolph was nowhere to be found and Jasper defaulted to manners, no matter he’d acted the bore and rudely dismissed the ladies and their league without consideration of the actual situation or their gentle sensibilities. He’d worried over harridans and misguided dowagers, but how he’d miscalculated.
    Before him stood a perfect combination of stern reprimand and untouched beauty as rare as the blue of her eyes. Fresh blooms of pale rose colored her