Kostas's Convenient Bride: Kostas's Convenient Bride / Desert Prince's Stolen Bride. Кейт Хьюит

by anyone not directly in front of it. It was filled with a series of lines that all said the same thing. “I need you to go away.”

      She carefully deleted the dozens of lines saying the same thing, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not get back into programming mode.

      She needed to know what her future held, now that she realized it wasn’t going to have Andreas Kostas in it.

      She left her development station with the computer with no conduit to the internet and moved to her desk and tablet. It was a lot easier than she expected to find a flight to Sebastian Hawk’s headquarters the following day.

      Kayla marked herself as out of the building the next day, canceled the one meeting she had to attend and sent off two emails requesting coverage for the others she wouldn’t be at.

      * * *

      Andreas swore as he read the gushing but uncompromising email from Genevieve telling him he had to fill out the entire personality and interests form before their next consultation. He’d thought the intake form had asked everything pertinent.

      Apparently, the matchmaker did not agree.

      If Kayla wasn’t pissed at him, he could have asked for her help. As awkward as she could be socially because of her overly literal mind, she got stuff like this with surprising understanding.

      The meeting between her and the matchmaker could have gone worse, but he wasn’t sure how. Both he and Genevieve had gotten Kayla’s back up.

      It had been a couple of years since she’d tuned him out with earbuds. But when she did it, there was no point trying to communicate with her.

      Kayla had a stubborn streak that could outlast his own when the issue mattered to her.

      She was angry he’d decided to sell the company, that she’d learned today in the meeting.

      Telling Genevieve his plans to sell before talking to Kayla had been a mistake. He could see that now.

      He owed his partner more respect than that.

      It was also clear that she believed as his friend, he should have talked to her about hiring the matchmaker ahead of time too.

      He didn’t see it.

      If anything, Kayla should have realized this was the next step. She was the only person he’d ever shared his plans with, but he had shared them.

      A long time ago, when their friendship had included sex and no business partnership.

      He didn’t like knowing she was upset with him. Kayla Jones was the only person whose opinion really mattered to him.

      Breakfast apology éclairs might be in order tomorrow.

      Hell, why not deal with it tonight and take her to dinner at that Vietnamese place she liked?

      Kayla wasn’t in the computer lab when he got there and didn’t answer her phone when he called.

      She was still ignoring him.

      Too bad for her, he wasn’t in the mood to be ignored.

      He’d just go by her condo. It wasn’t exactly a trip, a few floors below his penthouse that was double the size of her small one bedroom. At least she’d moved into his building and out of the hopeless apartment in an unacceptable part of town.

      Forty-five minutes later, he sent a short text. Where the hell are you?

      When she didn’t reply in five minutes, he sent another one. I can keep this up all night until your damn phone’s batteries die from all the alerts.

      He was surprised when she didn’t reply after that one. Andreas didn’t make idle threats, though. He proceeded to blow her phone up with texts every five minutes, even more shocked when the first few did not elicit a response and moving into downright worried by the time his phone rang forty-five minutes and eight texts later.

      “Stop!” Anger and exasperation warred in her shout.

      More than a little annoyed himself, he demanded, “Where are you?”

      “You’re not my keeper.”

      Knowing he did not have to be worried for her safety allowed him to ratchet back on the irritation. He went for calm, rational. “We need to talk.”

      “Maybe you should have thought of that little thing before this minute, you think?”

      “We would have talked this afternoon if you hadn’t thrown a hissy fit and stormed out of my office.” Okay, maybe not so calm.

      “That? Was not a hissy fit. I do not lose my cool, storm anywhere and I never throw fits, hissy or otherwise.” Oh, hell. Her voice had gone cold and devoid of emotion, like it did when she was protecting herself.

      He didn’t like thinking she felt the need to protect herself from him. “Be reasonable, Kayla. You’re blowing this all out of proportion.”

      “What exactly? The fact you’re planning to take my home away because that wife pimp says you need to?”

      “I’m not doing anything with your condo.”

      “Don’t play the idiot!” Kayla’s shout stunned him into silence.

      She was right; she didn’t lose her cool. The only time he’d ever heard her raise her voice was when they used to sleep together. And no matter how good a lover he was, the times she let herself go enough to scream were few. Allowing himself to remember their sexual past was not productive, as he had learned early on after taking her on as a business partner.

      He could not afford that kind of distraction from his goals.

      Right now, his goal was figuring out what was going on with his best friend. “Kayla?”

      “I’m taking the day off tomorrow.” The even tone of her voice after that primal scream of pain was almost worse than the shout itself.

      “Why?”

      “I have things to do.”

      “What things?”

      “How did your wife pimp put it? None of your business, Andreas.”

      “Kayla, stop it. I don’t know what has gotten into you—”

      The low beep that indicated the call had been ended interrupted Andreas. Damn it. She should know he wouldn’t sell the company without an after plan for both of them.

      He hadn’t expected her to want to go into venture capitalism herself, not really, but she was brilliant at computer code and not just that related to security. Kayla would be a stellar value add as an adviser and contributor of modified or original programming for any company he might be interested in investing in.

      Once she calmed down, she’d see that.

      Until then, he should probably make sure she got both “I’m sorry” éclairs and coffee from her favorite bistro in the morning.

      He’d drop them off on his way to work. Maybe he should reorganize his morning so they could spend a couple of hours together.

      They hadn’t had off time together in a while.

      It was just that spending time with her away from work came with temptations he had to fight. The uncontrollable passion they’d once shared had to be kept locked up tight. That kind of attraction didn’t lead to anything good. It was exactly what had been his mother’s downfall and the reason his father, whom even Andreas could acknowledge was generally an honest, if bullheaded man, had an illicit affair.

      Keeping their past firmly in the past should have grown easier as the years progressed, but the opposite was true. Andreas found himself admiring Kayla in a very personal, very sexual way at the least convenient times.

      But he could not allow his own weakness to damage their friendship. He’d worked too hard to find a place in his life for her