The Rebel Tycoon's Outrageous Proposal. Abby Gaines

exercise of an iron will—he was struggling himself. “I’ll brief you over dinner tonight.”

      ONE PROBLEM DOWN, two thousand to go.

      Holly peered in the mirror on her visor, stifling the memory of the last time she’d done that—had it only been Tuesday?—and then found herself barred from her office. It was unlikely she’d be refused admittance to the Green Room, Seattle’s swankiest restaurant, if only because Jared wouldn’t let it happen.

      She knew that much, though she knew little else about the man. She’d spent the past couple of days surfing the Internet at AnnaMae’s house, searching for information about her new employer. For someone who was never out of the headlines, the search yielded surprisingly insubstantial results.

      Harding Corporation had succeeded where so many dotcoms had failed, creating a series of viable Internet businesses. The press had reported with a mix of admiration, envy and resentment the deals Jared had signed with companies and people no one else would touch. He’d cleaned some of them up and stripped some of them down for their dubious assets. He’d bought businesses for their possibly illegally inflated tax losses and offset them against his more profitable operations.

      And rumor had it Jared hadn’t paid a penny in personal or company taxes in five years.

      It might be true. But Holly doubted it could be both true and legitimate. So he’d better have meant it when he’d said she could do as she wanted with this deal.

      She walked the block from her car to the restaurant and pushed open the heavy wooden door with the brass handle. The maître d’ made a dignified rush to meet her.

      Holly followed him across the intimate space of the dining room. Jared rose to greet her and she slid into the booth-style seat that wrapped around two sides of the corner table.

      Jared had changed his clothes. This morning he’d worn a casual gray shirt, which, as he’d pointed out, hadn’t been tucked in to his dark pants. Tonight, a black polo and a zip-fronted jacket made him look too cool for words. Holly was still wearing this morning’s suit.

      “I would have changed, but I don’t have any more clothes,” she said, then clamped her mouth shut.

      “I’d no idea things were so tough in the accounting trade.”

      “I wasn’t allowed back into my home after the FBI searched it yesterday,” she said. “And they froze my bank accounts, so I couldn’t get any cash. And when the bank realized that, they canceled my credit card.”

      Her voice quivered. Holly bit her lower lip. She’d explained the situation to AnnaMae without shedding a single tear. Even lying awake in AnnaMae’s spare bed the past two nights, she’d been shocked, but dry-eyed.

      “You’re not going to cry, are you?”

      “Not in front of you,” she said stiffly.

      With overt relief he handed her a leather-bound menu. Thankfully she wasn’t someone who lost her appetite under stress.

      When they’d ordered, he said, “Since you’re going to work for me, you’d better tell me about this investigation. Just the facts.”

      He was entitled to that much, Holly conceded. “David Fletcher and I went into business together two years ago, after we met at a conference. We were both unhappy with our jobs, and our different skills meshed well—he’s good at client relationships.”

      “The schmoozing, you mean.” Jared looked her up and down with that faintly insulting scrutiny. “I can see you’re not a schmoozer.”

      “I’ll take that as a compliment.” She sat back in her seat while the waiter set her appetizer in front of her—a salmon kebab in a coconut curry sauce. It smelled divine, and she took a moment to inhale its spicy perfume, eyes closed.

      That sensual gesture took Jared by surprise. Holly had ordered her food in a no-nonsense series of instructions—the waiter had practically saluted when she’d finished. Now she acted as if she’d dreamed of a meal like this her whole life.

      Jared hadn’t planned on wine with their meal. But if Holly really wanted to appreciate her salmon, he knew just the Sonoma Chardonnay to go with it. She didn’t look worried when he ordered a bottle—just sent him an appreciative glance from beneath lowered lids, in a way he found curiously appealing. He shook his head. Holly Stephens was not his type.

      For a few minutes, they ate in silence.

      “How’s your salmon?” he asked eventually.

      “Superb. And this wine is great with it. How’s your tuna carpaccio?” she asked.

      “Excellent.” Belatedly, he realized she was eyeing the wafer-thin slices of raw tuna with the anticipatory delight of a tax inspector scenting a scam. “Would you like to try it?”

      “Yes, please.” She pushed her side plate across the table toward him.

      “What’s that for?”

      “Put it on there—the tuna.” It was the same tone she’d used to give orders to the waiter earlier.

      He forked a piece of tuna and held it across the table an inch from her lips. “Here.”

      She frowned. “Just put it on the—oomph!”

      Jared had taken advantage of her mouth being open and pushed the fork right in. Involuntarily, Holly detached the tuna before she pushed the fork away. He was right, it was excellent. But that wasn’t the point.

      “What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped. “No, don’t answer that. Just quit playing games.”

      “You’re the boss.” Sarcasm edged his voice, and he said no more until he’d demolished the rest of the tuna without offering her another taste. With a satisfied sigh, he resumed the conversation.

      “How do you think Fletcher got away with his crime, given you’re so eagle-eyed?”

      “You don’t know Dave is to blame. He may be on vacation just as he said. The Mexican authorities have confirmed that he flew into the country last Saturday.”

      “Who else could it be—if it’s not you?”

      “It’s not,” she said sharply. “The FBI suspects me because my PIN was used to transfer client funds.”

      “Who else knew your PIN?”

      “No one.” Holly grimaced. “As I repeatedly told Agent Crook before he revealed that my number was used.”

      Jared frowned. “You should have a lawyer with you to talk to the Feds.”

      “I didn’t think I needed one. I didn’t think there could be any evidence to link me to the crime.”

      Jared looked as if he might argue with her logic. Then he gave a small shrug. “So somehow Fletcher found your PIN?”

      “I don’t keep it written down,” she said. “The only way he—whoever did this—could have found it would be with one of those security-cracking computer programs that reads your PIN when you enter it online, and e-mails it to the thief.”

      Jared nodded. He’d been offered those programs several times over the years—and had resisted the temptation, even when he would have dearly loved an inside track on the machinations of the man he planned to ruin.

      “If Fletcher did do it,” he said, “how come you never figured out what was going on?”

      Holly’s gaze centered somewhere above Jared’s head. When she spoke, her voice was uncharacteristically diffident. “Dave and I became more than business partners over the past year.”

      Jared gave a low whistle. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to mix business and pleasure?”

      She scowled, and he figured that despite her intention of being more tolerant, Holly was mortified that Jared, a man she considered her moral