His for the Taking Read Online Free

bedspread.
    ‘Not really, not in the regular way. We didn’t tell each other everything. I didn’t really know her. She let me stay here when I needed somewhere.’
    Why was she telling this to a stranger?
    ‘I have no idea how I’m going to find her shoes,’ she added. She turned back to the closet, doing her best not to see Nick’s face.
    ‘You loved her.’
    She brushed past him again—big, tall, strong, annoying men took up a lot of space in doorways—and stooped to look at the array of shoes. Xenia had millions of dresses, but she apparently had sixty gazillion pairs of shoes, a good proportion of them black.
    ‘Like I said. I didn’t really know her.’ She picked up some impossibly pointed heels, checked them for a label, put them back.
    ‘That doesn’t mean you didn’t love her.’
    Zoe’s hand paused on a pair of pumps. She looked sharply up at Nick. His face was serious, far more serious than it would be if he were just talking about her.
    Yeah. This carey-sharey stuff was so not her. ‘Listen, I’m pretty sure there are a few kitchen cupboards you haven’t checked yet for your father. You can go ahead and do that now. Otherwise, please shut up.’
    He shrugged himself off the doorpost and joined her in the closet. The enormous walk-in closet was a hell of a lot smaller with him in it. And he was so…tempting.
    He squatted down next to her.
    ‘What are you looking for?’
    ‘Shoes.’
    ‘Yes, I gathered that. What kind of shoes?’
    ‘I don’t need help, thanks.’
    He just stayed there next to her, big and still and warm. ‘What kind of shoes?’
    Zoe exhaled sharply. If she let him help her at least they’d get out of this closet more quickly and she wouldn’t have to deal with her hormones. ‘Black Vuitton heels.’
    ‘What do black Vuitton heels look like?’
    ‘Black. With heels.’
    He surveyed the shoe racks. ‘Every single one of these things looks like a recipe for a broken neck.’
    ‘Tell me about it.’ She looked at shoes, discarded them, and looked at some more.
    ‘Then again, if you had good legs these shoes would look very sexy.’
    The word went through her like a double shot of expensive whiskey, warming her from her throat to her toes.
    He was speaking theoretically, of course. ‘Maybe if you wear size fives.’ She picked up a pair at random and saw the label: Louis Vuitton. They were black, and they had heels—extremely high and narrow ones, sharpening to a point at the end.
    ‘What size do you wear?’
    ‘Nine.’ She stood, shoes in hand. ‘Found them.’
    Nick straightened himself up to his full height beside her. ‘People walk in heels like that?’
    ‘Fortunately, Xenia’s not going to have to worry about that.’ On her way out of the closet, she snagged a garment bag and immediately started packing up the clothes.
    Nick emerged from the closet. ‘Your great-aunt had interesting taste.’
    ‘She was interesting in every way.’
    ‘How do you think she knew my father?’
    She let out a laugh. He was being kind to her, but he hadn’t forgotten his own mission. ‘I really have no idea, Nick.’
    ‘What’s your name?’
    Zoe stopped zipping the garment bag. ‘Why?’
    ‘Because you know mine.’
    She pulled the tab up to the top of the zipper, and knew another reason she should tell him her name. Because she’d just done the job she was dreading, and she hadn’t shed a single tear.
    Thanks to him.
    ‘My name’s Zoe Drake.’
    ‘Hello, Zoe Drake.’ Nick held out his hand, a cordial, winning smile on his perfect lips.
    Well. Hadn’t he been well brought up. Zoe gripped his hand with her own. For a moment her strength met his strength and for her at least it was a testing, as well as a greeting. He was firm and gentle and warm.
    She dropped his hand. ‘I’m done here. Coffee?’
    He grimaced slightly. ‘Actually I could really do with using the bathroom. I was waiting in that hallway for a long time, and I was beginning to think about