Free The Ghost Exterminator by Vivi Andrews

right. It was wrong of me to assume that you are a shallow corporate prick. I’m sor—”
    “No, you were right,” he interrupted. “I am a shallow corporate prick.” He slid the Bentley into an empty space along the curb in front of the Victorian. “You were completely right about me, so maybe I’m not completely wrong about you.” He cut the engine and climbed out of the car before she could collect her jaw off the floor.
    Jo quickly scrambled after him, grabbing her goodie bag out of the backseat and trotting after him up the walk. “Wyatt, wait up.” He didn’t even pause so she redoubled her speed until she was jogging. “You can’t just walk into the house. Give me a minute to assess.”
    He stopped at the steps leading up to the front porch to wait for her. “It’s daylight,” he said as she joined him. “Isn’t it safe?”
    “Did all of your Episodes happen at night? I didn’t think so. Ghosts aren’t entirely nocturnal. There’s usually an increase in activity at night, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe just because the sun is out. Ghosts, remember. Not vampires.” She saw his face tightening and raised a hand to stop him before he could speak. “No, I don’t know any vampires. Just let me take a look before you end up with enough ghosts to play mixed doubles inside you.”
    Wyatt frowned down at her—only a 1.7 on the Pissed-Off-CEO Richter scale.
    “What?” she asked irritably. She couldn’t imagine what she had said this time to tick him off.
    “Interesting choice of metaphor. You just don’t strike me as the tennis type.”
    “I can’t like tennis and be a ghost exterminator?” she snapped.
    He shrugged. “You can like whatever you want. You just don’t seem the type.”
    Jo rolled her eyes and shoved past him onto the porch. “Everything is types with you.”
    “With you, too.” He followed close on her heels, so close she could feel him breathing down her neck. Literally. The man had no sense of personal boundaries. “With everyone, really. I’m just more up front about it.”
    “God forbid you should be mistaken for someone with a modicum of tact.” She turned and knocked him back a couple steps with a well-placed shove to his sternum. “Give me some room.”
    “See, there you go again. Modicum. How many rebels use language like modicum?”
    “Oh, so because I’m not normal, I must be illiterate too?”
    He shook his head. “You’re missing the point here, Jo. I’m not arguing that you can’t like tennis or literature because you’re not normal, as you put it. I’m saying that you like tennis and literature because you’re more normal than you want to admit. I bet you grew up in the suburbs.”
    She stiffened defensively, hating it when he guessed right. “What does where I grew up have to do with anything? You think most Goth kids come from the mean streets?”
    He smiled smugly. “And see, there, what you just said. Goth kids. If you were one of them, then you wouldn’t have referred to them like that. It’s patronizing.”
    Jo turned around, abandoning any pretense of examining the front door, and folded her arms under her breasts. Wyatt—to his credit—only glanced down once at the attention-grabbing performance the Girls were putting on beneath her snug T. “You know, Wyatt, no matter how hard you argue, you aren’t going to be able to turn me into a suburban housewife. At some point, you’re just going to have to admit to yourself that you’re turned on by a woman who prefers leather over sweater sets and would rather go see Limp Bizkit than Barry Manilow.”
    “Turned on?” he asked in a remarkable impression of incredulity. “That’s what you think this is?”
    For one horrible moment, Jo wondered if she had read him wrong. What if he wasn’t grouchy and uncomfortable around her because he wanted her against his will? What if he really, genuinely didn’t like her?
    But then she looked into his eyes and saw the panicked heat there