Free Reckless by Cheryl Douglas

it. They weren’t involved and she certainly didn’t owe him an explanation. “Put his call through.”
    “Will do,” Lisa said, closing the door behind her.
    Avery pushed the button to connect the call. “Hi, Jeff, how are you?” She listened politely as he filled her in on his latest business trip and the new client he’d acquired since they last spoke several weeks ago.
    “Listen, I’ve got to run,” she said finally when he allowed her to get a word in. “I’m with a client. How about I just meet you at Emilio’s at 7:00? Great, see you then.”
    Ty raised an eyebrow. “Who’s Jeff?”
    Avery walked toward her desk, feeling the need to put a solid barrier between them. “Just a man I’m seeing.”
    He walked toward her desk. He braced his hands on the desktop and leaned over until his face was inches from hers. “Seeing… as in you’re sleeping with him?”
    She tried to stand her ground in the face of his inappropriate questioning, but getting too close to him meant staring down the face of temptation and she wasn’t sure she was ready to do that. Instead, she reclaimed her seat and opened her laptop. She hit the power button, trying hard to ignore his looming presence. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
    He grabbed the back of her chair and spun her around until she was facing him. “Don’t play games with me. I want you and I know you want me too. Last night proved that.”
    She refused to cave to his high-handed tactics. There was a reason she’d stopped dating Alpha males and he was it. “That was before I found out you were married.”
    “Damn it, I explained that. I’m only married on paper.”
    “The press will want to know everything there is to know about you, including your marital status. We’re going to have to find a way to spin this.”
    “I don’t care about that right now. I asked you if you’re sleeping with this guy. Damn it, I wanna know if it’s serious.”
    She could tell he was getting frustrated so she chose to put him out of his misery. “No, we’ve only been out on a few dates. He’s an entertainment lawyer. I like him, very much.” In truth, she thought he was rather boring and probably would have declined his dinner invitation had it not been for Ty’s presence.
    He began stalking the room again and it became obvious they were going to get very little work done this morning.
    “I don’t want you to go out with him, tonight or any night.”
    Avery laughed, appalled by his audacity. “You don’t get to decide who I go out with, or who I sleep with. You’re my client, not my boyfriend.”
    He stopped pacing long enough to face her. “I wanna be, your boyfriend, I mean.” He sighed. “Damn it. Just give me a chance here.”
    “It would be pretty hard for you to be my boyfriend when you’re already someone else’s husband, now wouldn’t it, Ty?”

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Four
     
    Ty knew Avery wouldn’t be thrilled that he and Luc had chosen to dine at her restaurant of choice, but his curiosity about her date outweighed his concern about her reaction.
    Once they were seated and they’d placed their orders, Luc asked, “How did things go with Avery today?”
    “We made some progress.” In truth, they hadn’t covered nearly as much as she’d intended. “I think she wants to pick up where we left off tomorrow.”
    “Good, we need to get a lot of this promo stuff out of the way this week. I’ll need you in the studio working on the album the next few weeks and then you’ll be on the road for some dates with Trey. I think I’ll ask Avery to go on the road for some of these dates too. That way she can set up some local radio and newspaper interviews for you and be there to walk you through it until you get comfortable with the way it all works.”
    “Sounds good.” He’d take any opportunity he had to spend more time with Avery.
    “We’ll definitely be using some of your material on the album, but I’ve got a few