Free Romancing the Billionaire by Jessica Clare

plucked it from his grip. She didn’t open it. Not yet. Instead, she waited as Jonathan tore his open, his eyes that dark, sharp intense stare that made her shiver and remember her dreams from earlier.
    He flipped the paper open, scanned it, and was almost disappointed. “Just one word. GLIRASTES . I’m not sure what that’s referring to.” He showed her the paper, his gaze turning to her. “What’s yours say?”
    Reluctant, Violet flipped hers over and gently eased the seal open. Her heart thumped as she saw her father’s familiar, crabbed cursive writing with certain letters bolded. There were eight lines of it, and she scanned it and then began to read.
    â€œI me t a traveller from an antique land
    W h o sa i d: “Two vast and t r unkless legs of s t on e
    Stand in th e desert. N ear them, on the s and,
    Half sunk, a shat te red visage lies, whose frown
    And wrinkled li p and s neer of cold command
    Tell that its sc u lptor well those passio n s rea d
    Which y e t su r vive, stamped o n th e se lifeless things,
    The h a nd th at mocked them and the heart that fed.”
    Violet frowned down at the paper. “Poetry? Really? You got a made-up word and I got poetry? Was my dad on crack in his last days?”
    She looked up and to her surprise, Jonathan’s face was lit up with recognition.
    â€œWhat?” she asked warily.
    â€œâ€˜And on the pedestal these words appear,’” Jonathan murmured, getting to his feet and dusting off his jeans. His intense gaze held hers. “‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’”
    Her eyebrow went up. “Ozymandias?”
    â€œShelley,” he said excitedly, and his hands gripped her arms and he pulled her into his arms. “It’s Shelley!”
    She was going to ask him to explain when he grabbed her and pulled her against him in a quick, brisk kiss of excitement. Before she could chastise him, he pulled away from her, grinning, and turned and grabbed the elderly woman and gave her a big smacking kiss on the cheek. “Shelley!” he pronounced again.
    The elderly woman tittered.
    Violet didn’t laugh. It was a nothing kiss. Just excitement.
    Still, Violet’s cheeks flushed as she remembered her dream from earlier, and Jonathan’s mouth between her legs. She forced herself to remain outwardly indifferent. “Do you mind explaining what you mean by ‘Shelley’?”
    Jonathan turned back and gave her a brilliant smile, his solemn face lighting up in a way that made him impossible to look away from. “Percy Bysshe Shelley,” he explained. “He wrote the poem ‘Ozymandias’ when he saw a statue of Ramses the Great in London.”
    â€œSo,” she said thoughtfully, tapping the paper on her hand. “Knowing my father, we’re either to follow the rabbit trail after Shelley himself and go to London, or research Ramses the Great. What does your clue have to do with any of this?”
    â€œNo idea,” Jonathan said, that boyish smile still on his face. “But I’m positive there’s a connection somewhere. We just have to figure it out.”
    â€œMmmhmm.” Violet nodded, staring at the paper. She traced her finger over the lettering. “Some of these characters are darker than others. That must be part of the clue.” She folded up the letter; she’d figure it out later. Right now, she couldn’t stop thinking about that brief press of his mouth against hers. Damn it, what was wrong with her? One day in his company and she was salivating over him just because he ate a good pussy? Jesus. Did she have no morals? He
abandoned
her when she was nineteen and pregnant. Why did she care if his eyes lit up when he was excited about something, or if he’d been a great kisser? None of that mattered if he was a terrible person, and he was.
    He was just like her father, using people