Free Teasing The Boss by Mallory Crowe

working all the time and he wanted to go on all these trips. I think we were on two different paths.” She let out a sigh, and for a few moments, the only sound was the waves as they crashed on the soft, sandy beach. “What about you? Do you leave a long trail of broken hearts everywhere you go?” She looked to him. The moonlight made his pale skin seem to glow and his eyes seem even darker.
    He shrugged. “Women and me have never been on the same page. I was too geeky in school, and by the time I grew out of it, I was too busy.”
    She smirked. “Are you a forty-year-old virgin then?”
    He gave her chair a playful kick. “I never said that. I’ve just never been in anything that I’d call serious.”
    “I knew it,” she muttered. “A trail of broken hearts.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she stopped him. “The true heartbreakers are the ones who don’t even know they’re doing it.”
    “Is that right?”
    She nodded. “Those poor women,” she whispered. As she gazed out over the ocean, she mustered up the courage to ask the one question she’d been avoiding. “What’s the deal with you and Mark?”
    The silence stretched between them, and she glanced back to him. But he didn’t look angry at the question. More pensive than anything else.
    “If I tell you, this has to be between us. No one else can know.”
    She sat up a bit straighter. Somehow she’d expected something like Mark had stolen his girlfriend or something. “Our secret. I promise.”
    “DuFord is a really smart guy. He can sniff out money like a bloodhound and knows exactly what to say and when.”
    Grace thought back to the parties she’d gone to with Mark, and she couldn’t disagree. She’d seen him talk business with complete strangers numerous times, and on each occasion, he was smooth, calm, and collected. She’d always admired that about him.
    “But if you want the truth, he’s not the best investor.”
    She frowned. “What are you talking about? Everyone I’ve talked to who’s worked with him raves about his instinct.”
    Simon nodded. “Oh, he’s good at making money. He takes on high-risk projects that have a hard to impossible time getting funding from the normal channels.”
    Grace leaned forward. “You’re saying he invests illegally? That’s impossible.”
    “He invests offshore and makes twenty percent on every dollar. He gives the client ten and keeps the rest as his fee, which he tells his clients is about one percent. “
    “But he’d get caught eventually. He couldn’t have been doing that all these years without the government noticing.”
    “As far as I know, he’s only gotten caught once.”
    Grace raised her brows. “And…”
    “And he erased any hint that he had anything to do with it. His signature wasn’t on any of the documents and the funds never touched an account that he handled. It was his client’s word against his.”
    “So what happened to the client?”
    Simon looked away from her and to the ocean. “He was facing years of jail time and lost all his money. The guy killed himself.”
    She covered her mouth with her palm. “You’re serious?”
    His lips tightened and he nodded. “Dead serious, Grace. The guy’s dirty and he needs to be stopped. He’s been playing the same game for years now, and no matter how often I’ve tried to tip off any type of authority, DuFord somehow manages to cover his tracks. I almost was able to catch him in the act of transferring money to the Middle East, but the backer pulled out at the last minute.”
    “You have money. Why can’t you be the backer?” He tilted his head, and it clicked. “Because if it went wrong, you’d be on the line,” she said, answering her own question.
    He leaned forward and brought his face only inches from hers. “So do you believe me now when I tell you he needs to go down?”
    Memories of her time with Mark flashed through her mind, but now they were cast in a sinister, dark glow. Could she really