Taboo: A Dark Romance Boxset (Stud Ranch 1)

In spite of everything, seeing him brings a genuine smile to my face. I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but Dylan’s very presence makes me relax. He just exudes this energy of masculine protection that makes me want to kick off my heels and run the few feet to him, then throw myself in his arms.

If only I could confess everything to him.

But God, what would Darren do if I did? Dylan obviously has no clue what kind of man his brother is. For them to have both gotten to this age without Dylan the wiser, Darren must be one slick bastard.

Just the thought sends shivers down my spine.

So I don’t throw myself into Dylan’s arms. Instead I just smile and gesture at my desk. “Lay out our feast. I’m starving.”

Dylan’s smile dims for a moment like he senses there’s something off with me but he comes over to the desk and starts pulling boxes out of the bag, along with chopsticks.

Okay, here comes the bit of acting I’ve been prepping for all morning.

I pick up my laptop and move it over to the edge of my desk and then start shuffling the papers I had spread out.

They’re blueprints and test output reports of our newest processor with my scribbled handmade notes in the margins of all the papers. Something I did only so it’d seem believable for me to have actual printed out papers on my desk instead of just on my laptop.

But now I’m embarrassed about how blatant my ploy to gain his interest is. And I have to stop myself from cringing when he asks, “What’s that you’re working on there?”

Shit.

He’s taking the bait.

You need this. He needs this, even if he doesn’t know it. Darren will ruin him if you can’t convince him to take the deal.

I continue stacking the papers. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

He snatches one before I can add it to the stack. “The ProX8 Processor.”

“Hey,” I grab playfully for the paper. “That’s proprietary information.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’ve already seen all the specs when your boss put in his bid a month ago and sent over a prototype for us to test.”

“Yeah,” I say. “But if you were interested, we would have heard by now. And it’s fine, we have other contracts.”

I snatch the paper out of his fingers, right as a furrow scrunches his brow.

“You guys put in a bid with Pantheon?” He doesn’t even try to hide his disapproval in his voice, referring to the collaboration proposal sheet I just snatched out of his hand. “Their laptops are shit. It’ll make your company look bad when their machines malfunction. You’ll be tied to them in people’s minds.”

I shrug. “We know their motherboards don’t have the best reputation but they’ve assured us they’ve improved quality control in the last few years.” When his expression doesn’t change, I sigh. “You know how hard it is to get contracts in this day and age. Intel cornered the market and companies like yours are exploring other solutions. We have to take what we can get.”

“But this is your central product line you’re talking about,” Dylan argues.

“It’ll be fine. We’ll request some further quality control measures as part of the contract.”

But Dylan’s just shaking his head. Vehemently. “Miranda, I’ve seen their factories. A lot of our workers in Thailand come from Pantheon factories and the conditions are terrible. They’re little more than sweatshops. Their safety standards are shit, they don’t treat their workers well, and their products come out half-assed. You can’t accept a deal with them.”

I frown down at the desk.

This is exactly the reaction I was hoping to get from him but now that I am… Is this how easy it was for Bryce every time he manipulated people? Manipulated me until he had me exactly where he wanted me caught up in his spider’s web until I thought I had no way out?

Dylan runs his hands through his hair. “I really thought the RISC chips were the way to go but every time I turn around, we run into one problem after another with them. This weekend was just more of the same.”

I feel my eyebrows pop up at this.

“Maybe as much as I want them to work, Darren’s right, the tech just isn’t there and we should try again in a few years with the launch after this one. We’re running out of time to start getting our line in production. We have to figure out the processor situation.”

Darren.

I frown. Is it really a problem with the RISC chips themselves or is Darren doing something to sabotage the experiments? Would he do that, just to get his way?

I think of him standing over me in the dining room, that smug, superior smile on his face.

Yes, yes he absolutely would.

But Dylan is still talking.