Men to Trust. Diana Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ going to start this morning.” She smiled. “It’s going to be great!”

      “Start where? Working for whom?”

      “Duke Wright.”

      Her mother’s thin eyebrows arched and a twinkle came into her eyes. “He doesn’t like Mr. Kemp.”

      “And vice versa,” Violet stated firmly. “It will pay just as well as Mr. Kemp did,” she added, mentally crossing her fingers, “and he won’t complain about how I make coffee.”

      “Excuse me?” Mrs. Hardy asked.

      Violet cleared her throat. “Never mind, Mama. It’s going to be fine. I like Mr. Wright.”

      Mrs. Hardy pressed her hand again. “If you say so. I’m sorry, darling. I know how you feel about Mr. Kemp.”

      “Since he doesn’t feel the same way, it’s for the best if I don’t go on working there and eating my heart out over him,” Violet said realistically. “I daresay I’ll find other company, someone who doesn’t think I’m too fat…” She stopped at once and flushed.

      Her mother looked furious. “You are not fat! I can’t believe Mr. Kemp had the audacity to say something like that to you!”

      “He didn’t,” Violet replied at once. “He just…insinuated it.” She sighed. “He’s right. I am fat. But I’m trying so hard to lose weight!”

      Her mother held her hand tighter. “Listen to me, darling,” she said softly. “A man who really cares about you isn’t going to dwell on what he considers faults. Your father used that same argument to me,” she added unexpectedly. “He actually said that he went to that other woman because she was slender and well-groomed.”

      “He…did?”

      She grimaced. “I should have told you. Your father never loved me, Violet. He was in love with my best friend and she married somebody else. He married me to get even with her. He wanted a divorce two months later, but I was pregnant with you, and in those days, people really gossiped about men who walked out on a pregnant wife. So we stayed together and tried to make a home for you. Looking back,” she said wearily, lying back down on her pillows, “perhaps I made a mistake. You don’t know what a good marriage is, do you? Your father and I hardly ever did anything together, even when you were little.”

      Violet pushed back her mother’s disheveled hair. “I love you very much,” she told her parent. “I think you’re wonderful. So do a lot of other people. It was my father’s loss if he couldn’t see how special you were.”

      “At least I have you” came the soft reply, with a smile. “I love you, too, darling.”

      Violet fought tears. “Now I really have to go,” she said. “I can’t afford to lose my new job before I start it!”

      Her mother laughed. “You be careful!”

      “I’ll drive under the speed limit,” she promised.

      “Mr. Wright isn’t married now, is he?” Mrs. Hardy wondered.

      “Yes, he is. He refused to sign the final divorce papers.” She laughed. “That’s why he had the fight with Mr. Kemp.”

      “Is it spite, do you think, or does he still love her?”

      “Everybody thinks he still loves her, but she’s making a fortune working as a lawyer in New York City and she doesn’t want to come back here.”

      “They have a little boy. Doesn’t she think his father has any right to see the child?”

      “They’re still arguing about custody.”

      “What a pity.”

      “People should think hard about having children,” Violet said with conviction, “and they shouldn’t ever be accidents.”

      “That’s just what I’ve always said,” Mrs. Hardy replied. “Have a good day, darling.”

      “You, too. The phone’s right here and I’m going to write down Mr. Wright’s number in case you need me.” She penciled it on the pad next to the phone, smiled, and went to get her purse.

      Duke Wright lived in a huge white Victorian house. Local gossip said that his wife had wanted it since she was a child, living in a poor section of Jacobsville. She’d married Duke right out of high school and started to college after the honeymoon was over. College had opened a new world to her eyes. She’d decided to study law, and Duke stood by and let her have her way, sure that she’d never want to leave Jacobsville. But she got a taste of city life when she went on to law school in San Antonio, and she decided to work in a law firm there.

      Nobody understood exactly why they decided to have a child in her first year as a practicing estate lawyer. She didn’t seem happy about it, although she had the child. But a live-in nurse had to be employed because Mrs. Wright spent more and more time at the office. Then, two years ago, she’d been offered a position in a well-known law firm in New York City and she’d jumped at the chance. Duke had argued, cajoled, threatened, to try to get her to turn it down. Nothing worked. In a fit of rage, she moved out, with their son, and filed for divorce. Duke had fought it tooth and nail. Just this month, she’d presented him with divorce papers, demanding his signature, which also required him to remit full custody of his five-year-old son to her. He’d gone wild.

      To look at him, though, Violet thought, he seemed very self-possessed and confident. He was tall and bronzed with a strong face, square chin, deep-set dark eyes and blondish-brown hair which he wore conventionally cut. He had the physique of a rodeo star, which he’d been before his father’s untimely death and his switch from cowboy to cattle baron. He ran purebred red angus cattle, well-known in cattle circles for their pedigree. He had all the scientific equipment necessary for a prosperous operation, including high-tech methods of genetic breeding, artificial insemination, embryo transplantation, cross-breeding for leanness, low birth weight and daily weight gain ratio, as well as expert feed formulation. He had the most modern sort of operation, right down to lagoon management and forage improvement. He had the most modern computers money could buy, and customized software to keep up with his cattle. But his newest operation was organic ham and bacon that he raised on his ranch and marketed over the Internet.

      Violet was staggered at the high-tech equipment in the office he maintained on his sprawling ranch outside town.

      “Intimidated?” he drawled, smiling. “Don’t worry. It’s easier to use than it looks.”

      “Can you operate it all?” she asked, surprised.

      He shrugged. “With the average duration of secretarial assistance around here, I have to be able to do things myself,” he said heavily. He gave her a long look and stuck his lean hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Violet, I’m not an easy boss,” he confessed. “I have moods and rages, and sometimes I blow up when things upset me. You’ll need nerves of steel to last long here. So I won’t blame you if you have reservations.”

      Her eyebrows arched. “I worked for Blake Kemp for over a year.”

      He chuckled, understanding her very well. “They say he’s worse than me,” he agreed. “Okay. If you’re game, we’ll give it two weeks. After that, you СКАЧАТЬ