A Self-Made Man. Kathleen O'Brien

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СКАЧАТЬ worry, Lacy,” he said with another cold grin, this one curving to within an inch of rudeness. “I know you better than to believe you’d ever let anything come between you and a man’s wallet.”

      Had he still been hoping for a reaction? If so, she had bested him again. She merely nodded and returned his smile.

      “Especially a wallet as fat as yours,” she agreed concisely. Without waiting for a reaction, she stood. “Shall we get started?”

      From then on, it was all business. Without stumbling over a single syllable or a single threshold, she led him through gleaming sterile corridors and into crisply organized offices, delivering as they went one of the most comprehensive sales pitches he’d ever witnessed. From exotic medical terminology to infant mortality statistics, from estimated square footage to anticipated funding partners and percentages, she covered her material so thoroughly that whenever she turned to him with a politely inquisitive smile, inviting questions, he couldn’t think of a single one.

      Except perhaps…when did this happen to you, Lacy? Do you remember how, back at old man Morgan’s department store, you were so shy you could hardly look at the customers while you counted out their change?

      But of course he didn’t ask any such thing. He already knew the answer. No. She didn’t remember.

      She introduced him to doctors and administrators, even a patient or two, apologizing gracefully each time for interrupting their busy schedules, though apologies clearly weren’t necessary. Mrs. Malcolm Morgan was obviously welcome anywhere in this hospital. Two particularly athletic obstetricians, Adam observed wryly, nearly plowed down a maternity ward nurse in their rush to guarantee that they’d intersect Lacy’s path.

      Forty-five minutes later, the tour ended up in a wood-paneled conference room, hung from door to door with expensively framed blueprints. In the center of the room, an intricate maze of miniature cobalt and gray buildings sprouted like some geometric fungus across a huge mahogany table.

      “The finished product,” she said, waving two elegant, peach-tipped fingers at the table. “Designed by Prescher and Osteen. You may remember them—they’ve been the premier architects on Pringle Island for generations.”

      “I remember,” he said, strolling casually by the little painted boxes and dollhouse shrubs. He flicked a very real dead fly from the pretend sidewalk, then tilted a half-cocked grin up at her. “How is good old Biff? Did his daddy’s plastic surgeons ever sand that kink out of his nose?”

      But even that didn’t ruffle her. God, she was good. Or maybe, he thought, it wasn’t an act. Maybe she didn’t even remember why he had smashed Biff Prescher’s nose after basketball practice, out behind the gym with the entire basketball team standing around, watching.

      “Biff’s doing well,” she said smoothly. “He lives in Seattle, with his wife and four children. I haven’t seen his nose in years. It’s Biff’s father, actually, who was the architect here. You may remember old Mr. Prescher?”

      His fingers twitched slightly as he followed the curving lines of the little parking lot. “Sorry, never met him. Somehow I guess our paths just never crossed at the University Club. And I don’t think he ever showed up at my office behind the gymnasium for a nose job.”

      She raised her eyebrows gently. To his surprise, she reached out and touched the back of his hand with the silky pad of one forefinger. More proof of how impervious she was, no doubt. He waited.

      “Really, Adam,” she said chidingly, hitting a sophisticated note of well-meaning detachment with her well-modulated voice. Deliberately casting herself as a distant friend, a sympathetic stranger… Anything but what she was, a old lover with burning embers strewn at her feet.

      “Really what, Lacy?” His eyes met hers.

      “It’s just that… This bad-boy-redux act is a bit much, don’t you think?” She tapped his knuckles one at a time. “See? No bruises. No torn, swollen skin. I’d say these hands haven’t broken any noses in a long, long time.”

      He grinned. “Or maybe I’m just much better at it these days.”

      She shook her head. “In that suit? I doubt it. We’re past that now, Ad—”

      He flipped his hand over so fast she didn’t have time to gasp, and he caught her wrist in his palm. She looked shocked, as if she’d been carelessly touching a branch that turned out to be a snake.

      “Don’t kid yourself, Lacy,” he said, bending across Prescher Senior’s toy-block kingdom, not caring if he crushed a tower or two. “We’re not past anything. I told you—this is just a uniform. Pockets full or empty, I’m still the same man, and I still don’t care much for snobs. Or hypocrites, no matter how slick and pretty they are.”

      She was rallying, but the effort was costing her. He watched the column of her throat adjust as she swallowed her natural reactions of both fear and anger. Her blue eyes lost their strain, rounding instead in an artificially mild enquiry.

      “Dear me,” she said softly. “How frighteningly macho…. Should I look into acquiring a helmet and face mask—to protect my own nose?”

      He considered for a moment, studying the perfectly shaped nose in question. “No need,” he said finally, letting his words stretch and grow uncomfortably warm and familiar. “If I decide to tackle you, Lacy, I’ll be targeting a spot considerably father south.”

      She was going to slap him. He saw the spark flare like silver fire in her eyes, and he caught her free hand just as it began its flinching backswing. He stopped it midair, leeched the willful fury out of it with a slow relentless pressure, and then began to guide it in, toward the soft swell of her breast.

      She resisted until the very last moment, and then she finally surrendered, letting him place her hand, palm down, against the blue silk of her blouse.

      “There,” he said quietly, letting his hand rest atop hers, letting her deep, irregular breathing rock both palms in unison. “If I wanted you, Lacy, this is where I’d attack. Right here, where your heart used to be.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      AFTER ADAM’S VISIT, Lacy’s workday was shot. She found it difficult to concentrate on even the simplest tasks. She summoned all her tried-and-true tricks for blocking out disturbing thoughts, but nothing worked. Over and over, even in the middle of a business lunch, even while she cuddled the babies in the nursery, even while she reviewed the auction figures with Tilly, her mind kept returning to Adam.

      She kept remembering the way his hand had felt against her breast, the hard look in his eyes when he called her a hypocrite. She replayed again and again, like a broken recording, the derision in his voice when he told her she no longer possessed a heart.

      Well, maybe he was right. She hoped he was right. Hearts hurt. Hearts broke, and the broken pieces cut you to shreds from the inside.

      “Lacy! Come back from whatever planet you’re on and add these figures up for me. You know I don’t do numbers.”

      Lacy roused herself guiltily and smiled over at Tilly, who was clearly already bored with the auction accounting. Tilly hated red tape. The government, she always predicted tartly, was going to regulate charity right out of existence.

      “Sorry,” Lacy said, taking СКАЧАТЬ