Forbidden Stranger. Marilyn Pappano

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СКАЧАТЬ would be more your type. If Amanda’s not out front, she’s in study hall.”

      “Study hall?”

      “That empty little room near the back door that no one ever uses.”

      “Thanks.” He took a step out the door, then stopped. “Which one is Monique?”

      “Brunette. Short hair. Triple D’s.”

      Oh, yeah. There was a time when she would have been his type. A time all of them would have suited. “I have a girlfriend.” It was a lie, but it sounded good.

      Better to him than to Eternity, if her look was anything to judge by. “You think all them guys out there don’t, chico?” she murmured as she turned back to her makeup.

      Rick’s jaw tightened as he followed the narrow hall to the rear of the building. He knew better than to equate a relationship with fidelity. His father had had a girlfriend or three, along with a wife. The only good thing Rick could say about the bastard was that he’d been discreet in his affairs. His mother hadn’t had a clue until a heart attack had dropped the old man in his tracks and she’d found out that her sons had a half brother living down in Mississippi.

      Sara had been a better woman than anyone had expected—than Gerald had deserved. She’d welcomed Mitch into the family and made a place for him in her own home. She loved him like one of her own. Too bad she’d loved Gerald, too.

      Rick had been eleven when his father died and his mother’s heart had been broken. He hadn’t felt anything decent for Gerald since.

      Reaching the closed door just ten feet from the rear exit, Rick knocked.

      A moment later, the door swung open. “Getting formal, aren’t we, Eternity? You always just barge—Oh. Sorry. No one usually bothers me back here besides—” Hugging her arms across her middle, Amanda finished with a grimace.

      He would have invited himself inside if the space hadn’t been so small or the idea hadn’t seemed so bad. Instead, he leaned against the doorjamb and gave the room a quick scan. The walls were painted the same shade as her living room and the one-armed sofa looked a match to the one he’d seen at her place. There was an oval mirror on one wall, a floor lamp and a small table that held a bottle of water, a clock, a book, a pair of reading glasses and t-rom a trick-or-treat-size candy bar.

      “Study hall?” he asked, bringing his gaze back to her.

      She glanced at the table, too. “When I was in school, I studied in here on breaks.”

      “Getting your GED?”

      A pained look slid across her face. “About eleven years ago. This summer I finished my bachelor’s degree.”

      “Congratulations,” he said, then added, “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

      She shrugged. “A lot of us didn’t get to finish high school.”

      But that was no reason to automatically assume she hadn’t.

      She’d traded tiger stripes for a filmy gold Grecian goddess thing that left one shoulder bare. She’d kept the gold coil around her arm. Her hair was piled on top of her head, curls spilling down, with a gold patterned band circling her forehead. Fabric draped loosely over her breasts, then gathered at her waist, belted by a thin gold chain. The skirt was barely deserving of the name, short, insubstantial, revealing peeks of the black thong underneath. The leather laces of a pair of platform sandals crisscrossed her calves.

      And just about finished him.

      What the hell was wrong with him? He’d been watching the girls dance for weeks now, first at Rosey’s Marietta club, then here. He’d seen them fully dressed, damn near naked and everything in between. It had become so commonplace that he hardly noticed anymore.

      So why had he suddenly started noticing Amanda?

      Breaks were few and Amanda had always protected every moment of hers. For every hour she’d spent in a college classroom, she’d spent two in this oversize closet, reading, cramming. Everyone knew to leave her alone when she was there. Oh, Eternity dropped in sometimes, always curious about Amanda’s studies and her plans for the future.

      But the break was slipping away, and there was Rick blocking the door, saying nothing, just looking. Men have probably always looked at you, Julia had said. Men, sure. A Calloway? Just once, and she’d paid for that.

      But that was a long time ago. She was all grown-up now. Her father was dead, her mother hardly spoke to her and soon she would be starting a new life. Nothing Rick could say or do could hurt her. Life, and her mother and his brother, had made sure of that.

      Still, it took courage to turn her back, stroll across a few feet of plush carpet brought from home and seat herself on the chaise. She swung her legs onto the cushion, then picked up her book. “Did you come here for a reason?”

      “Yeah. But damned if I can remember what it was.” The words were accompanied by a charming grin that could have fluttered every female heart in the place. But her heart wasn’t fluttering. It was just indigestion from the too-rich chocolate she’d eaten before his visit.

      “Then close the door on your way out, will you?” She opened the book to the dog-ear marking her place and began to read again. At least, she went through the motions. She squinted at the words, getting each one into her brain in order but understanding none of them. She had no problem, though, understanding that he hadn’t left the room. That he still stood there, still looked at her. She ignored him as long as she could before lowering the book and asking, “Is there a reason you’re still here?”

      “Are those your reading glasses?”

      She glanced at the wire-framed glasses on the table. “Everything in here is mine.”

      “So why aren’t you wearing them?”

      Picking them up, she slid them into place. She wasn’t vain. As glasses went, they were flattering, and the fact that they brought hazy words into focus made wearing them a no-brainer. The fact that they made Rick hazy instead was another benefit. Plus, she couldn’t deny that somewhere down inside, she felt more serious, more substantive, when she wore them.

      Did she want Rick to think there was more to her than a nice body?

      “Cute,” he said, then slid his hand into his pocket. After pulling out a handful of bills, he counted out three twenties, a ten and a five and folded them neatly in fourths. “For today’s lesson.”

      She took money from men on an almost-daily basis, but not from a Calloway since fifteen summers ago when she had clerked part-time at the Copper Lake Lumberyard, owned by Rick’s uncle Garry. He’d paid her in cash, folding the money in exactly the same way, delivering it with an oily smile and a look in his eyes that had made her feel small and insignificant.

      At the end of that summer, Robbie had made her feel even worse.

      But Rick’s look wasn’t any different than usual and he’d saved her the trouble of folding the bills herself. Accepting them, she slid them into the thin slot barely noticeable in the platform of her left shoe. Tip-jar shoes, they were called, giving a dancer a secure place to keep her tips when she was onstage…or in a back room.

      “Thanks,” СКАЧАТЬ