Capturing Cleo. Linda Winstead Jones
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Название: Capturing Cleo
Автор: Linda Winstead Jones
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Зарубежные детективы
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When had she started actually trying to make a spectacle of herself? Early on, though she couldn’t remember the exact moment. She hadn’t been able to win her mother over, so she’d learned to fight the only way she knew how. After her father had passed on, things had only gotten worse.
“So all my life I’m compared to this perfect daughter. I tried for a while, but finally accepted that I could never live up to that standard. I’m not like Thea, and by God, I don’t want to be.” She didn’t want to admit, not out loud, that it still hurt. She was too old to be hurt because her mother loved big sister best. “When Thea married Palmer, it was just icing on the cake. His family has old money and a long string of car dealerships, he played football at the University of Alabama, he’s a handicap golfer and he runs in all the right circles.”
“The ideal husband.”
“Yeah,” she said tightly, “except for the fact that he’ll screw any woman who has the misfortune to wander into his line of vision.”
Malone’s jaw tensed, his eyes narrowed. For a moment all was silent. Well, she had wished for a show of emotion, hadn’t she? Malone was angry.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No,” Cleo answered quickly. “He just…makes a pass at me every time we’re alone.” In the kitchen, in the driveway, in the hallway of the family home. The man knew no shame.
“What kind of a pass?” Malone asked tersely.
“He likes to grab.”
“He likes to grab what?”
If she had taken any of her mother’s teachings on decorum to heart, she wouldn’t answer that question. But so few of her mother’s teachings had taken. “He likes to sneak up on me and grab what my flat-chested sister doesn’t have.”
A muscle in Malone’s right eye twitched. “He’s plenty strong enough to be our guy. Do you think he’d—”
“No,” Cleo interrupted. “To commit murder, you have to care a little bit, right? You have to have some kind of passion to commit a crime of passion.”
“I suppose.”
“Palmer has no true passion. He grabs me and makes passes because I’m not a notch on his belt. If I ever did get desperate enough to agree to sleep with him, he’d lose interest. That’s how he treats all his women.”
Malone shook his head. “Doesn’t anyone else know about this guy?”
“They all know,” she said softly. “But they look past it because he has money and the right social standing, and he is a real and true football hero. Disgusting, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m the bad guy, here. If Palmer makes a pass at me it’s because I’ve tempted him somehow. It’s because I insist on making a spectacle of myself.”
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