Read Online IF YOU WANTED THE MOON by Mallory Monroe - Free Book Online

out of Dodge and get back to Mayberry, stil alive and employed she hoped,
    where at least she knew who her true friends were.

    Ethan held her hand until he was opening the passenger door of his automobile and she was getting inside. She watched him, as he moved around to the front of the expensive vehicle and began again
    conversing with Brennan. His suit coat was open and his hands were on his waist, revealing, to Tori’s amusement, a slightly protruded bely that seemed to indicate that his obvious workouts were weakening as he neared forty. It was amusing to Tori only because it made him look less perfect than she had thought, although she stil couldn’t get his sweet scent out of her nostrils or the wonderful feel of his heavy as he neared forty. It was amusing to Tori only because it made him look less perfect than she had thought, although she stil couldn’t get his sweet scent out of her nostrils or the wonderful feel of his heavy hand on her smal arm. If truth be told, she thought, she’d been touched more times in the few encounters she’d had with Ethan Chandler than by any other man in her entire life. Except for that two-timing Bobby Rogers, of course. And for Tori it was an equal parts charming and alarming revelation. It was charming because of the implication, that maybe Chandler doesn’t hate her after al. Alarming because if Chandler was now at the top of her list in terms of men in her life, her life was in dire straits.

    Not that it wasn’t, she thought, as she looked at his soft hair glistening in the sun. Bobby Rogers had been her first serious beau, a successful banker she had thought she would marry and live happily ever after with. The man of her dreams. Until she started paying attention. Until those women she thought were only friends of his turned out to be friends “with privileges.” She didn’t find this out, unfortunately, until she was so head-over-heels in love that the news could do nothing less than rock her world.

    And the idea that he would just show up at her home, after months of almost nothing from him, asking if they could talk, talk , made her angry. Her life didn’t have much going for it, even she knew that, and she believed in forgiving people and mending bridges. But for him to think that she would be so desperate as to even consider giving a cheating dog like him another chance, was a bridge too far.

    But even beyond Bobby and his mess, her life stil felt off track. In every area. She had two parents who, if truth be told, realy didn’t want to have anything to do with her unless she gave them things.
    She had two friends who believed that the high standards she set for men made her a shoo-in for spinsterhood. She had a job she loved although many questioned how she got it. And she had a boss who was so complicated, so inexplicable, that she was now convinced that these dog days of summer in these Florida Keys were going to be the most wrenching, the most trying days of her entire life.

SEVEN
    It was a slow drive through a slow town and Tori leaned her head back in Ethan’s Lexus and tried to appreciate the view. But she couldn’t. The scenery was nice enough, as everything, from the large, frame-styled homes to the shops along the square, were backed up against the expansive Gulf waters, but her mind, as usual, was on Ethan. She loved that side of him that was on display when he laughed on the plane, and when they landed in Cedar Key and he grabbed her and wouldn’t let go. If he could only stay that way, if he could only shed that business facade of his for just a few days, she thought, then this little trip could prove more interesting than she ever thought possible. Even now, as he drove through town talking to one of his business associates on his car phone, he looked far more relaxed, it seemed to Tori, than he ever seemed in Chicago. He was even smiling as he talked, his thick arm leaned on the armrest, his entire light mood making hers feel light