Read Online A Taste of Heaven (Billionaires' Secrets Book 3) by Jennifer Lewis - Free Book Online

smiled. “And you are pretty.”
    Sam felt herself blushing. What for? It’s not like she didn’t know she was pretty.
    That’s what got her roped into all those stinking beauty pageants that had her strutting about like a champion heifer when she should have been taking courses at the community college so she could get a real job.
    And she knew she was still pretty now, at thirty-one. She should be, what with all the money and effort that went into it. She supported a whole army of personal trainers and massage therapists and colorists and manicurists.
    And Tarrant had insisted she only wear couture originals. He called it a quirk of his.
    She’d readily humored him. At the time, she’d explained it to herself and others as another example of his visionary approach to life.
    Suddenly her perspective was different.
    “Maybe he married me because he wanted to dress me up like a Barbie doll, too?”
    “I think you enjoy the Barbie thing yourself. I asked you to dress casual and you look like you’re ready to hit a runway somewhere.”
    Sam glanced down at the rather chic linen outfit she’d chosen. “I guess I can’t help it. It’s an ingrained habit. I’d probably need a twelve-step program to get me into a pair of Levi’s at this point.”
    Louis grinned. “I bet you’d look cute in a pair of Levi’s. But if dressing up makes you happy, what’s wrong with that? You can’t live your life to meet other people’s expectations. You have to do what’s right for you.”
    “Sometimes that’s hard to figure out. I guess I’m so used to trying to meet other people’s expectations that it’s natural to me now.”
    Louis put his plate down on the floor of the boat. He crossed his arms on his knees and leaned forward. She shrank from the intensity in his gaze, from the focused attention of his sharp mind.
    “Sounds like you’ve spent your life looking for a father figure who’d tell you what to do.” Again, his gaze wasn’t accusatory. If anything, it was compassionate.
    She lifted her chin. She didn’t want his pity or anyone else’s. “As it happens, my father didn’t tell me what to do. He mostly ignored me.”
    Louis scraped his plate into the water. Sam watched in awe as several fish spooked to the surface and snatched at morsels of potato and sausage.
    She clung more tightly to her own plate.
    Why was she here? She didn’t need to be psychoanalyzed by some guy who thought he was God’s gift to women. She was just trying to make it through the day in one piece.
    Louis cocked his head. “Maybe you were subconsciously trying to get your father’s attention by reenacting the scenario.”
    Sam narrowed her eyes. “I got his attention all right. He hasn’t spoken to me since my first divorce. He said I was a sinner for leaving my marriage and doomed to hell.” Sam’s heart still clenched at the memory. Her plate shook in her hand and she clutched it tighter.
    Louis winced. “Some people shouldn’t be parents.”
    He took her plate from her and cleaned it-with the same deft move. She watched the fish dart to the surface and inhale her uneaten morsels.
    “Recycling in action,” he murmured, as he wrapped the plates in a pretty dishcloth and returned them to the basket. “Don’t let your dad get you down. I survived just fine without one.”
    His level gaze challenged her to alter that bare and apparently comfortable fact of his life.
    For a second, she felt a twinge of remorse that she’d invaded his comfortable existence and inserted a new possibility into it. “Family can be a wonderful thing.”
    “In moderation.” Louis winked.
    Sam smiled. His warm expression disarmed her. The rich copper rays of slow sunset shone on his too-handsome face and glittered in the droplets of water that splattered his powerful forearms.
    She tried not to notice the funny ticklish sensation in her belly.
    “At least I don’t have to worry about making a child miserable by inflicting my own traumas on