Read Online [BAD 07] - Silent Truth by Sherrilyn Kenyon - Free Book Online Page B

time to think about that. She headed for the arched opening to a solarium where people sat and stood in clusters.
    Maybe Gwen had come down quietly and was in there.
    Just as Abbie neared the marble column supporting the left side of the archway she was stepping through, a woman on the other side laughed and took a step back… directly into Abbie’s path.
    They bumped.
    Abbie’s still-full glass of champagne sloshed over her hand and dripped on the gigantic rug she had a sick feeling would bring a record amount at a Sotheby’s auction.
    Long silky black hair fanned along bony shouldersof the woman she’d collided with. The scrawny twenty-something female spun to face Abbie. Her gasp of surprise exhaled on a huff of outrage as though she’d been assaulted. “Are you drunk?”
    Was it Abbie’s imagination or had everyone within thirty feet heard that comment and gone silent? She felt a thick wall of eyes locked on her.
    “No, I’m not drunk.” Abbie went for indignant, but the catch of worry in her voice might have ruined the affect. Clusters of curious faces popped into her peripheral vision. She tried to act as though her stomach wasn’t having a disco party at warp speed. “You backed into me.”
    “I don’t think so.” The black-haired woman spit her words from perfectly shaped lips in plum-colored lipstick, adding plenty of how-dare-you-insult-me innuendo. The low V of her silky purple top split in a long cut to her waist, meeting the top of black bolero pants cinched with a braided gold and silver belt. She flexed her shoulders back and one of her surgically enhanced puppies came close to nosing its way out.
    Abbie struggled between offering a polite apology and snapping at this witch for being so rude.
    The woman sent a withering glance at the closest security guard… who took that as his cue to act.
    Ah, crap. Abbie could stand her ground and risk a scene or walk away with her tail between her legs.
    She’d never backed down from anyone.
    The security guard quietly asked Abbie, “Can I be of assistance?”
    That sounded like a cultured “We got a problem here, lady?”
    Abbie opened her mouth to plead her case and feltsomeone’s large fingers close around her forearm.
    Was someone trying to escort her out?
    Of course they’d assume she was at fault.
    One-tenth of a second before Abbie verbally scorched the muscle daring to touch her, a deep voice connected to that hand said, “Here you are, darling. Sorry I was detained.”
    She turned to the man holding her arm and recognized him. The jaw-dropping blond male she’d stared at like a fool outside. He had bottomless green eyes, deep in color, as though stolen from the center of a mystical forest.
    A forest that hid something dark and foreboding at the moment as his attention fixed on the woman in purple.
    Abbie glanced back at Miss Uncongeniality.
    Shock rode the woman’s face before her cornflower-blue eyes morphed into a bored look of amusement. Her plump lips curled with a malicious smile. When she spoke, intimate undertones smoked through her voice. “Surprised to see you here, Hunter, with—” She flicked a condescending glance at Abbie. “— her. I had no idea your taste ran so… pedestrian.”
    Abbie’s face flamed hot enough for her skin to turn tomato red. What she wouldn’t give for a decent retort, anything that would extricate her from this situation with just a piece of her dignity.
    Nothing popped into her mind.
    She’d anticipated a potential disaster, just not this soon.

    My taste—” Hunter chuckled, allowing a vicious undercurrent to play beneath his words “—hasalways run to natural rather than manmade, Lydia.”
    Lydia Bertelli narrowed her unnaturally bright blue eyes to the point they turned into slits between thick eyelashes fanning her cheek. “Natural? Or dull and boring?”
    The arm of the female he still held flexed at the insult.
    If not for offering him an opening to meet the woman next to him, Hunter