Read Online Dangerous to Know by Merline Lovelace - Free Book Online

moved across the wide, luxuriously furnished sitting room. The tall double bedroom doors closed behind her.
    Paige ran her tongue along her lower lip, her whole being focused on the man beside her. She let her eyes drift over the strong planes of his face, storing up memories of the lines at the corners of his eyes, the slight bump in the bridge of his nose, the square chin.
    â€œMy emerald ring is in my purse, David,” she said slowly. “Which is resting somewhere at the bottom of the bay right now. I took it off before I arrived in Cannes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause I was going to give it back to you.”
    He went completely still.
    Her heart hammering, Paige searched his face. She thought she saw confusion, and hurt, and a sudden fierce denial, flicker in his intent eyes, but in typical David fashion, he didn’t express any of that. Instead, he sought to understand the root cause of the problem.
    â€œWhy?” he asked again.
    Paige groped for some way to explain the feelings that had haunted her for weeks. “Because we have different ideas of marriage. To me, it’s a communion between two beings, an equal partnership, with nothing held back.” Her gaze flickered to the closed bedroom door. “To you, it’s obviously something else.”
    â€œI see. You think that I—”
    He broke off as the door flew open and Meredith burst into the sitting room.
    â€œI just went to draw the curtains and saw Paige’s little friend, Henri, on the sidewalk below. He’s talking to someone who looks very much like the chauffeur of the Rolls.”
    â€œHell!” David surged to his feet. “Stay with Paige. And lock the door behind me.”
    In a few swift strides, he was out the door and into the corridor.
    Meredith turned the dead bolt behind him and hooked the old-fashioned chain into the guard for good measure. Without speaking, she crossed the wide expanse of carpeted floor and flattened her back against the wall beside the open balcony doors. Shepeered out for long, tense moments, while Paige watched in growing confusion.
    After a few seconds, Meredith shook her head in disgust. “I can’t see anything from here. The palm trees block the sidewalk.”
    She came back to the grouping of graceful carved rosewood furniture and dropped into the chair she’d vacated just moments before.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Paige asked. “Why did David rush out like that?”
    â€œWe’d like to know who the chauffeur’s working for.”
    â€œYou don’t know? I thought…I thought the driver came to the boutique for you.”
    â€œHe did.”
    â€œBut you don’t know who he’s working for?”
    Struggling to make sense of the confusing situation, Paige tucked a strand of limp white gold hair behind her ears. “Who are you?”
    The tall, self-assured woman hesitated, then gave a small shrug. “I told you. I’m Meredith Ames.”
    â€œHow do you know David?”
    â€œThat’s something he’ll explain to you.”
    Frowning, Paige stared at Meredith, then did a slow survey of the opulent suite.
    â€œWhat do you do? For a living?”
    Maggie stifled a groan. She hated having to perpetuate this deception on a woman she was coming to like, for herself as much as for the fact that she was Doc’s fiancée. Had been Doc’s fiancée. Whatever. But she had no choice, not if there was any chance at all that she could maintain her cover and salvage what was left of her mission.
    She drew in a slow breath, suspecting that Paige wasn’t going to appreciate the answer to her question.

Chapter 5
    â€œA call girl?” Paige looked Meredith up and down, then shook her head emphatically. “I don’t believe it.”
    â€œYou believed it, or something close to it, when you first walked in the door.”
    â€œThat was then,” she stated with irrefutable logic.