Read Online Hot Property by Lacey Diamond - Free Book Online Page A

no Susie Homemaker.” She smiled as she picked up the
dessert and started for her car.
    “I’ll give you a call once I get the house
under roof.”
    Betsy glanced over her shoulder at him with
the thought the man was thinking of anything he could to keep her
from leaving.
    “Any time you want to bring a potential
buyer up before then is fine with me.”
    Betsy forced back the unexplainable tears
coming in her eyes and put on a smile when she nodded in
acknowledgment before ducking inside her car.
    Once she had the vehicle turned around and
headed down the hillside, she looked into the rearview mirror and
saw him standing on the hill, gazing in her direction.
    As Betsy turned onto the country road, she
used the back of her hand to dry her cheeks and sniffled back
several times, but the floodgates were unable to hold back the
salty tasting liquid rolling down her cheeks and into her
mouth.
    At the intersection, she rammed the
gearshift into park and let her head droop over the steering wheel.
She cried until her eyes squeezed out the final tear. She continued
to sob as she slowly raised her head so she could see herself in
the mirror.
    “Good grief!” she gasped at the frightful
face staring back at her.
    What was happening to her? She couldn’t
remember the last time she’d cried like that.
    She caught sight of a car coming up to her
rear and didn’t wait for the sound of a honking horn to get moving
again.
    Betsy turned onto the main street and headed
for home. She knew the distance to her house was not far enough to
work out all the conflicting thoughts bombarding her mind. The
smart thing would be to blame all the emotional upheaval on
PMS.
    Once she arrived home, took a shower, and
pulled on her favorite one piece terry cloth short set, reality
hit. Post Menstrual Syndrome wasn’t the culprit. Skylar Blakewood
was. She was falling in love with the man. The tears could be
blamed on knowing he didn’t share those feelings. After all, the
man planned to marry Stephanie Rogers. Didn’t he?
    Betsy paced around her living room for the
next hour trying to find a solution to her predicament. Then she
remembered the promise to herself all those months ago to never let
her guard down around a man.
    If she ignored the emptiness she felt when
she and Skylar were apart, with any luck it just might go away.
There was the other option. She could tell Skylar the truth. She’d
fallen in love with him. Then she could be humiliated when he
laughed at her.
    She crawled into bed after making the
decision to get a grip on her emotions and throw up a shield of
armor to prevent this from ever happening again.
    The grueling weekend of doing everything
from a long motorcycle ride, swimming, then hiking up the side of a
mountain to strengthen her body while she willed herself to fight
emotions, had Betsy feeling almost normal by the time she strolled
in the front door at work Monday morning.
    She smiled and nodded at Mary who was on the
phone when she buzzed past her desk and up the stairs to her
office. Settled behind her desk she checked her appointment book.
The newlyweds were due in her office in a half hour to draw up an
agreement on a house she showed them Friday. From there she had a
day full of house showings.
    “Guess who I just got off the phone with?”
Mary said, wide-eyed as she stepped on the landing.
    Betsy shrugged her shoulders. “I give up,
who?”
    “Skylar Blakewood. He’s on his way over
here.”
    “Now?”
    “Should be here any minute. He has a revised
copy of the house plans for you.”
    Betsy twisted open the top button on her
blouse before it totally cut off the air to her lungs. She had to
get out of the building before she suffocated. Before Skylar
arrived.
    “Oh by the way, you never did tell me what
your Friday night meeting with him was about.”
    Betsy ignored her friend and slid the strap
to her shoulder bag up her arm. A picnic and a kiss would sum it up
for her. But Betsy didn’t have time to get