Read Online It Had to Be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips - Free Book Online Page B

me.”
    “Valerie, I irritate you all the time, so don’t use that as an excuse to go for my jugular.”
    She wisely changed the subject. “I heard Bert’s funeral was quite entertaining. It’s too bad all his old mistresses weren’t there so they could have seen that dog pee on his coffin.” Valerie smiled in her thin-lipped way. “There is a God after all. And She watches out for Her own.”
    Dan refused to get into a debate with Valerie about Bert, especially when he knew he was on shaky ground. Men liked Bert, but women didn’t. He had been too free with his hands, too quick with the raunchy joke and patronizing comment. That didn’t go over well with women like Valerie. It didn’t go over all that well with Dan, either, but Bert had been the boss so he’d kept his mouth shut.
    “It wasn’t funny, Val. A man died, and his daughter managed to turn his funeral into a circus.”
    “I’ve heard stories about her. What’s she like?”
    “A high-class hooker, except not that smart. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember the last time I met a person who struck me as being so completely worthless.”
    “She was Arturo Flores’s mistress for years. She must have some redeeming qualities.”
    “Other than the obvious ones on her chest, I can’t imagine what. Bert talked to me about her a couple of times. It embarrassed the hell out of him knowing his daughter’s naked body was showing up on the walls of every big museum in the country.”
    “Flores was a great artist. Don’t you think Bert’s attitude might have been a bit provincial? Remember that we’re talking about a man who wanted to hang gold tassels from the crotches of the Star Girl cheerleaders.”
    “None of those girls was his daughter. And ticket sales have been real slow.”
    She bristled. “That kind of blatant sexism isn’t funny.”
    He sighed. “It was a joke, Val. Loosen up.”
    “You’re disgusting. Everything about sex is one big joke to you, isn’t it?”
    “ I’m disgusting! Now you correct me if I’m wrong here, but aren’t you the one who’s been dreaming up all these kinky little sexual scenarios, including tonight’s semi-repulsive dip into kiddie porn? And haven’t I been warming that butt of yours whenever you decide you want it warmed, even though beating up women has never been high on my list of aphrodisiacs?”
    She stiffened. “That’s not what I’m talking about, but as usual, you’ve chosen to misinterpret. I’m talking about your attitude toward women. You’ve gotten so much free sex over the years that you’ve forgotten women are anything more than tits and ass.”
    “Now that’s real nice talk coming from a representative of the United States government.”
    “You won’t discuss your feelings. You refuse to share your emotions.”
    It was on the tip of his tongue to remind her that whenever he’d tried to share his emotions with her, she’d turned it into an all-night discussion of everything that was wrong with him.
    “And women let you get away with it,” she went on. “That’s what’s really galling. They let you get away with it because—Never mind. I can’t talk to you.”
    “No, Valerie. Go on. Finish what you were saying. If I’m so terrible, why do women let me get away with it?”
    “Because you’re rich and good-looking,” she replied too quickly.
    “That’s not what you were going to say. You’re the one who keeps telling me I need to be more open in my communication. Maybe you should practice what you preach.”
    “They let you get away with it because you’re so confident,” she said stiffly. “You don’t seem to have the same self-doubts as everybody else in the world. Even successful women like the security of knowing they have a man like that standing behind them.”
    Although to another man her words might have been flattering, they had the opposite effect on him. He could feel a red-hot coil of rage burning deep inside him, a rage that went all the way