Read Online Love is Murder by Sandra Brown - Free Book Online Page B

himself. He once told me that his father, whom he loved dearly, had been an extremely strong believer in fidelity and had passed that belief on to his son. David claimed he had never in his life cheated on a woman and never would. It simply wasn’t in his DNA.
    Was he protesting too much? Am I?
    Maybe.
    What I was about to see certainly made me wonder… .
    * * *
    She couldn’t have been more than twenty-three or -four, giving me a good six or so years on her. You could see those years—or lack thereof—in the firmness of her body. The kind of firmness that, once you reach a certain age, no amount of exercise in the world can achieve. You try and you try, but you just can’t get those years back. Which is why you feel so threatened by those who are still reveling in the glory of youth.
    Like her.
    She was what my father had always called a humdinger . He had said this openly and often, which no doubt contributed to my parents’ divorce. The comment was usually targeted at someone tall and high-breasted, with a waist you could almost fit a single hand around and an ass that provoked either envy or scorn in every woman it passed.
    And this girl certainly would have made Daddy’s list.
    Normally, I wouldn’t have cared. I don’t often sit around pining over my lost youth, and I like to think that I could probably hold my own on that website Hot or Not . But the fact that this girl was climbing out of the passenger seat of my boyfriend’s rented car gave me pause. To put it mildly. She wore a tight-fitting business skirt and a blazer that accentuated the fullness of her chest, and for all intents and purposes she might as well have had the words—if I may be so crude—FUCK BAIT stamped across that ass.
    Another term of my father’s.
    Needless to say, I wasn’t happy watching as David handed the keys to the hotel valet, then followed the woman inside. Something sour began to roll around in my stomach, and as a person who’s prone to throwing up at the slightest provocation, it was a miracle I didn’t hurl all over the steering wheel of my forty-dollar-a-day Hyundai.
    Somewhere in the back of my brain, a single phrase kept tumbling around like socks—or maybe rocks— in a dryer:
    Mother was right .
    Mother was right.
    Mother was…
    Shit.
    A moment later the lobby doors slid closed, and I knew I had no choice but to follow the winsome couple as I quietly prayed that what I was witnessing was completely innocent. That I was merely victim to my parental unit’s constant and unrelenting skepticism.
    The girl was probably David’s assistant, Kim—and, if so, I immediately understood why he had never introduced her to me. He’d been sparing me the heartache of knowing what a knockout he worked with every day.
    Uh-huh. That was it.
    Sparing me.
    Unlatching my seat belt, I once more staved off the urge to vomit, then climbed out of the car and headed toward the hotel entrance. I was about to either make a fool of myself or see a relationship I cherished come crashing down around me.
    * * *
    Whenever he traveled, David made a habit of texting me his room number once he checked into a hotel. He carried one of those smartphones with a battery that lasted about thirty-five seconds, so he was constantly turning it off when he didn’t absolutely need it. Texting me was his way of assuring me that he was always available, via the room phone, should I need to contact him. I had received that text the moment I stepped off the plane at LAX and had the number burned into my brain.
    When I got to the lobby, there was no sign of my prey. It was well past the dinner hour, but I took a quick peek into the hotel’s restaurant and lounge before heading for the elevators.
    They were nowhere to be found.
    The big question in my mind was whether they had gone to separate rooms or were now getting comfortable on my boyfriend’s bed. There was the possibility, of course, that they could have gone to Kim’s room—assuming that’s who