Read Online Maid for the Billionaire by Ruth Cardello - Free Book Online Page A

don’t care where we spend today, but I’ll
choose tonight.”
    The dividing window lowered and the driver’s
amused voice halted further exploration. "We're here, sir.
Southwick's Zoo."
     
    Dominic surveyed the parking lot, like a man
discovering he'd stepped in animal waste. My God ! There was
even a school bus parked amid the ocean of mini vans. When he'd
decided to go along with Abby's game, he'd envisioned a more
intimate destination. What the hell were they doing at a zoo?
    Abby took him by the hand as if she could
read his thoughts. “Would you just trust me?” she said.
    He shook his head. Every man had his limits
and he could think of a hundred places more appropriate for what he
had in mind. “I'm not in the mood for crowds and small children.”
Her choice of entertainment highlighted the differences between
them and he wondered again if they both wouldn't be better off if
he ended the day now.
    She tugged on his hand until he looked down
at her. The stubborn expression was back on her face. “I won and
this is where I choose to go. So, suck it up,” she said in direct
challenge.
    He straightened, an involuntary response to
her tone, eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline and almost
laughed but caught himself at the last second. She didn't always
appreciate his humor.
    “Yes, ma'am,” he joked and tucked her against
his side, under his arm. Whenever he thought he had her figured
out, she surprised him. It was becoming impossible to imagine
himself with the perfectly groomed, nauseatingly dull, arm candy he
usually went for. If just a sliver of her audacious nature spilled
into her lovemaking, he wasn't sure he'd be able to let her leave
in the morning.
    “Come on.” She pulled him into forward motion
toward the entrance, not quite shaking him free of the images he'd
just conjured of exactly how he was going to enjoy her that
evening.
    After graciously allowing him to pay for
their admission, she escorted him with a purposeful stride past
small furred creatures he didn't have time to catch the name of.
They breezed by a tortoise, some large caged birds, and,
thankfully, the petting zoo. Her pace began to slow as they passed
the African Plains area.
    They came to a stop before a double-gated
enclosure labeled, “Deer Forest.” She pulled out several coins and
a small plastic bag from her purse and began filling the bag with
corn kernels from a dispenser.
    “For the right price, I bet they'd let us
feed the lions,” he suggested, seeing nothing tempting about her
choice.
    “I'm sure they would,” she said, pushing the
first of the two gates open and passing through the second without
waiting to see if he followed her; which, of course, he did.
    About ten feet inside the enclosure, she
stopped walking and waited for him to join her. Her eyes held a bit
of a dreamy expression as she pointed to the area around her. “This
is one of my favorite places to come when I need to think.”
    Thinking was the last thing he wanted to do,
but something about her love of these woods drew him in. They
walked in union deeper into the park at a slow, comfortable
pace.
    She sat down on a wooden bench, slightly off
the main path. He sat beside her, completely at a loss for why she
had brought him there. Their earlier passion was put on pause. She
didn't say anything at first, so nor did he. For a man who
continually, almost compulsively, charged ahead, he was amazed by
the comfort he found in their shared silence and inactivity.
    Despite the fact that they were both fully
dressed and separated by a few inches, he had never felt closer to
a woman. That this feeling of intimacy could come before sex scared
him. She was supposed to be a distraction; enjoyable but brief. She
wasn’t supposed to make him wonder how he was going return to his
normal life without her and if returning there was what he really
wanted to do at all.
    In the shade of trees, he studied her content
profile. Her makeup had begun to smudge. The