Read Online She Sins at Midnight by Whitney Dineen - Free Book Online Page B

Hedgeworth, could not believe that he let his mother talk him into attending the Fenworthy’s garden party. Surely there couldn’t be an affair more likely to kill him from the mind numbing dullness of it all. On the plus side, his mother gave her word that if he joined her this afternoon, she would not ask him to attend any other events for the entirety of the season. What that meant was that she could badger him all she wanted about getting married and starting his nursery, but she wouldn’t be able to throw eligible young ladies into his path.
    Julius sat down under a tree by the water and relished the thought of all the insipid young misses who would have to find husbands elsewhere that year. He had no idea why his mother would be willing to go along with a bargain so obviously slanted in his favor, but far be it from him to complain. Julius closed his eyes and enjoyed the soft breeze. Just as he decided that he better get up and join the party, else his mother cry foul, he found a very soft and feminine form plopping onto his lap.
    Vivie couldn’t believe what she had just done! There she was, walking along minding her own business, when her foot landed in a gopher hole and sent her sailing through the air. She didn’t even notice the man sitting under the tree until she landed on him. She was beyond mortified! After a quick check to insure her pride was the only thing damaged, she looked up and found herself gazing into the most intoxicating pair of green eyes she had ever seen.
    Julius gaped at the beauty in his arms and asked, “Madam, did my mother send you?”
    Vivian, still mute from her unexpected landing, didn’t answer so Julius continued, “because I’m about to do something to you that she would never condone.”

Chapter 7
    M elinda’s flight to Chicago was a sheer pleasure. She was so happy to be away from L.A. that she thought she would scream from the relief of it. Oscar was beyond infuriated when he read the article in “The Countrywide Inquisitor” that morning; so much so that she was a little afraid of him. Oscar’s first wife left him for her trainer and his second wife took off with the pool boy, so the thought of his girlfriend leaving him for a janitor was not a happenstance that he embraced too readily. Oscar Solomon had played the cuckold before and it was a role he was tired of. He actually made Melinda swear she wasn’t sleeping with the janitor at Amalgamated Artists, as if she would consider such a disgusting thing. Once he finally decided to believe her, he called his lawyers and started to talk lawsuit.
    Melinda was so afraid of losing Oscar she told him the rumor must have come from Josh Furber’s assistant, Lila. After divulging that information, she started to worry he would find out about the private motivational meetings that she held in Josh’s office. That’s when she further compounded the story by saying that Lila was already spreading rumors that she was being promiscuous with her agent. By the time she left Oscar’s house in the Palisades, she couldn’t remember what lies she had told as there had been so many. Melinda knew that her reputation in Hollywood was pretty dicey. She also knew that if she messed things up with Oscar, she’d be hard pressed to replace him with another man as rich and powerful.
    On the flight to O’Hare, Melinda drank an entire bottle of Cristal, took a nap and started a new romance novel. She laughed thinking that with as much sex as she had, she shouldn’t be the least bit interested in reading about it too, but the difference was that she had sex, not romance. Oscar was fifty-two years old with thinning hair and a paunchy stomach. As far as Melinda could tell, his idea of romance was brushing his teeth first. She didn’t kid herself. She knew that the only reason he was with her was because she was young, hot and one of the most recognizable movie stars of her generation. All she was to him was a pawn in the power trip of his