Read Online Simply Irresistible by Kristine Grayson - Free Book Online Page A

Dexter Grant.”
    She bit her lower lip. He got the sense, fleeting but powerful, that she had been looking for someone else.
    Then she smiled. It lit up her entire face and brought out that hidden beauty. He felt slightly dizzy. Then he realized he had forgotten to breathe.
    She took his hand, and her fingers were soft and dry. “Vivian Kineally.”
    Dex resisted the urge to take that slight hand and bring it to his lips.
    Vivian Kineally stared at him as if she were daring him to do so. Then she slipped her fingers from his and pressed her hand against her right temple. “Things are never easy when you want them to be.”
    “Easy? So I take it you didn’t come to adopt a kitten.”
    Her smile faded. Her fingers continued rubbing, as if she were trying to massage away a headache. “I wish. Actually, I came looking for someone.”
    “Oh?” He tensed in spite of himself. His sense had been right. She had been looking for someone else and she was disappointed to find him.
    He didn’t want her to be disappointed.
    He also didn’t want her to be with anyone else.
    She nodded. “I’m not even sure this is the right place. I mean, it meets the description my friends—well, they’re not really my friends, they’re more like … intruders, but they’re the ones who sent me, and—”
    “Who’re you looking for?”
    “Jeez,” she said again, and he found that he liked the old-fashioned slang term when he heard it from her. “I’m even talking like them.”
    “Who?”
    She waved her left hand dismissively. “It’s a long story.”
    Her skin had paled noticeably. She seemed to be going gray, as if the pain she felt was getting worse. He wanted to touch her temples and magic the pain away, but he didn’t. He knew better. Sudden magic startled people.
    “You can tell me,” he said.
    She shook her head, then put her left hand on the counter, as if catching her balance. “No. I’d like to appear at least slightly sane.”
    The kitten mewled again, and then Dex felt needle-sharp claws digging into his calf. The damn thing had jumped onto his leg.
    “One second,” he said, and reached down. He scooped up the kitten, holding it gently, and raised it to his face. “I’m going to start calling you Marco Polo if you’re not careful, little one.”
    The kitten mewled again, and his mother looked up from her basket. Dex put the kitten back into it, but Marco Polo marched toward the edge before Dex had a chance to sit up.
    “Cute,” Vivian said.
    “They all are at that age. But I have a hunch that little guy is going to be a handful.”
    She had both hands on the counter now. He was wondering if she was dizzy.
    “Do you need to sit down?” he asked.
    “No,” she said. “I just need to find someone. Do you know an Henri Barou?”
    He felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. His real name was Henri Barou, but no one knew that. He’d left that name behind eighty years ago because he’d hated it so much. Since then, he’d stolen his names from movie characters he admired. This one came from C. K. Dexter-Haven, Cary Grant’s character in The Philadelphia Story , a man who was decidedly wittier and smarter than Dex could ever hope to be.
    “No,” he said, but the answer was a beat too late.
    Despite her obvious pain, she gave him a penetrating look. “Why are you lying to me?”
    He wasn’t sure how to answer. He hadn’t covered well. Should he tell her that Henri Barou sold the store to him, or that—
    “You’re Henri Barou,” she said. “Why did you tell me you’re Dexter Grant?”
    “I am Dexter Grant,” he snapped.
    “And Henri Barou.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose. “They mentioned you might use a different name.”
    Dex frowned. Who knew his real name? Not many people. No one alive; at least no one he could think of. If people knew a mage’s real name, they could have power over him.
    He needed to know who gave this woman his name, and who pointed her in the right direction.