Read Online The Bride Tamer by Ann Major - Free Book Online

for the patio at the far edge of the spacious lawn. Spot trotted along after him.
    The kid switched to English. “Have you seen my mommy?”
    The question stopped Cash cold. The vision of those sweet, young curves he’d longed to touch and taste and smell played like a rerun in his mind. Aphrodite’s body and those tangles of liquid copper curls flowing over her shoulders would doubtlessly be imprinted forever in some deep, primal part of his male brain. Again he saw her ruby-red nipples, her swollen breasts, her flushed cheeks, her long-lashed, blue eyes. Most of all he remembered the longing in her eyes.
    When Cash didn’t answer, the kid grinned again and lowered his voice to a plaintive stage whisper. “She’s not upstairs. She’s not anywhere. And I’m scared of the bees.”
    Alarm flashed through Cash. “She has to be somewhere.”
    â€œShe keeps her bathing suit in the pool house. I thought maybe she’d gone there looking for it or something.”
    Cash felt a wave of heat flash beneath his collar. “Haven’t seen her…er…lately—”
    â€œUsually she swims with me or watches me swim.”
    â€œShe likes to swim, does she?” Cash replied, moving again, away from the pool because the kid was staring at his face with laser-bright eyes and smiling that smile that cut through all his defenses.
    â€œDo you have a kid?”
    â€œWhat?” Cash turned, feeling trapped.
    The boy’s expression was eager, rapt.
    â€œA little girl,” Cash admitted.
    â€œWhy isn’t she with you?”
    The muscles in his shoulders bunched. “She…couldn’t come….” Cash felt numb, dead in the center. He should run. He stood where he was—paralyzed.
    â€œOh.” There was a pause, and the boy’s smile faltered. “Are you divorced?”
    â€œNo.”
    The maid and the gardener sitting in lawn chairs on the opposite side of the pool were watching them curiously.
    â€œWhat’s her name?” the boy said.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œYour kid.”
    Cash’s lips barely moved. “Sophie.”
    â€œMine’s Miguelito, and my mommy takes me everywhere.”
    â€œExcept not this morning,” Cash said, hoping to end this impossible conversation.
    Miguelito’s mouth puckered. “So will you watch me swim till she comes?”
    â€œYou have people watching you already—”
    â€œPedro and Lisa,” the kid said, waving to them and yet never taking his eager eyes off Cash.
    The servants waved back reassuringly. When the kid’s black eyes, eyes too like Isabela’s, continued to drill him pleadingly, Cash felt even more trapped, just like he had last night by the kid’s aunt. The Escobars came on too strong.
    â€œI want you because I’m scared of the bees,” Miguelito said simply but in that engaging child’s whisper that made Cash feel big and important.
    â€œBees?” he asked, remembering the droning.
    â€œThey keep drinking out of the pool. One stung me yesterday.” He pointed to his shoulder.
    â€œYour shoulder looks okay to me.”
    â€œThere’s a little red dot where it bit me.”
    â€œYou know you’re a lot bigger than a bee.”
    â€œBut it really hurts.” Miguelito glanced worriedly at the bougainvillea. “Stay—please.”
    Much to his surprise, Cash stalked to the pool and sat down. The kid grinned, and Spot came up and lay down beside Cash.
    He was her kid. He was cute and friendly, maybe too friendly, but he made Cash feel needed…just as Sophie used to. Maybe he could do this.
    Grinning again, his dark eyes flashing with self-importance now that he’d increased his admiring audience, Miguelito climbed out of the pool, and then ran, spattering water all over the red tiles.
    â€œNo corras,” the maid screamed when his small, wet feet slid out from under him and he nearly