Deadly Charade Read Free Page A

debating some legal issue or two. Then he’d try to make things a bit more...personal.
    Linda took the cup, wrapped her cold fingers around it and closed her eyes at the heady aromatic smell. The box was heavy and she could use a little treat. No harm done, right?
    Well, so long as she discounted the subtle flutter in her stomach. A slight flutter that evidenced her growing attraction to him. She was just thankful the attraction was slight and nothing more. She wasn’t open to starting another relationship again. Not when she still dreamed about Tony. Not when she so often second-guessed her decision to break up with him, as well as her failure to reverse that decision even after he’d informed on Guapo, putting his life at risk to do the right thing. She’d been tempted, so tempted, of course. She’d almost convinced herself that she’d been wrong about his inability to change. But then Guapo’s men had attacked her and she’d woken in the hospital only to find Tony and his family gone.
    He’d left her. For very good reasons, as he’d explained in a goodbye letter, but he’d still left her.
    Just like she’d previously left him.
    “Good morning,” she replied to Neil as she walked deeper into the courtroom.
    “So what did you wear?” he asked.
    Linda frowned. “Excuse me?”
    “To your friend’s party. It was the reason you couldn’t go out to dinner with me last week, remember?”
    His grin and the twinkle in his eyes told her he knew it had been just another excuse to decline his dinner invitation.
    He didn’t know the half of it. Guilt and shame quivered through her, but she reminded herself that while she’d lied about going to a friend’s party, she hadn’t done anything worse than that. She’d gone dancing. At a perfectly respectable club. By herself. That wasn’t anyone’s business, nor was the fact that she liked to go dancing so she could remember how she and Tony used to fit so well together—on the dance floor and off it.
    She was entitled to a social life. Dancing at nightclubs wasn’t illegal and it wasn’t contrary to the judicial position she was seeking. But she had to say something so...
    Before she could reply, he said, “I was trying to imagine what you wore. You’d look beautiful in red.”
    Her skin warmed at the compliment and the accompanying glow of appreciation in Neil’s eyes. The urge to tease and flirt back prodded at her, surprising her. She smiled. “Sorry to disappoint you but it was black. A plain black dress.”
    “Huh,” he said, sweeping his gaze down her suit as if he was imagining her wearing a dress instead. “Black’s good. Short?”
    “Midcalf,” she said drolly. “With long sleeves and a high-necked collar.”
    He looked doubtful. “In June?”
    “Hey, I get chilly.” She quickly took a sip of coffee to mask her own smile. She pictured the sexy black dress she’d worn. Simple, but by no means puritanical. Linda felt a small thrill, trying to imagine what Neil would have thought of the black lace camisole set she’d worn underneath. Or of the red set she wore today.
    But the thrill quickly vanished. She tried— really tried to imagine herself disrobing for Neil, but although she once again felt a small flutter inside her, she didn’t feel anything else. Instead all she could remember was how Tony had loved buying her sexy lingerie. In fact, he’d loved buying her lots of things, and not necessarily expensive things. Sure, he’d bought her lingerie and jewelry, and often surprised her with dinners out or theater tickets, but he’d just as often written her a poem or sketched her a picture or baked her his famous chocolate-chip cookies with the secret ingredient he’d sworn he’d tell her—but only on their wedding night. Tony had spoiled her in so many ways, big and small, and had never failed to make her feel special. But despite all that, despite his kindness and generosity and sense of humor and the incredible physical connection