Foxy Roxy Read Free

sure.”
    “Don’t lie to me, girl. I know a con artist when I see one.” He zipped up. “Still shooting pool for lunch money? And reading all those library books?”
    Roxy shrugged. “Now and then.”
    “I hope you return a few of them. The books, that is. I don’t mind losing the lunch money. You played with admirable finesse. Either that or you cheated. And if I didn’t notice at the time, you deserved your winnings.”
    Roxy had met Julius last spring when he wanted to modernize the old carriage house into a garage. The house had been beautiful back then. She’d taken a few pieces of the carriage house, and he’d offered her a drink on his patio while he wrote her a check. They’d shared a couple of laughs after that and played a few games in which Roxy showed no mercy. She cleaned his pool table and his wallet, but Roxy had liked the guy. Admired his tendency to make up rules as he went along. She appreciated that he didn’t treat her like some kind of French housemaid when he’d made a pass at her. And he’d taken her rejection graciously.
    Too bad his pool table had burned up. She could have won a few more extra bucks from him.
    He said, “I see you’re still babysitting that moron.”
    She should have hidden her tightened fists behind her back. “At least he knows when to keep his pants zipped.”
    Julius shrugged. “An underrated virtue.”
    Without his clothes, Julius Hyde might look like one of those half-animal men that played the flute at orgies—heavy in the thighs and hairy-chested. Even now, curly white hair bristled at the open collar of his crisp pink shirt. Roxy wondered if his legs were all woolly under his trousers—although she wasn’t curious enough to find out. He wore his white hair long, combed back from his forehead and waved over his shirt collar. He looked like a rich man who enjoyed his pleasures.
    “Damn shame, isn’t it?” He cast a glance up at the burned remains of the house. “I’m sorry the old place ended up like this.”
    “The insurance company will make you feel better.”
    “My mother may feel better,” he corrected. “Depending on what the insurance company decides. Funny, isn’t it? A man like me still living in my mama’s house?”
    The question sounded like one of those rhetorical things men consider when they’re feeling blue. But Roxy knew Julius had plenty of consolation prizes. He’d grown up in a filthy rich family, and when his father died he’d inherited enough dough to run a small country. When his old lady finally kicked, he’d inherit even more. He had dabbled in business, but gave it up to a younger brother when he’d lost interest in empire building and started making lousy friends and a few fierce enemies instead. He’d married a few times, but eventually stopped caring what anybody thought and did as he pleased. Roxy figured he was rich enough to get away with anything. His latest girlfriend made him a laughingstock in the city, but Julius hadn’t cared.
    Until now, maybe.
    Julius took a slim silver flask from the pocket of his trousers and unscrewed the cap. He had a nostalgic look in his eye as he glanced around the grounds. “I grew up here, you know. Before they sent me off to school. There’s a bomb shelter under that piece of lawn over there. A real bunker. I could have kept a girlfriend down there and nobody would have known. My wife Monica would never have fired up her curtains.”
    “That’s creepy, Julius. Bad enough you have a girlfriend young enough to be your grandkid, but locking her in a bunker? Too freaky for me, and that’s saying a lot.”
    He laughed shortly and removed his cigar to sip from the flask. “Do you have family, Roxy?”
    “A daughter.”
    “Well, someday she might drive you to socially inappropriate behavior.”
    “It doesn’t take my kid to do that.”
    Another laugh. “No regrets?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Good for you.” There was something else glimmering in his eyes, though. Sadness?