Heart of the Dragon Read Free Page A

utterly uninhibited smile she’d given him at first, he thought. Or maybe it was just that her act was so good,so—he searched for a word to describe her—so
wholesome
.
    “How old are you?” he asked abruptly. “In comparison to Ms. Vatan, I mean.”
    “I’m three years younger than she is. Twenty-six,” she said sharply. “Wait a minute—don’t change the subject. About my money situation, I’m not rolling in gold, but I have a comfortable income. In case none of your people have told you yet, I draw cartoons for a living. I’m good at what I do, and I have a syndicated strip that runs in papers all over the Midwest. So I didn’t come here to mooch off the Vatan family.” She started toward her satchel. “I brought a sample.”
    He stood and raised a hand. She halted. “I’ve seen your work. The sample you left with Mr. Prasartthong at the Vatan offices. Your work is unique.”
    Unique?
Rebecca thought with annoyance. The way he said it, it wasn’t much of a compliment.
    “I only glanced at the cartoons,” he confessed, cocking a brow at her and smiling slightly. “I’m not a good judge of such things.”
    “Are you a good judge of people?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then why don’t you give me a chance?” She gestured toward herself with outspread hands. “I don’t dress like a minister’s old-maid daughter so people will think I’m a sexy, dangerous babe in disguise.”
    For the first time he laughed. Rebecca listened closely to the low, throaty sound and found it both sinister and erotic. Her skin absorbed it and tingled. He walked toward her, and she stood rooted in place, even when tiny muscles in her stomach were quivering in resistance.
    He halted close enough to touch her. She dropped her hands to her sides, realizing that they gave the impression of reaching for him. But she gazed up at him without wavering. His eyes were the color of dark honey, shadowed by thick black lashes that curled up at thetips. She found herself mesmerized by those soft, curving lashes, which were so out of place among the harder lines of his face.
    That face held emotions she couldn’t decipher, and his own silent scrutiny of her made the tension worse. She rarely wore makeup other than a dab of lipstick and eye shadow, and didn’t worry about the effect. No one had ever called her ugly, and if men didn’t beat a path to her door, well, she didn’t want them crowding her doormat anyway. She had more important concerns, like making a living. Thousands of people tried to sell cartoons; only the most dedicated were successful.
    But Kashadlin Santelli’s shrewd, overtly masculine attention made her want to touch her face and discover what fascinated him, whether it was good or bad. “I’ll find out
exactly
who and what you are,” he told her. “And I hope you’re what you claim to be.”
    She exhaled roughly. “I am.”
    “A minister’s old-maid daughter? Is that what you are?”
    “That’s part of what I am, sort of. Yes, my dad was a Methodist minister. A retired army chaplain. When he was in the army, he was stationed in Thailand for several years. Back in the early sixties.”
    “So that’s where your bizarre story begins.”
    “Bizarre? At least you didn’t call it ‘insane,’ which is what one of the Vatan executives said. I’m progressing.”
    “You’re aware, of course, that Ms. Vatan’s father was a British Army Officer who was killed in a military accident not long after her mother died?”
    “I’m aware that everyone believes that story, but it’s not true.”
    “Because your father, a retired army chaplain in Iowa, told you a different story, about the heiress of a very well known Thai silk company?”
    Rebecca leaned toward him, clenching her fists at her sides. “Because when he was dying, my father told meabout his first wife and their daughter, whom he loved very much. He wasn’t the kind of man who lied.”
    “Only the kind of man who could desert his Thai wife and daughter