I Still Do Read Free Page B

voice. “The author of The Prince was Niccolò Machiavelli, and he’s been given a bad rap, if you ask me. His name has come to stand for cynicism and unscrupulousness, when he was in fact bothered by the immorality of his age and was just writing about the political reality of the times.”
    But her short history lesson was completely ignored by the students as they quickly filled in the last blank on their papers—hesitating only to ask how to spell Machiavelli—and then they were dashing out of the library.
    Leaving Will alone with his wife.
    But now that he had her undivided attention, he didn’t quite know where to start. It wasn’t cowardice, it was…something else that was causing him to hesitate. But damned if he’d let her think she had the upper hand on him. Crossing his arms over his chest, he told himself that today they were going to play things his way.
    Still, he glanced in the direction of the teenagers’ hasty retreat instead of rushing the topic. “Were we ever that young?” he asked, stalling.
    She shrugged, her cheeks still pinker than normal. “Hard to imagine. But I’m pretty certain I didn’t know anything about the Marquis de Sade at sixteen.”
    â€œBut you knew plenty about French kissing.”
    Her face flushed again, and he didn’t even feel bad about it, because God, thinking of Emily and French kissing had him heating up, too. The first time they’d kissed, he’d been too scared to do more than brush his lips against hers. It had been that way the several times they’d kissed at thirteen and fourteen. But the summer he was fifteen, following an experience that previous winter when an older girl had introduced him to a more European technique, he’d taken his kisses with Emily to a new level.
    In Las Vegas, following that initial stunned moment of recognition, he’d hugged her first then bussed her cheek with his lips. But later that night, as they danced to something that had the sensuous beat of a languid pulse, he’d bent over her mouth and without a thought he’d touched her wet, hot tongue with his. In the space of that kiss he’d become aware of two things, one amazing—they fit together as if no time had passed between them—and the other crucial—that neither of them was a kid any longer.
    They were now adults and he’d wanted to indulge like an adult.
    But not get married!
    Shaking his head, he stepped closer to the desk. It was time to tackle the subject. “What the hell were we thinking?”
    Emily lifted her shoulders and spread her hands, apparently not needing further clarification. “I read they super-oxygenate the air in the casinos. Maybe we were kind of…”
    â€œDrugged?” Because God knew he’d felt dizzy the entire time they’d spent together. But was that the casino’s fault…or hers? Because when he’d realized he was still in Las Vegas but without Emily, the crash had come. Slam, bam, the realization had hit him, hard. Wild Will had done the stupidest thing a man who wanted to start living it up could do. “And then you ran out on me, Em. And Izzy on Owen. What the hell was up with that?”
    She bit her bottom lip. “How is Owen? Izzy had some back-to-back jobs lined up she had to get to. But she promised to call him as soon as she could. Has, um, has Owen heard from her?”
    â€œShe left him a message, pretty much on par with the one you left for me.”
    Emily ignored the last part of his remark. “I’m glad she contacted him. She can be a little, um, hard to pin down.”
    â€œUnlike yourself?” he asked dryly.
    She bit her bottom lip again, making it appear darker and wetter. “What can I say, Will?”
    â€œYou can tell me what you thought you were going to accomplish by leaving me hanging like that.”
    Her hands busied themselves with a stack of paper on the