Pandora's Box (previously Worth the Wait, a Zebra print best seller) Read Free

problem? She can go as my date.”
    In spite of her turmoil, Charlie laughed. That offer tempted the spiteful little brat inside her. Wouldn’t Monica Lawson have one heck of a birthday surprise if the daughter of her husband’s mistress showed up on the arm of her sexy, older son? She got so caught up in her fantasy that she didn’t catch the rest of the conversation until it was too late.
    “. . . bet you a hundred dollars she won’t go. She can’t afford to lose her job,” Erik said.
    Damian turned toward Charlie. “Is your job the real reason you won’t go?”
    “Of course. What other reason would I have?”
    “Wait here.” Damian stood up and walked to the bar to speak to the manager. He exchanged a few words with her scowling boss. Suddenly, Barry broke out in a wide grin and nodded his head. Damian removed some bills from his wallet and handed them to Barry.
    He returned to the table and smiled. “You have tomorrow night off, with pay.” He took a sip of the drink and put the glass back on the table. “And you, Erik, owe me one hundred dollars. I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
    He dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table and walked out.
    Charlie and Erik exchanged shocked stares. She tried to say something, but Barry called her. “The deal is for tomorrow. Charlie. Get behind the bar.”
     
     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    Damian Westfield had to be out of his mind! He had actually paid her boss two hundred dollars in cash to give her the night off. She couldn’t believe it. Not only that, he had made a stipulation that if Charlie didn’t attend his mother’s party, he wanted the money back. Barry, too greedy to part with the cold cash, told her that he expected her to be there if she wanted a job when she returned.
    Erik spent hours apologizing to her and offered to buy her a dress to make up for it, but she wouldn’t allow him to. She had to make do with a dress from My Sister’s Closet, an upscale, secondhand shop. Erik picked her up at five o’clock, apparently too preoccupied to notice that over the black, strapless evening dress she wore her leather jacket and with it a pair of red, high-top sneakers. Although she had a pair of sandals in her purse, she preferred the comfort of her sneakers for travel.
    “Whatever possessed you to make a bet like that?” Charlie asked as she settled herself into the car.
    “For god sake, Charlie, I never expected him to take me seriously. It’s just something you say. Like, ‘I bet you a million dollars you can’t do it’ I didn’t think the square had it in him. It’s kind of ironic in a way, my half-brother going on a date with my half-sister.”
    “Well, he and I aren’t related. We have different parents altogether. And I can’t figure out why he wants me to go to the party anyway. All I did was insult him when we met”
    “I know he’s not your first choice for a date, but Damian is okay. He’d never hurt you.”
    “Damian I can handle,” she said with more confidence than she felt. Erik was aware of her wariness toward men, although she was sure he didn’t understand it. How could he? She never spoke of her past with him. Despite the many years and her effort to forget, the painful memories were never far from the surface.
    “Then what’s the problem?” Erik asked.
    “I’m not in a hurry to meet your mother.”
    He raked his fingers through his hair. “Hopefully, your name will not mean anything to her. She wasn’t aware of my father’s journals.”
    Monica might not be aware of the journals, but she must have been aware of her husband’s child by his mistress. When Charlie left the orphanage, she’d begun using her mother’s surname, rather than Lawson, the name on her birth certificate.
    Her childhood had been the worst hell on earth. Why should she care if her presence caused Monica Lawson any distress? Because Erik deserved better from her, she reminded herself. He loved his entire family and he tore himself in two to avoid