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

you’d reached the age where it mattered yet,” he said smoothly.
    Charlie feigned shock. “A lady who tells her age will tell anything. Let’s just say that I’m not breaking any laws by working in a bar.”
    “Is she always this evasive?” Damian asked his brother.
    “Not with me. I have to get changed. Try to be polite, Damian. I know it’s a stretch for you,” Erik taunted and left the room.
    Charlie glanced at Damian over the rim of her glass. His charcoal-grey suit was tailored to fit his tall, lean body. The fine quality of the garment must have set him back more than she paid in a year’s rent. His square jaw, straight nose, and wide slashed mouth raised in an arrogant grin left her feeling he might be more dangerous than his polished appearance had first led her to believe. When he spoke, his green eyes studied her intensely, as if he could see inside her soul.
    His chestnut hair had a hint of silver at the temples, making him appear older than his thirty-two years. Or perhaps his overly serious nature was to blame. She knew from Erik that Damian hadn’t taken a day off since he took over his grandfather’s insurance firm ten years earlier.
    When he smiled, however, he seemed like a different man. A man who could cause unfamiliar and unwanted sensations with his mere proximity. A man who awakened desires she swore she didn’t possess. A man who could make a staunch realist like herself start believing in dreams.
    “I guess I didn’t pass your inspection,” he drawled.
    He’d more than passed, and that was what scared her. She rarely noticed men, and never felt such an all-out physical attraction. Why him, of all people? Suddenly conscious that she was staring, she lowered her gaze. She needed some space to recover. Quickly.
    “You’re watching me as if you expect me to jump out and grab you. I assure you, I’ve been bought up better than that.”
    “I’m not worried. I carry mace for just such occasions.”
    “And have there been many occasions?”
    “Not recently.”
    Charlie turned her attention to the house her brother had been raised in. Although it was exquisitely decorated, she felt as if she were standing in a showroom rather than a family home. The contemporary furniture was covered in warm shades of mauve and grey, yet the sterile perfection of the room left her cold.
    She gave an indifferent glance to the paintings hanging on the wall. Suddenly one picture on the far wall caught her attention. Sea foam green and turquoise hues brought the landscape of a fishing village to vivid life. Standing just offshore in waist-deep water, a peasant girl cast her fishing net. The girl in the picture bore a striking resemblance to Charlie. She knew intuitively the painting was of her mother.
    “She looks like you,” Damian noted from across the room. “Erik’s father painted that more than twenty-five years ago.”
    “I know,” she said softly. “I mean, I saw the name in the comer.”
    Damian must have sensed that the picture had a deep effect on her. He drew up alongside of her and gave her a brief history. “He spent some time studying art in Algeria back in the early sixties, before he married my mother. This particular village was one of his favorite spots.”
    Charlie studied every detail of the painting. What dreams of grandeur Peter Lawson must have promised her mother to make her leave the only life she’d ever known and follow him to a strange country. How overwhelming life here must have seemed to her. Charlie had spent her whole life in America and sometimes she had difficulty making it through each day. Was it any wonder that her mother had been unable to cope on her own?
     
    * * * *
     
    Damian put his hand on her arm. She jerked it away quickly and took a few steps back.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “Don’t touch me.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
    “Then it wasn’t necessary to do it.”
    He frowned at the anger in her voice. Did she find