Trading Secrets Read Free

your eyes. You have very expressive eyes, Sabrina Chase of Dallas.” Matt’s mouth lifted at the edge. “The answer is no. I’m not married. Not any longer.”
    She chewed her lip for a moment and then smiled.
    “Thanks.” The sensation of relief was very real. Much too strong. Whether or not Matt August was married shouldn’t have mattered. Not for her purposes tonight. “I’m not married, either,” she offered magnanimously.
    He let the free information pass as if he no longer cared. “Another drink?”
    She stared doubtfully down at her nearly finished Margarita. “Actually, I think I’ve had enough. I had a couple before I came over to introduce myself.”
    “Liquid courage?” he mocked softly. “I didn’t realize I was so unapproachable.”
    “It wasn’t you. It would have taken a little courage to go up to any of the others, too.” She was feeling comfortable enough with him now to be honest, Sabrina realized with a sense of shock.
    Matt abruptly reached for her hand, turning it palm up on the table. His roughened fingers drew a random pattern on the sensitive skin of her wrist. “It’ll probably get easier, you know.”
    “Talking to you?”
    He shook his head. “Approaching strange men in bars. Unless, of course, you decide you don’t like taking the risks after all.” He was staring at her palm as if mildly fascinated.
    “Ah, but I’m having excellent luck first time out, aren’t I?” she challenged with deliberate provocation. “Just look at how well we’re doing.” Laughter flared in her eyes. “You,” she warned, “are falling into my hand like a ripe pineapple.”
    He winced. “Not a plum?”
    “Nope. Pineapple. Rough on the outside but sweet on the inside.”
    “No chance you’ve misjudged me?”
    “I don’t think so.” She hesitated. “Matt?”
    “Hmmm?”
    “Will you dance with me?”
    Without a word he got to his feet, tugging her up beside him. He took her willingly enough into his arms on the floor, but there was a curious stiffness to his movements. Matt danced as if he hadn’t done it often and certainly not recently. The steps he guided her into were simple and almost austere. The band was a four-piece ensemble playing the standard, torchy lounge music one could have heard in any hotel bar in the world, but Sabrina could have sworn Matt was counting the beat under his breath. The realization was somehow endearing.
    Deliberately she moved closer, instinctively using her own softness to urge him to unbend. Matt’s arms tightened around her, but his body grew more rigid rather than relaxed. Then she felt his mouth brush her hair.
    It was nice hair, Matt decided, inhaling the clean, fresh scent of it. A couple of shades darker than the whiskey he’d had too much of tonight. She wore it in a loose topknot, but he had a hunch that when it was free it would cascade down around her shoulders.
    Not at all like Ginny’s. Ginny’s hair had been midnight-black and cut in a sleek style that framed her delicate, classically beautiful features. There was nothing all that beautiful about Sabrina Chase, he told himself, but there was an interestingly piquant charm to the expressive mouth and the lively, intelligently aware eyes of smoky green.
    So she was thirty and just now starting to wander? Ginny had started earlier. Twenty-five, probably. Right after Brad had been born. It was as though she had to prove to herself that she was still a stunningly attractive woman even though she’d had a child. Had Ginny’s first affair begun this way? Had she walked up to a strange man in a bar and calmly introduced herself? Had she been tense and a little unsure of herself the way this woman was? Probably not. Ginny had never been unsure of herself that he could recall.
    But after a few such encounters Sabrina Chase would soon be feeling certain of herself, too. As he had told her, it would get easier. He was sure that she was married. Why else would she have been so evasive about