Trading Secrets Read Free Page A

the question? What was she going to tell her husband when she returned to Dallas? Or did he even know she was gone? Perhaps he was out of town.
    Matt knew that he himself had spent a lot of time out of town. And Ginny had gotten very good at lying. Her stories had always been carefully detailed and utterly sincere. Had she told her lovers that she wasn’t married, as Sabrina did? Probably. It made a pleasant fiction when all parties concerned could pretend that no one else was involved. Women undoubtedly lied about the matter more frequently. They wouldn’t want to scare off potential lovers with uncomfortable images of irate husbands.
    The lifestyle she was choosing was going to be harder on Sabrina than it had been on Ginny. Hell, Ginny had taken to it like a fish to water, Matt reminded himself grimly. But Sabrina Chase might not find it so pleasant. There was a softness in the woman he held in his arms that Ginny had never had to suppress. His ex-wife had always been able to take care of herself.
    One thing was for certain. Sabrina was still very new at this game. He could sense the unsureness beneath the flippant exterior. Perhaps all she needed was a good lesson. Maybe she wouldn’t be turned into another Ginny if she ran into more than she could handle tonight. This was his chance to play instructor, he told himself with whiskey-induced idealism. His opportunity to change the course of someone else’s life.
    Matt August: wise and all-knowing guide to young women at the crossroads.
    Christ! What the hell made him think he had a right to do that? So what if Sabrina was married? So what if she was bent on traveling the same path Ginny had chosen? It was her own business. If he didn’t want to be the first in a series of one-night stands for Sabrina Chase, then he should get out of the mess now.
    But that was going to be easier said than done. Sabrina felt surprisingly good in his arms. He liked the feel of her small breasts lightly brushing his chest. Apparently she wasn’t wearing a bra under her outrageously gaudy turquoise Mexican dress. The bright pink sash that outlined her narrow waist emphasized the full flare of her thighs. And she had a fragrant warmth that was making him restless. Her husband was a fool not to keep her close at hand. The same kind of fool he himself had been with Ginny.
    Damn it to hell. Why was he so worried about the future of one Sabrina Chase, tourist? He sure hadn’t overly concerned himself with the other occasional women who flitted in and out of his life. It beat him why he should be seriously thinking of playing guardian of the future for Sabrina. Matt’s hands tightened on her waist and she flinched in surprise before nestling closer.
    He got the feeling he wasn’t the smoothest dancer she had ever encountered. Matt paused for a couple of seconds, mentally reestablishing the count. It wasn’t that he couldn’t dance. It was just that he didn’t dance all that well after several whiskeys. Matt frowned momentarily to himself as he realized that he couldn’t remember the actual number of drinks he’d had that evening. The realization bothered him. It was a bad sign.
    Sabrina smiled as a relieved sense of serenity began to replace her earlier uncertainty. It was going to be all right. Everything was going to be wonderful. A romantic fantasy come true. She had selected a man who wasn’t really accustomed to picking up women in bars and who was definitely not accustomed to being picked up himself. Poor Matt seemed a little shy, and that had probably been the cause of his initial gruffness.
    Maybe her instincts had focused on him because she had sensed he wouldn’t be too polished or too smooth. Being new at this sort of thing herself, it was best that she chose someone like Matt. Someone who was in her lane instead of the fast lane. She had been right to fly down to Acapulco on the spur of the moment to celebrate this major turning-point in her life.
    In a very real sense