Careless by Cheryl Douglas Read Free Book Online

just about kill for a
bowl of those barbeque peanuts.”
    The waitress giggled. “Comin’ right up,
Tori. And thanks again...” She touched her arm as she looked into her eyes.
“Seriously, it means a lot.”
    “My pleasure.”
    Mike waited until the waitress walked away
before he asked, “Why’d you do that?”
    “Because I can.” She propped her feet up on
the chair next to him before she said, “Listen, I’ve been so damn lucky in my
life, it oughta be a sin.”
    “I think talent and hard work had somethin’
to do with it.”
    “Sure, it did, but the talent was
God-given. I had nothin’ to do with that.”
    Mike almost wished she would stop talking,
because with every word she spoke, he was starting to like her more and more.
He didn’t want to like her. He wanted to despise her, resent her...
    “Sure, I’ve worked hard to get where I am,
but we all have. There isn’t a person in the music business who hasn’t paid
their dues. If you wanna know the truth, I kinda feel like I snuck in the back
door.”
    Mike was sure some of her fellow musicians
would probably agree with that statement, but he knew she’d taken the
opportunity she’d been given and run with it. He respected that, and her. More
than he should.
    He looked into her eyes and felt the past
come flooding back... images of her tongue dancing with his, her body writhing
under him, his name on her lips. Damn, he had to get his head back in the game.
    The waitress returned with their order,
setting the glasses on the table between them. “Can I get you anything else?”
    Tori glanced at the nametag pinned to the
front of her white cotton blouse. “No, we’re good. Thanks, Debbie.”
    “Okay, just holler if you need anything.”
    Tori popped a peanut in her mouth. “You
know I will.”
    Mike couldn’t fight the urge to say
something to her about the night he kicked her out of his apartment. “Listen, I
think we should talk about what happened between us.”
    She was taking a sip of her drink when he
made the comment, and she had to cover her mouth to keep from spewing liquid
across the table. “Hon, I’d say you’re a day late and a dollar short.”
    He shouldn’t care that she was telling him it
was too late for them, too late to make amends for the mistake he’d made back
then, but he did care. “I just think it would make it easier for us to work
together if we put our cards on the table.”
    “You want me to tell it like it is?” She
laced her fingers behind her head and glared at him. “Fine. I don’t like you. I
don’t respect you. And I sure as hell don’t wanna work with you, but Luc told
me I don’t have a choice. So, here I am, tryin’ like hell to make the best of a
bad situation.”
    He hated that she had the power to hurt him
with a few well-aimed insults. No one had ever been able to cut him down so
effectively with so few words. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Tori.”
    She smirked. “Don’t tell me you wanna be friends ?”
She reached her hand across the table as she tried to keep a straight face.
“Come on, take my hand. Isn’t this the part where we start singin’ ‘Cumbaya’?”
    He wanted to reach across the table and
kiss that smug smirk right off her face, but instead he whipped his leather-bound
notebook out and glared at her. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”
    “Finally.”
     
     
    Tori was trying hard to act as though she
didn’t have a care in the world, but with an international tour looming, a
madman out to get her, and an ex-lover glowering at her, it wasn’t easy to
maintain the façade.
    She took a sip of her drink before asking,
“What do you need to know?”
    “My dad tells me this guy has been sending
you letters?”
    “Yeah.” She tried not to think about the
most recent one. They seemed to get more graphic and disgusting with every
passing day.
    He scribbled something in his notebook.
“How often are you receiving them?”
    “Daily.”
    Mike raised an