Deceptively Yours (Wanton Weston Women, Book Two) by Wynter Daniels Read Free Book Online

evening all alone?”
    She hemmed and hawed. Why was she so frightened of a simple dinner invitation? It wasn’t as if he was asking her to sleep with him. She was flattered by how hard he was working to get her to join him but she couldn’t take the risk. “I’m sorry.”
    He clapped both hands over his chest. “You’re killing me. What do you want, blood? Oh, never mind. I’ve already given you that.” His crooked grin broke through all her defenses.
    She met his stare and her breath caught at the hope she glimpsed there. It killed her to let him down but she couldn’t risk opening herself to a man again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    “You’ve got a hot date with someone else, hmm?”
    As if. “I’m just…not interested.”
    He lifted a lock of her hair and twirled it around his finger.
    Her legs turned to rubber. A pleasant ache settled low in her belly. Merely going out to eat with the man didn’t mean she had to take it any further. She stepped back out of his reach and folded her arms over her chest. “That sounded harsh, didn’t it?”
    “Harsh? Nah. You destroyed me, but it’s okay.” His grin would melt an igloo if the rest of his total hotness didn’t do it first.
    Paralyzing fear stormed through her.
    “I don’t want to be rude, but you’ll have to go.” She gathered all her strength so she wouldn’t cave.
    He held up his hands in surrender then headed toward the hedge where he’d climbed into her yard. “It was nice to meet you, Laura slash Dear Annie.”
    It wasn’t until he’d gone that she let out the breath she’d been holding. His exit method put her in mind of how Lady Willingham’s masked lover would leave.
    She already regretted turning him down, but it was for the best. Her life was hardly a romance novel. In reality, Guy wouldn’t sweep her off her feet or rescue her from a dangerous villain. After he’d gotten what he wanted, he would have shown his true colors and walked away without giving her another thought. Or worse—he’d have hung around long enough to abuse her in some way.
    A vision from her childhood barged into her mind. Her father had her mother pinned against the wall in the kitchen of their old house. One hand clamped around her mom’s neck and the other held a half-full liquor bottle.
    She and Diana cowered in the corner in tears. Suzanne—holding Wendy in her arms—stood with her back to them, shielding her sisters from their father’s terrifying outburst.
    It wasn’t the first time, but it would be the last. Unable to stop herself, she’d peeked around Suzanne’s shoulder and saw the blood—her mother’s blood. The crimson stains corrupted the sunny yellow linoleum floor and the white cabinets. Laura had started screaming and hadn’t stopped until her father slammed the back door and her mother locked it behind him.
    But that awful day was the last thing she wanted to think about. She forced her thoughts elsewhere, to the evening ahead. She still had to unpack her things and change for dinner.
    Not that it mattered how she looked. She should have stuck with her usual style of loose-fitting clothes, rather than the form-fitting dresses Diana had sent her from New York. But she couldn’t have afforded to buy anything appropriate for evening and it wasn’t as if she had anything like that in her closet. She never had occasion to wear anything dressy—until now.
    Ignoring the emptiness left in Guy’s wake, she forced her chin up and went inside to study her speech, which was the only thing she ought to be dwelling upon. After reading over all Suzanne’s cards, she set them on the counter then headed to her bedroom to unpack.
    But she couldn’t keep Guy off her mind. It shouldn’t excite her that he’d tried so hard to get her to go out with him. Didn’t matter that he’d awakened feelings inside her she thought she’d locked away forever or that he turned her into a puddle of hormones.
    She recalled his face and her