Delicious and Deadly by CC MacKenzie Read Free Book Online Page B

shut. The moment she'd discovered she was pregnant with Oscar's baby. The intense mix of fear and a wild happiness. Her mother's utter dismay. And then the pain of loss weeks later, as she'd miscarried. Along with her mother's obvious relief.
    Emma knew there was no point in re-living the bad times.
    Oscar had moved on, forgotten her.
    Then they'd met this morning.
    And she'd lost her mind.
    Desire and a chemistry that could not be denied had overthrown common sense. But there was no doubt he'd been as affected as her, maybe even more so if that was possible. He couldn't seem to help himself.
    They'd made wild and passionate love.
    It meant nothing more than that.
    So she shouldn't read anything more into it.
    What was to stop him repeating the past, drawing her in and then walking away?
    She shook her head.
    Why hadn’t she asked him what he was doing here?
    What had happened to change him, the tattoo, the hair, like that?
    Too many questions and no answers now crowded into her busy brain.
    Emma didn’t know where to turn, what to do with herself.
    Then a little voice whispered softly in her mind, told her to use these feelings, to write them down, to get them on paper and out of her head.
    She leaped out of bed, raced to her laptop and began typing.
    All her thoughts, all her fears, poured from her fingers.
    Hadn’t she learned the hard way that having sex, even hot sex, with a man meant nothing? Certainly not love, commitment or marriage. Three years ago Oscar, she reminded herself, hadn’t wanted a wife, or even a partner, he’d only wanted a booty call to scratch an itch. Emma had to hand it to him, he’d been clever. Three years ago she’d have done anything he’d asked. Anything. Even been an acceptable society wife, a woman who could juggle all the balls in the air expected of women today; wife, sex siren in the bedroom, earth mother, homemaker, career woman.
    It had taken her years... including marriage to a monster... to finally accept that taking every promise or compliment from a man literally had been more than stupid.
    Both Oscar and Richard had given her a clear-cut view of today's man. They could not be trusted. Once a woman handed them her heart, handed them the power to hurt, that woman was completely lost.
    Emma finished typing, her fingers stiff, her head pounding as she closed her eyes with fatigue.
    Oscar Zamani wasn’t looking for anything more than good sex.
    What had happened between them this morning had been utter foolishness on her part and an error of judgement on his that wouldn’t happen again. And even if Oscar was looking for a lover, she wasn’t.
    Emma Ludlow answered to no one, certainly no man. She answered only to herself and that was the way she wanted it. With a renewed sense of purpose, she clicked on her story file and got back to work.
    When she was deep in a story, it was easy for Emma to let worries and cares slip away, even thoughts of Oscar and hot sex.
    And when it came to plotting crime, Emma covered all the angles. With the psychopath in this story, she wanted something the killer could use that would be speedy, something that would be hard, if not impossible, to trace. Poison. A nice quick-acting poison.
    Hmm.
    Today she was introducing the killer to Cole, heaven help him. Georgia Bailey was a jaw-droppingly beautiful, sophisticated, sensuous, sexy bitch. A bitch who would tie her detective hero in knots. A bitch who, ultimately, needed to go out with a bang, rather than a whimper.
    But before all that, today's challenge for Emma was to find just the right poison.
    Something exotic.
    Something rare.
    Maybe something plant based.
    Emma was mulling over a couple of ideas when, without warning, her focus slipped.
     
    Her mind spun her on a sly little side-trip right back to her disastrous marriage. She hadn’t been in love with Richard. Maybe fiercely attracted, but attraction was not enough, so she'd had no business marrying him in the first place. It was all very