Intimate Betrayal by Donna Hill Read Free Book Online Page B

Washington, D.C., he was instantly captivated. She was the fascinating combination of beauty and brains. What enchanted him the most was that she was the first woman who didn’t trip all over herself trying to get his attention.
    Finally, unable to stand her pointed rebuff a moment longer, he’d maneuvered his way around the throngs of people in the dining hall and introduced himself.
    â€œCan I refresh your drink, Ms….?” Maxwell asked, easing up next to her.
    Victoria turned cool, green eyes on him. “Don’t tell me you came from clear across the room just to get me a drink?” she taunted, her smile a sweet invitation. “I truly thought chivalry was dead,” she added, her soft Southern drawl like music to his ears.
    He leaned against the bar. His eyes rolled up and down her slender frame. “Let me guess. You’ve been watching me just as hard as I’ve been watching you.”
    Her finely arched brows rose in feigned surprise. “What would make you think that?” She tried to sound indignant, but failed.
    â€œHow else would you know that I was way on the other side of the room?”
    Victoria tossed back her head and laughed outright, her strawberry blond tresses skimming her bare shoulders. “Just for that, I’m going to tell you my name, you’re going to tellme yours, and we’re going to get to know each other. There’s nothing I like better than a man who speaks his mind.”
    Maxwell joined in her laughter, enchanted by its musical quality. And they did get to know each other. They had tons of things in common both being computer engineers, she for the government and he in private practice.
    For the next eighteen months, Maxwell made his home between D.C., where Victoria lived, and New York. During those months, Maxwell quickly learned that Victoria was the type of woman who lived on the edge, challenging everything and everyone. Her looks gave her entrée into the black world as easily as the white, and she played whatever role suited her at the moment.
    â€œI was fortunate to be born with a choice,” Victoria said to him one night after making love.
    â€œWe all have choices,” Maxwell said, folding his hands beneath his head and staring up at the stuccoed ceiling.
    She smiled, the kind of sly smile that compels you to want to know more.
    â€œWhen I’m with you, I can let down my hair and go back to my roots. When I’m outside of ‘our little circle’ of friends and associates, I cross the line to my other world.”
    For several moments, Maxwell simply stared at her, too flabbergasted to speak.
    â€œDon’t look so shocked, darling. How many times in your life have you wished—prayed—that you could cross over into the Japanese world and be accepted, and at your whim return to the black world and not miss a beat? The only difference between you and me, is that I can.”
    The truth of her statement slammed him in the gut. For all of his thirty years, he had been on the fence of life, so to speak, trying to discover where he fit. Listening to her now, brought to bear his reality.
    On all of the forms and applications he’d ever had to fillout, he always checked “other.” Other what? he’d always wanted to know. Yet he’d learned to live with it, at least on the surface.
    What he couldn’t accept was Victoria’s cavalier attitude about her ethnicity. With effort, he managed to put her indiscretion aside. He convinced himself that he was falling in love with her, that what she did when she wasn’t with him didn’t affect him. That was the beginning.
    It was several months after that revelation that they’d had a terrible argument. Maxwell was miserable without her. He’d decided to drive down to D.C. for the weekend and surprise her. That was the end.
    He knew she always worked late on Friday, so he’d planned to beat her to the apartment and