Sandra Hill by Love Me Tender Read Free Book Online Page B

it. But it was a simple enough question—one she could easily answer. “We’ll either settle this dispute now or in court. It’s up to you.” She gave herself a mental pat on the back for replying in a level tone, and not a squeak.
    He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant,” he whispered.
    “Wh-what?” She did squeak this time.
    “This is the worst time for this,” he said on a groan. His creased forehead bespoke genuine distress, but Cynthia was still wary.
    He stood a respectable distance from her,arms crossed over his chest. He didn’t try to touch her again. His words, though confusing, couldn’t be construed as objectionable. Still, his dark, smoldering eyes swept her like a forbidden caress.
    “I…I don’t understand,” she stammered.
    “What are we going to do about us? ” he rasped out.

Chapter Three
    P.T. Ferrama had three looks that made women melt. The vulnerable look. The smoldering look. The arrogant I-could-take-you-or-leave-you look.
    The key to all of the looks was subtlety. It was all in the attitude. In his not so humble opinion, he had subtlety and attitude down to an art form.
    He’d had lots of years to practice, of course, since the days he was a street-savvy shoeshine kid in Puerto Rico, hustling tourists outside their hotels. The services he’d offered had run the gamut from effusive compliments (“Lady, your face ees so pretty, you mus’ be a move-hee star.”) to errands (“Hey, meester, you want I should buy you some condoms?”) to tours (“Cheapest rum on the island, I can show you,damn right.”). P.T. had learned that a quick smile and a cheeky charisma, adapted to each situation, won over even the toughest target.
    Survival had been the name of the game then. Survival…of a different sort…was the name of the game now.
    Oh, it hadn’t been that he was alone. His father had skipped the nest before he was born, later dying of an alcohol-soaked kidney, but his mother, Eva Ferrama, had worked long hours as a baccarat dealer in the island casinos, leaving her feisty, independent son to fend for himself.
    All that had changed when P.T. was ten and his mother had married a mainland widower, Morton Friedman, who already had two children of his own, the eleven-and twelve-year-old girls, Ruth and Naomi, who would turn into the plagues of his life. The kindly Mort—the only father figure P.T. would ever know—had owned a Hoboken, New Jersey, cut-rate shoe factory, and he’d been eager to teach his new son the ropes. Then P.T.’s hustling had proved just as effective as he entered a new, more professional arena.
    Five years ago, he and the new company lawyer, Enrique Alvarez, had come up with a plan to jump-start the ailing shoe business by giving it an upscale face-lift, complete with the prince persona. P.T. had met Dick at Rutgers nine years before that, at freshman orientation. Before the end of the year, P.T. had been forced todrop out of college and take over the shoe factory, following Mort’s sudden death.
    Hiring Jake fresh out of M.I.T. had been one of the smartest moves they’d ever made, though shoe industry colleagues had scoffed at the time, “Who ever heard of an engineer designing shoes?”
    All his life, despite the change in circumstance, P.T. had felt like a picaro— a person with no home or money…always hungry…always having to earn a living by his wits. So, any means to stay above water were legitimate in his book, as long as no one got hurt.
    And some tactics had universal, timeless appeal, including the looks. It didn’t matter if he was an eight-year-old gremlin hawking shoe polish with a teary eye or an eighteen-year-old shoe rep trying to break into the Wal-Mart chain with a teary eye or a thirty-two-year-old prince fighting for his company with a teary eye.
    Right now, his mark was the corn princess, and he was laying on the vulnerability. The hooded, half-mast lids. The softened mouth. The needy tic in his jaw, which had taken days