Satin Pleasures by Karen Docter Read Free Book Online

she grew dizzy with emotions she refused to identify.
    Breathing became difficult. Her heart pumped frantically to catch up. Dan said something she didn't quite hear. "What?"
    Without looking first, he held the card up in front of her. "What color do you see?"
    His display of confidence was aggravating. "It's green. So what?"
    He frowned at her unwillingness to grasp his point. "I spent the better part of a year learning to do that. Yeah, it’s not too scientific but it forced me to find ways to let go of my stress. I can pull this baby out of my pocket any time I want now, and it's always blue or green. This is what's important, not whether or not you get that next promotion, that new perk."
    Boy, did they have a difference of opinion!
    Dan held up his hand. "I'm not saying you shouldn't strive for the things you want, Tess. But, to get there with your sanity and health intact, you must protect yourself."
    Enough was enough. "Maybe you can rest on your laurels, Dan. I can't. Too many people rely on me. The one-hundred-fifty-plus merchants in this mall. Harry and his ailing wife. Thorgram's directors and stockholders."
    Her parents.
    The vivid, mental image of her mother's bowed shoulders and her father's pain-etched face pried her from the seat. "I really must go, Dan." She paused. "Thanks for dinner."
    "You're welcome."
    She was afraid she'd disappointed him and wasn't quite sure why it mattered so much.
    Dan's smile blurred the impression. He reached across the table to press the card back into her hand. "Keep this. You need it more than I do. Every chance you get, take it out, close your eyes and focus on pleasant thoughts and deep, slow breathing. When you get it down, consistently, to the cooler colors, you can give it back to me."
    Tess didn't question why she walked away with the silly thing burning a hole in her palm. It was enough to know his pleased smile had somehow unraveled those tiny knots between her shoulders, the knots she'd refused to acknowledge...until now.
    ***
    It was after eleven o'clock when Tess finally locked the door on her deserted office. Her desk cleared, she was ready for tomorrow's merchants meeting. She'd given up trying to decipher the twenty-page roofing analysis she'd requested from a local contractor. Her eyes burned from too many late nights, and she couldn't get excited about black goo and rock sizes.
    Maybe a monsoon would hit San Francisco Bay tonight. If the roof was blown to Reno, her directors would be forced to stop patching it and replace it instead, only one item on the growing list of upgrades she wanted for her tenants. She’d never understand why Thorgram Group's upper echelon was so resistant to renovating the aging shopping center to guarantee their competition in the changing market. If she had her way, they'd be happily knee-deep in architects, engineers, and construction crews.
    Her apartment door was closing behind her when her new phone—replaced by her ever-efficient secretary before she left for the day—rang. Plucking it from her jacket pocket, her heart skipped a beat when she recognized the voice.
    "Do you have a turn signal on your car?" Dan growled into her ear.
    "The right one sometimes winks out. There's a loose connection or something." Pulling hairpins from the other jacket pocket and throwing them, one by one, on the old sea chest she used as a coffee table, she flopped down on the couch. Then, she perked up. "Wait! How'd you know my signal doesn't work?"
    Silence crackled between them. "I followed you home."
    Tess bristled. The man had some nerve. "Where are you?"
    "I’m, uh, parked on the corner." He spoke quickly before she found her tongue. "I only wanted to make sure you got home okay."
    She didn’t like knowing his concern for her wellbeing warmed her insides. Too much. “How’d you get my number?”
    Another brief silence. “I ran into your secretary near the phone store and knew she’d replaced the one at the bottom of the bay. I took a