Seven-Year Seduction by Heidi Betts Read Free Book Online

kidding me.”
    Beth flicked mascara over her lashes while balancing the cordless phone between her ear and shoulder. The minute she’d left the kitchen and turned her back on Connor, she’d gone about trying to figure out exactly what she should do to get away from him permanently. She thought about going back downstairs and forcibly removing him from the house, but doubted she could budge his hulking, overbearing frame.
    Now, she was on the phone with the airline, trying to change her flight back to L.A. So far, she was having about as much luck as she’d had trying to get a decent, quiet breakfast this morning.
    Her stomach growled, sending her an uncomfortable reminder that she still hadn’t eaten and was hungry, darn it. Which only put her more on edge.
    The way she was feeling, she might just stand a decent chance of muscling Connor out of the house, after all.
    â€œAll right, if I can’t get a flight out today, I’ll take one for tomorrow,” she told the woman on the other end of the line.
    She heard the clickety-clack of fingers tapping a keyboard for a second, and then the woman said, “I’m not showing anything for tomorrow, either.”
    â€œWhat about another airline? I don’t care if it costs more. I’ll even buy another ticket, I just really need to fly out of here as soon as possible.”
    Click-click-clack. “No, ma’am, I’m sorry. And I feel it’s only fair to warn you that the storm front movingin has forced us to delay and cancel many of our flights. You may not even be able to get out of town with your current reservation.”
    Beth muttered a curse, resisting the urge to rub her eyes and smear the makeup she’d just spent the last quarter of an hour applying. She wanted to ask the woman to check the schedule again. She even thought about putting on her dragon-lady act and insisting the airline do whatever it took to get her home. But her current predicament wasn’t the woman’s fault, and neither was the weather.
    â€œAll right, thank you,” she forced herself to say in a polite, moderate tone before hanging up.
    No flights. Not today, tomorrow…maybe not for the rest of the week. This definitely put a crimp in her plans, but she hadn’t gotten where she was in this world by taking no for an answer.
    The bathroom door opened with a creak of hinges, and she crossed the hall to her childhood bedroom, where her suitcase lay open on top of the unmade bed. She slipped her stockinged feet into the basic black sling-backs she’d brought to go along with most of the outfits she’d packed and headed downstairs to find a phone book.
    She didn’t know where Connor was, and told herself she didn’t care. It was too much to hope that he might have abandoned the house of his own free will, but maybe if she could avoid him for another few minutes, things would work out okay.
    Keeping her ears open for signs that he was moving around the house, she crept into the room herbrother used as an office-slash-den and started rooting around. She found the phone book in a drawer beneath the phone. So sensible, it had to be Karen’s doing. Nick didn’t have an organized bone in his body and was as likely to leave the phone book in the dishwasher as the office.
    She dropped into the chair behind the desk and flipped to the lodgings section at the back of the directory. There were any number of two- and three-star motels listed, as well as a couple of decent hotels. She would have to drive an hour or more to find a really nice place to stay, but at this point she would be happy with just a bed and private bathroom.
    The telephone receiver was in her hand, her fingers tapping out the first of the hotel numbers, when she suddenly froze.
    What was she doing? Why was she the one calling the airline and trying to find another place to stay when this was her house?
    Well, her brother’s house now, but she’d