Tropical Storm by Stefanie Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

projects to do all the bad things your parents thought I did to make a living. Instead, I’m here and I’m happy. I dragged myself out of the gutter and made a life for myself. Don’t come here and try to ruin it by reminding me of the past or anything we had together. It was a dream and I’ve been awake now for years. Close the door on your way out.”
    Cairo then stood up and walked out ofhis office without a backward glance.
    Storm sat where he’d left her, her fingers clenched into fists. She took a few deep breaths and then slowly and deliberately uncurled each finger one by one until her palms lay flat on the desk. That was twice! The insufferable man had walked out on her twice in one day. For her, that was a record. Men usually ran to her and not awayfrom her, but Cairo had always been the exception to every rule. That’s why she loved him. But at the moment he was seriously trying her patience. She thought finding him was the hard part, and in some delusional part of her brain, she thought that once he saw her again they could forget the past. She was wrong. One thing was now clear: winning back his love wouldn’t be an easy task. She had her work cut out for her. No soft words and reminders of the past for him. He was convinced of her treachery and nothing and no one was going to change his mind. But she was going to try. She was nothing if not persistent. Hopping down from the desk, she picked up the papers from the floor and placed them neatly on the desk. Brows knitted in concentration, she retreated back to her room to lick her wounds and mend her battered heart.
     
    In her room, the manila folder lay on the center of the table. Storm caressed the folds of the document and flicked the cover open. There in black and white was an eight-by-ten photograph of her then husband Cairo Kane. In the photo, he was a mere twenty years old. The man downstairs had left this smiling youth far behind. Included with the photo was a thirty-page write-up about the man she had crossed an ocean to find. From the moment she got the document in her hands, she only had time to read the first three pages before she had packed her and Shane’s bags and jumped on the first plane out. The folder had taken almost seven years and thousands of dollars in expenses to compile. She remembered the day she had summoned enough courage to walk into the private investigating office as if it were yesterday.
    In an attempt to get what they wanted, her parents had cut her off financially. She’d been forced to fend for herself. With her trust fund unavailable to her until she turned twenty-one, she’d gone to school on aid, raised a growing baby and struggled to make ends meet by waitressing. All her tips and left over income she’d used to find Cairo. By then he’d vanished from her life for more than a year and she remembered those months as the most desperate times of her life. In her hand was everything she wanted and needed to know about Cairo, but when she first received the file all she cared about was where he was and how fast she could get there. It was obvious that she should have done better planning. But even now when she was desperately in need of any insight into his character and the man that he’d become, she couldn’t bring herself to read any more of the document. She didn’t want to know how he had lived the past six years without her. She didn’t want to know about any women in his life, any heartbreak, any rise and falls or any successes or failures. He had come to Jamaica to get away from her. He managed a hotel and deep down whether he knew it or not, he was still in love with her. This was all she wanted to know. Storm gathered up the thick document and dropped it into the desk drawer.

Chapter Four
    “Mommy, I’m going to the kiddy program?” Shane was already in the process of lacing up his shoes.
    Storm placed her hands on her hips and waited. After a minute of silence her son finally looked up. When he saw