What Love Sounds Like by Alissa Callen Read Free Book Online Page B

Tilly’s mouth, with every calm syllable he uttered, he revealed a side that was as different to her father as frost was to sunshine. The compassion he’d displayed earlier at finding out she was Langford’s daughter, and now his considerate persistence with Tilly, all confirmed a single truth.
    She had to amend her poor opinion after all. Her first impression
was
wrong. Kade wasn’t a carbon-copy of her father.
    He had a heart.

Chapter Five
    HE MUST be going insane.
    Kade read the monogrammed document on his desk for the fourth time. While the crisp, black text translated into words, they went missing-in-action before they reached his short-term memory. The room was quiet, temperature conducive to work and surroundings comfortable but still he couldn’t focus. Desperate, he’d even accepted some dubious-smelling candle from Mrs. Shepherd guaranteed to improve concentration.
    Yeah. Right.
    He tilted his chair and jammed his hands behind his head. He glared at the pressed-metal ceiling as if the answer to his poor attention would be imprinted there. So what if two days ago he’d sat in the shade of the summer-house and allowed the determination of a four-year-old, and the smile of a woman, to anchor him in his seat? Just because, for an unprecedented few minutes, he hadn’t thought about Matchtec didn’t mean that his brain could now decide it deserved a holiday.
    He swung his weight forward and righted the chair. The faint notes of Tilly’s and Mia’s merriment drifted up from the garden. Their incessant laughter had plagued him for days. It was as though both of them belonged to some secret club for which fun and pleasure were the only pre-requisites. He stood and crossed to the window, positioning himself far enough away so he wouldn’t be visible from below. The last thing he needed was for Mia to realise that upper management could indeed be distractible.
    His eyes adjusted to the mid-morning brightness. Mia and Tilly sat on a blue tartan rug beneath a shady old jacaranda his grandfather would have planted. Between them rested a yellow bucket and from their hands dangled strings tied to sticks. He had no idea what they were doing but one thing he was sure of, they weren’t working. He massaged his tight forehead. It was already day three and the only time Mia had used the music room had been during their ‘negotiated’ afternoon. Enough was enough. The more she disregarded his wishes, the more determined he was to tighten his grip on the reins of control. He would impart order to his temporary world.
    But instead of heading downstairs and into the garden that had been his grandmother’s life work, he remained stationary. Even from such a distance he could see the fullness of Mia’s bottom lip and the way she tipped her head toward Tilly while she listened. Surrounded by the vivid green lawn, Mia’s hair fell in copper waves around her shoulders left bare by her floral dress. If he were an artist he’d be reaching for a paintbrush. He swung away from the window.
    He wasn’t an artist. He didn’t own a paintbrush. Never had. And he didn’t have time to be susceptible to things of beauty. No matter how heart-stopping Mia’s smile.
    Frustration thrummed in Mia’s veins as she dipped her fishing rod into the plastic bucket. She’d seen the masculine shadow at the second-storey window gaze out at them and then step behind the heavy curtains. For the past two days a glimpse was all they’d seen of Kade. How could she chisel away at the wall separating him from Tilly if he didn’t ever make an appearance? It didn’t matter if Kade had proven that he wasn’t exactly like her father, her unofficial duty was far from complete. Kade still excluded Tilly from his life.
    As if pulled by an invisible thread, she turned her head to look again at the red-brick, white wrought-iron trimmed homestead. The only sign of life in Kade’s office was now the muted gleam of a crystal chandelier. After his help in the