When Next We Love by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

miserably regretting the folly of her masquerade with Derek. The night air didn’t seem to be helping at all. She would be better off getting back into her room, calling downstairs and requesting a good stiff drink and a couple of aspirins.
    She turned to do just that, but the glass wouldn’t slide. She tried again, then considered the possibility of literally kicking herself. How could she have been so foolish? Only an idiot could lock herself out!
    And she was locked out. She looked at the glass angrily and realized it must lock automatically when closed. Damn!
    She pounded on the glass and yelled, but quickly ascertained the futility of such action. No one could hear her. She had only one choice, and that was to follow the stairs down to the patio and pool and re-enter the house on the ground floor. If she was lucky, she would avoid Derek and his date and only encounter Emma or James.
    She took a deep breath and rushed down the stairs. If she had to run into someone, she might as well get it over with. She would certainly get nowhere fast by standing on the balcony shivering, her arms clasped tightly around herself.
    The pool raced in silent ripples from the ever-increasing wind as she reached the empty patio, the palms bent low with each approaching salt-riddled gust. Leigh’s hair whipped about her face in furious dishevelment as she hurried to the house, only to stop with abrupt confusion as she heard Derek’s voice come clearly to her.
    He was entertaining his guest in the rear salon. If she entered here, she would have to walk past them both and surely offer an explanation. “Damnation!” she muttered aloud. If there was anything she didn’t want to do, it was to run into one of Derek’s girl friends! And what would his girl friend think of a half-clad woman running about his house?
    Cursing beneath her breath, Leigh decided to skirt around to the front of the house. Either James or Emma would answer the door—the front door was always kept locked—and meeting one of the household staff was definitely preferable.
    She had not rounded the first corner before she heard the sound of vicious barking. Derek had not lied. The dogs were out. And she knew for a fact that they were Dobermans, mean and nasty unless they knew you and knew you belonged.
    She did not belong. There was no time to lose. She ran like she had never run before in her life, back to the patio, straight into the salon. She slammed the door behind her, heart beating like a hunted rabbit’s, beads of perspiration breaking out on her forehead. She had made it with just a few feet to spare. Two of the magnificent black creatures had been on her heels. They were now jumping on the door and howling their wrath.
    The great gasps of her breathing began to subside, and she swept a stream of tangled auburn hair from her face and focused with dread on the room. Derek was standing; apparently he had been about to check on the cause of the frenzied animals. She expected he would be angry. Her presence in such attire could do little to enhance the romanticism of his date.
    But he wasn’t angry at all. If anything, his eyes were light and amused. She glanced apprehensively at his date. She wasn’t a bit like Leigh would have imagined either. She was a woman of at least thirty-five or forty, attractive, but extremely businesslike and staid. Her rounded features bothered Leigh; she was sure she had seen the woman before.
    “Really, Leigh!” Derek admonished in a lazy drawl. “If you wanted to join us, you could have simply dressed and come down the staircase.”
    Leigh shot him a look of pure hostility, but he seemed not to notice. Turning to the woman on the couch, he said, “Miss White, I believe you’ve met Leigh Tremayne before.” He glanced back to Leigh. “Leigh, you must remember Lavinia White. She interviewed Richard several years ago for her magazine.”
    If there had been a hole in the floor anywhere, Leigh would have found it and crawled into