A Grand Seduction Read Online Free PDF Page A

Valentine’s.”
    There was a clicking sound on the other end, like Dom was tapping a fingernail against her teeth. “Oh. Well, the woman’s still a menace to high society. So you were saying about your magnificent floors?”
    She switched the handset to the other ear, sweeping a grand gesture in the air. “When I was checking the cleaning closet, I found a much better way.”
    “ Marian was hiding inside?”
    “ Lord, don’t I wish. Anyway, I’ve no idea why she kept doing floors the old way when this was sitting right in the cupboard. I mean, do you realize we own a hundred and forty-seven different cleaning implements? I counted. Nineteen are related to wax. Oil soap, floor wax, paste wax, wax stripper, lambs wool buffers, a wax-o-matic applicator, baseboard strip solution, you name it, I’ve got it. Why the hell would anyone need nineteen waxes, Dominique?”
    The other woman snorted. “No clue. Sounds like the start of a bad horror movie to me.”
    “ And how does anyone even figure out which ones to use? Hell, Twyla didn’t know what some of them were for! That’s when I spotted it. Spray on, wipe off.”
    “ Sounds like a winner to me. What was it?”
    She beamed in triumph. “Pledge furniture wax.”
    There was a pause. “You used furniture polish on a marble floor?”
    “ Brilliant, isn’t it? Did the master bathroom in six minutes this morning. Six , and it shines like the window display at Tiffany’s.”
    She heard the other woman suck in a breath. “You know I’m not exactly the go-to person for all things floor wax, honey, but wouldn’t that make the floor rather slick?”
    “ That’s the point, isn’t it? Slick and shiny.”
    “ Shiny, yes. Slick as in break your neck? No.”
    Fran’s free hand shot to her mouth. She stared without seeing at the refrigerator screen while the cooking show hostess put final touches on a lemon meringue pie. How could she be so uniquely stupid?
    “ Oh God. Bruce is in there.”
    The phone still clutched to her ear, she took off across the kitchen. Out in the Great Room, the rapid clickety-clack of her heels was dulled sporadically by a threesome of antique Persians scattered hither and yon. Once in the two-story grand foyer, she all but flung herself up the graceful arc of a veined marble staircase leading to the upper gallery.
    Breathing too hard to hear the alarmed conversation spouting from the handset, Fran dashed through the open double doors to the master suite. Despite his absence from the immediate room, Bruce wasn’t hard to find. Fran followed the string of expletives—her name had been added to the profanity pantheon—past the sitting area and four-poster bed to the bathroom.
    “ Frannie? Dammit, Fran!”
    Here she dropped the phone, sending Dominique to the floor with a clatter. Through a dissipating haze of steam whooshing through the still-open shower door she spotted her husband, genitalia on spread-eagled display to any braving the doorway, on the black and white tile floor. Half sitting with one knee crooked in a deep bend and the other leg splayed out, Bruce clutched one arm against his the fine down of hair covering his chest and the slight middle-aged spread on his abdomen that crept up despite weekly tennis and a strictly observed regimen of sexual gymnastics. His hair stuck to his head in soaking black rivulets, water dripping from several points into his eyes.
    “ Where the hell have you been? I’ve been yelling for five minutes.”
    She hiccuped a gasp. “Bruce! What happened?”
    “ What the hell does it bloody look like? I fell and broke my damn arm.” He nodded to the handset lying near the open doorway. “Please tell me you were delayed because that’s 9-1-1 on the line?”
    “ Oh! No, it’s Dom.”
    “ Too busy chatting with your damn friends to come when your spouse yells his head off that he’s dying?”
    She bent over and retrieved the phone, ignoring another stream of curses. “You know I couldn’t have