An Offer He Can't Refuse Read Online Free PDF Page B

the year;; since, no low-carb diet, no hair-straightening process, no figure-diminishing foundation garment, or moustache-removal technique had made over the misery of that year when her father's vanishing act coincided with the acute self-consciousness and peer-awareness of preteenhood.
    She sucked her navel toward her spine. "Hello, Lois. I didn't expect to see you here either."
    And then it hit her, the reason the other woman was at the house. She was Téa's competition for the design job.
No
. The moving van must mean Lois was already the winner.
    Warmth crawling up her neck, Téa began backwalking toward her car. Seventh grade had also taught her the importance of hiding her feelings—including humiliation. "I was just, uh… " Her thighs made contact with the heated metal of the Volvo's rear bumper.
    "You were just what?" Lois asked, coming closer. The skin of her forehead was an alabaster that didn't wrinkle when she frowned.
    "I must have misunderstood." Téa pretended a casual shrug, replaying the earlier phone conversation in her head. "I thought I had a meeting."
    "With
Johnny Magee?"
Lois's eyes widened in disbelief.
    Téa shrugged again, trying to slough off the blow. It had always been a long shot, she knew that. As a matter of fact, from the first she'd wondered if he'd contacted her by mistake. If she hadn't done her senior project on modern design, she wouldn't have dared preparing the bid. "But I see the job is yours."
    "The
design job!"
    Téa clutched her car keys tighter and trudged toward the driver's side. "Good to see you, Lois."
    "I'm not here for the design job," Lois said. She glanced over her shoulder as two beefy young men came toward the van carrying a portrait-sized mirror between them. "That's it, then. Twenty mirrors. We're done."
    She looked back at Téa. "I did the staging."
    The Ziowe-staging, Téa deduced. It was a growing trend—paying to have homes professionally de-cluttered or empty homes filled with furniture while they were on the market. "I didn't know you were into that now."
    "The money's good. We take out tacky and bring in good taste, not to mention mirrors and more mirrors. The trick is to make prospective buyers see themselves in every room."
    And apparently Johnny Magee had seen something that made him want to purchase this place. Téa's mood-meter took a return swing toward optimism. If the other woman wasn't here for the design job, then she hadn't missed out on winning it herself, at least not yet. She stepped back toward the rear of the Volvo. "I'm sure you're a big success, Lois."
    "As a matter of fact, I just prepared a house for selling that you designed in the Movie Colony," the other woman replied. "Now
there
was a challenge."
    Téa's fingers reached down to press against the wrinkles in her dress. "Oh?"
    "The Hartman house."
    "Oh." Her fingers stilled. What more could she say? The Hartmans, who had purchased a home in the part of Palm Springs first settled by movie stars in the 1930s, loved hearts. Demanded hearts. So there were hearts on the handpainted ceilings, hearts as part of the gold- and bronze-leaf-painted moldings, hearts in the pattern of the fabric on the tufted walls. There was even a kitschy heart motif in the side-by-side fur and luggage storage rooms.
    The thought of that project, the thought of more of those types of projects in her future, made her sag against the back bumper.
    "But now you think you're going to go from clients like the Hartmans to a man like Johnny Magee. That's quite a leap, isn't it?"
    Knowing Lois's reaction would be shared by the desert's entire design community didn't soften the sting or silence any of Téa's own doubts.
    So she turned to open the rear door of the Volvo, preparing to avoid further conversation by busying herself with the materials she'd brought along. After all, she consoled herself, Lois really didn't know any more than she did about "a man like Johnny Magee."
    …
or did she
?
    Téa spun back. "Were you