An Unexpected Song Read Online Free PDF Page B

thighs. She wanted to lean toward him, she wanted to shrug out of the blouse and pull his mouth down to—
    “No!” She opened the door and got out of the car. “The hell it is. Our agreement had nothing to do with sex.”
    “But what’s between us has everything to do with sex. If you’d come with me, we might eventually be able to see the woods for the trees.”
    She stood on the sidewalk, looking at him. “Please,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be in your play. I don’t want to see you again.”
    “Don’t worry. I’m not going to push it. I guess I knew it was too soon, but I’m running out of time.”
    “Running out of time?”
    “Never mind.” He switched on the ignition. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “No.”
    He frowned. “There’s nothing to be frightened about. I’m no rapist. I’ll wait until you come to me.”
    She wasn’t afraid he’d use force. She didn’t fear him so much as the magnetism drawing them together. “It’s not a good idea. I’ve got problems enough without—”
    “Then let me solve them.”
    “In return for a romp in the hay?”
    He flinched as if she had struck him. “I’m not a complete bastard. I told you I wanted to help you.”
    “To clear my way to play your Desdemona?”
    “No, it’s more than that.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “I know you don’t.” He shrugged wearily. “I’ll be here at noon tomorrow.”
    She gazed at him helplessly before turning on her heel and striding toward the cottage. A moment later the door of the cottage slammed behind her.
    Charlie stood at the easel across the room and didn’t look up. “I’m glad you’re home. This damn still life is frustrating the hell out of me. Are you too tired to pose?”
    Sweet heaven, she didn’t want to pose tonight. She was raw, burning, yearning.… She wanted nothing more than to shut herself in her room and go to bed and let the blessed oblivion of sleep obscure those moments in the car with Jason.
    Charlie didn’t look up. “Daisy?”
    She wasn’t a sex-crazy adolescent. She had to come to terms with this magnetism Jason held for her. She couldn’t hide from what she felt andhad no right to self-indulgence when she had such a great responsibility to Charlie. “I’m not tired.” She smiled gently at him. “Just let me go change and comb my hair and I’ll be right with you.”
    Daisy was waiting on the doorstep the next morning when Jason’s car pulled up to the curb. She instinctively tensed as she watched him get out of the car and come toward her. He was dressed in faded jeans, brown leather moccasins, and a jade-green cotton sweater and looked completely different from the elegant man who had left her last night. He might have been one of the unassuming young artists who lived in St. Genève. No, she was wrong. As he drew closer she could sense his controlled power that could never be lessened by the casualness of his clothes.
    He raised his black brows. “Are you guarding the gate?”
    “I thought about what you said last night after I went to bed. It’s not logical that it’s me you’re really attracted to. I’m not the type of woman men develop fixations on.” She rushed on. “And I decided it was Desdemona.”
    He looked at her blankly.
    “Don’t you see? You have me mixed up with Desdemona in your mind.”
    “Indeed?”
    She nodded. “You’re a sensitive, creative person, and naturally you’d identify with the characters in a play you’ve worked on for so long.”
    “Sensitive?” The word sounded sour on his tongue. “Lord, I hate that word. I grew up in a rough neighborhood in the Bronx and do youknow how many noses I bloodied when I was a kid to prove I wasn’t ‘sensitive’?”
    She didn’t know much about him at all, she realized. She had a sudden vision of Jason, totally absorbed with his music and yet struggling for a normal boyhood among his peers. She felt a rush of sympathy. “Oh, dear, it must have been terrible for