Angel at Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page A

now,” she said. “Christian needs more time to consider our proposal.”
    Grace gawped at her. They’d barely started in on convincing him. It wasn’t like her mentor to cut short a pitch. That was too close to taking no for an answer.
    “Now,” Miss Wei said, laying her hand rather firmly on Grace’s shoulder.
    Grace got up as Christian slouched back on his bench and snorted derisively. “Better hurry. Before your house of cards collapses.”
    Miss Wei had been guiding Grace away, but Christian’s comment stiffened and turned her back. “There is no house of cards. You’re the one who invaded Grace’s privacy. I’m simply protecting her.”
    Christian’s sneer of response held more layers than Grace could see any basis for.
    “Good night,” she said, because it seemed like one of them ought to be polite. “I hope you consider taking the role. I think you’d be swell in it.”
    Christian’s eyes darkened dangerously. As she followed her employer out of the bar, Grace had the sensation that his gaze was boring into her neck.
    Miss Wei didn’t say a word, not in apology or explanation, until they pulled into the spanking-new Best Western where they’d booked rooms. Per Miss Wei’s request, their accommodations were at opposite ends of the roadside motel. Though it wasn’t Grace’s place to judge, she imagined the separation was due to her employer’s fondness for picking up strange men. Shared walls might have made that fondness a little too obvious.
    Not leaving the car just yet, Miss Wei turned to her on the front seat. Grace expected her to explain her recent behavior, but that wasn’t what happened.
    “Do you trust me, Grace?” Miss Wei asked.
    “Of course I do!” she exclaimed.
    “I’d like you to look into my eyes,” she said. “I’d like you to think about the reasons you know you can rely on me.”
    Grace blinked in surprise. The light from the motel sign cast a glow across Miss Wei’s face. Her features were so perfect, so smooth and unblemished, that they seemed unreal. Dizziness whirled through Grace as golden sparks appeared to spiral upward from the depths of Miss Wei’s black eyes. With a wistfulness Grace couldn’t fathom, her employer brushed Grace’s left cheek with cool knuckles.
    “I hope I’m not going to regret this.”
    “Regret what?” Grace asked, the question slurred.
    Miss Wei put her hands on either side of Grace’s temples. “If Christian wants you, he should have to figure you out just like any man. So . . . your thoughts are your own, my friend, and your will. No one can violate them, not even me. As I speak these words, so may they come to be.”
    Grace shook herself. She had the impression she’d missed something. “Are you okay, boss?”
    “Fine,” she said. “Why don’t you pop the trunk, and we’ll get our bags? We’ll tackle our future movie star tomorrow.”

Two

    U nable to lie abed while their business remained unsettled, Grace got up bright and early—well, ten-ish, anyway—and drove back to Christian’s ranch. The endless sky was clear as crystal, the temperature milder than she expected for Texas. Willing to use her sex appeal within reason, she wore a dress today: a pretty Dior knockoff with a full skirt and petticoats. The fitted bodice showed off her bust, and the flowered fabric’s green background made her hair redder—something men seemed to appreciate.
    Confident she looked her best, Grace knocked briskly on the adobe house’s wide Spanish door.
    Her calm was ruined by it taking three tries for anyone to answer. When someone did, it was a trim older man with a sun-lined face.
    “Can I help you, miss?” he asked, his drawl twice as thick as Christian’s.
    Grace held her spine as straight as she could, the precious document she carried clutched close against her waist. “I’m here to see Mr. Durand. We have business to discuss.”
    The older man chuckled. “Haven’t been doing business with him long, have you,