Broken Ties Read Online Free PDF

born here in America.”
    “So there was a woman involved?”
    Had he even heard what she said?
    “Yes, she was waiting in the car for us.”
    “What did she say?”
    “She called me ‘Princess’ and told me I would never see my mother and father again.” She bit her lip to fight back the tears that threatened. “I guess she was right.”
    With a comforting murmur, he pulled her against him. His breath ruffled her hair, and she slipped her arms around his waist. She nestled against him, drinking in the warm masculine scent of him and finding comfort in the way his arms wrapped protectively around her.
    “Ah, Sidra,” he whispered against her hair, and she answered by lifting her face to his, breathing his name against his mouth as she stood on tiptoe to touch her lips to his.
    “Levi.”
    His eyes blazed and his mouth claimed hers hungrily. Desire unfurled deep within her, and she returned his kisses with equal ferocity. Her hands slipped inside his shirt, running over the smooth skin of his back as his cupped her head, holding her still for his deepening kisses.
    “My God, I want you,” he groaned, his thumbs stroking her face. “But we can’t do this now.”
    Embarrassment warmed her face and she stepped back, trying to regain her composure. She had worked for this man for four years, kept her attraction to him hidden, and maintained her professionalism and thus her pride. Had she always been a mere breath away from losing control and throwing herself at him like a fool? And how many times did she need him to refuse what she was offering, before she quit?
    “You must be starving,” she announced, proud of the steadiness of her voice. “I’ll fix us something to eat.”
    “Sid,” he said, reaching for her arm.
    She sidestepped him and went to the kitchen, relieved when he didn’t follow.
    She heard him move to the sofa, followed by the soft murmur of the television. With a shaky sigh, she sank into a chair and leaned her head on the table. The events of the night played through her head for the hundredth time, from the moment she’d left the office until now.
    The man, the woman, the castle; it was all familiar, yet unknown. She had no idea what it meant. Was there any possible way she could be a princess? Or was she just a little girl playing dress-up like Levi suspected? Did she know the language they spoke firsthand, or was it only through her parents speaking it in the years before they abandoned her? Had she been abandoned, or had she been kidnapped? No one kidnapped a child only to leave them alone at a roadside service station. Did they?
    Finally, when she accepted that she was missing too many pieces of the puzzle to solve it tonight, she stood up and moved to the stove. She started two grilled cheese sandwiches, then took out a plastic container of leftover vegetable soup and popped it into the microwave over the stove. She only cooked a few nights a week, ate leftovers a day or two, and sometimes froze a serving or two for later. The soup had been made yesterday and would probably be even better tonight than it had been then.
    Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold. The old nursery rhyme, recited in a thickly accented female voice, danced through her head. She tried to grasp hold of a solid memory to go with it, anything at all that would tell her who had spoken it. She came up with nothing at all.
    Forcing herself away from the problem, she ladled soup into two ceramic bowls, which she placed on matching plates along with a handful of saltines and a sandwich each.
    Levi entered the room as she set the plates on the table, and they ate in near silence. She couldn’t understand why the attraction they’d felt for the last four years had suddenly become such a palpable presence between them, threatening to swallow them whole with the least provocation.
    “The guest room bed is made up for you.” She carried her dishes to the sink, praying he’d just go to bed without a fuss. She was too