Can't Say No Read Online Free PDF

himself wanting to offer some explanation that would remove that disdainful look from her eyes. She’d obviously accepted his playboy reputation as fact and found it distasteful. He wondered if she’d believe the truth coming from him, especially when he was holding her hostage. He decided to try.
    â€œActually, my exploits have been greatly exaggerated. These days I’d be a fool if I behaved as irresponsibly as the press would like everyone to believe I do. Even so, doting wives are hard to come by in my particular circle of so-called friends, especially if it means living on a ranch that doesn’t even offer a Jacuzzi. Most of the women I know can’t live that far from Saks and Neiman-Marcus, much less Elizabeth Arden and their personal fitness trainer. Not one of them has any desire to see a grape until it’s been duly processed into an expensive vintage of wine.”
    Suddenly he peered at her intently. “Let me see your nails.”
    A dark brow lifted quizzically. “My nails? Aside from a tendency toward kidnapping, you also have some weird thing about fingernails?”
    He grinned. Thank God, she was finally making jokes. He tapped her on the nose. “Just humor me. Hold out your hands.”
    Like a child whose hand-washing technique was being evaluated by a critical parent, she glowered at him, but she held out her hands for his inspection. They were dainty, the sort of hands that could caress a man with a gentle, magical touch. Her short nails, just long enough for setting up shock waves along a man’s spine, were buffed to a clear shine.
    â€œI knew it,” he said approvingly, sharply aware of the little frisson of excitement that was racing along his own spine. “You don’t spend half your life at a manicurist. Do you realize how many women go into a deep depression if they break a nail? Do you realize how often some of them change their polish to match their outfits? I’ve been left cooling my heels while some woman had her nails wrapped, whatever that is,” he muttered in bewilderment. Sometimes he wondered how he’d survived the inanity of it.
    â€œSounds like a tough life,” Audrey said with a touch of mockery. If he’d been expecting sympathy, he’d definitely taken the wrong tack. She gestured at the balloon. “What about this? Where does this fit in? Are all the stories about your obsession with this exaggerated, too? Is this just another public relations ploy?”
    Audrey watched closely as Blake’s blue eyes instantly sparkled with unsophisticated, boyish excitement. She saw the tension leave his shoulders and the gentle softening of his lips. “Now this is something else again,” he said in that husky tone that played over her nerves like a lover’s caress. “Every word you’ve ever read about my love affair with this is probably true.”
    â€œI don’t get it. Is it the danger, the thrill, what?”
    â€œIt’s an escape. It gives me a sense of total freedom, a release from all the pressures of work, even though it has its own challenges. I think all of us harbor a desire to be able to experience flight like a bird. This is the closest man can come.”
    â€œIt’s a little too close, if you ask me.”
    â€œCome on now,” he chided. “Just take a look around.”
    â€œI’d rather not,” she muttered, pointedly keeping her gaze directed at his knees, where the denim of his jeans was unexpectedly and charmingly worn and faded. Good heavens, what was wrong with her? She didn’t want to be charmed by anything about this man—not his infectious smile, his brief flashes of sensitivity and certainly not by a worn spot in his pants. “I think I’ll just stay right down here. I get dizzy standing on the first step of a ladder.”
    â€œCome on,” he taunted persuasively. “You’re no coward.”
    â€œWho