Going Back Read Online Free PDF

those occasions had
occurred when, at the age of five, he’d made fun of the way a
neighbor with cerebral palsy spoke. The other had occurred with
Daphne, and he certainly didn’t want to spoil the day for both of
them by reminding her of it.
    Evidently, his comment didn’t
disturb her—unless the flicker of a shadow across her eyes was a
reflection of her emotions rather than the overhead light on the
lenses of her glasses. Her lips curved into another tentative
half-smile, and she said, “No, Brad. It wasn’t my abiding goal in
life.”
    Damn. Was he imagining that her
tone was accusing, or was it really? Was she actually trying to
tell him that he’d had a hell of a nerve sleeping with her when he
hadn’t even known her well enough to be aware of her career
plans?
    Or was it just his conscience speaking, that
rattling old vestige of guilt that he ought to have overcome by
now?
    “I kind of stumbled into real
estate,” she explained. Brad was grateful to her for reviving the
conversation when he’d all but let it die. “I held a couple of
merchandising jobs after college, and I took classes in different
things. Somewhere along the way, I decided on a whim to take a
course in real estate, never guessing I’d have an aptitude for
it.”
    “Well, you obviously do have an
aptitude for it,” he concluded, gazing around her office one more
time. Merchandising, he thought, trying to remember what Daphne had
majored in. How could he remember something he’d never known in the
first place? Daphne Stoltz had been as much a stranger to him then
as she was now.
    He supposed he could always ask
Andrea about what Daphne had studied in college. But if he did
that, Andrea would ask him why he wanted to know—and he didn’t have
an easy answer to that question.
    “I understand you’ve been
transferred to a New York-based job,” Daphne remarked.
    “That’s right.”
    “What’s your field?” she
asked.
    Brad might have been consoled by
the fact that Daphne knew as little about him as he knew about her.
But he wasn’t. “Head-hunting,” he answered.
    “You mean job placement counseling,
that sort of thing?”
    He forced a grin. “I don’t mean the
other kind of head-hunting—you know, the jungle kind, with all that
blood and gore.”
    She digested this item with another
impassive smile, refusing to laugh outright at his joke. “Well,
Brad,” she said, pulling a lined legal pad toward her and plucking
a pen from the top drawer of her desk, “why don’t you tell me a
little about what you’re looking for in a home?”
    Daphne was no fool. She wanted to
get down to business so neither she nor Brad would have to strain
themselves any longer, pretending that they were enjoying this
banter. He thanked her for her briskness with a tacit nod and said,
“Most important, I’d like someplace no more than an hour outside
Manhattan. The quicker the commute, the better.”
    She lifted her eyes to him. He
wondered whether they were really as wide-set as they seemed, or
whether it was an illusion caused by her eyeglasses. He also
wondered why she hadn’t worn her hair at its present length when
she’d been in college. The soft, face-framing shape of it was much
more becoming than the wild waist-length mop of fleece her hair had
been then.
    “Are you aware of what housing
costs are like in any community that offers a quick commute to New
York?” she asked.
    “I know the prices are way up
there,” Brad said.
    “They’re higher
than that,” Daphne corrected him. “They’re way, way up there.”
    “I know, Daff,” Brad assured her.
“My parents live in New York. I know what property values are like
in this part of the country.”
    “We’re talking mid to upper six
figures, minimum,” she said. “For a small but nice condo, or a
slightly larger fixer-upper.”
    “Yes, I know,” he insisted—he hoped
for the final time. Daphne didn’t have to lecture him. He wasn’t a
moron.
    “Well,” she said, “I