Going Back Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t want to
waste your time or mine. So let’s make sure we’re on the same
wave-length, okay?” She opened her pen with an ominous click. “How
much will you be earning in your new job?”
    None of your
damned business, he almost retorted.
Personal finances were a subject Brad had been raised to believe
sacred, not open to idle discussion. But he checked the reflexive
indignation that filled him and forced himself to relax in his
chair. “Enough,” he answered evasively.
    Daphne’s expression was unreadable.
“I have to ask,” she asserted. “I have to know whether you’re going
to be able to afford—”
    “I’ll be able to afford it,” he
said curtly.
    She continued to stare at him, her
large eyes glowing enigmatically, her lips twisted into that wry
smile of hers. Damn her, but she was going to win the stare-down,
he realized a fraction of a second before he spat out, “In the
vicinity of two hundred thousand, give or take.”
    She made no indication that she was
impressed by his high earnings—or that she was afraid his salary
wouldn’t be enough to pay for housing in the area. “How much do you
have available for a down payment?” she asked emotionlessly,
scribbling a note to herself on the pad.
    Again he had to check the impulse
to protest that he was under no obligation to describe his
liquidity situation to her. “Assuming the sale goes through, I’m
going to make a nice profit on my condo in Seattle,” he said
tensely. “Really, Daff, if you show me something I can’t afford,
I’ll let you know. You can trust me.”
    A shadow flickered in her eyes
again, and this time Brad was convinced that it had nothing to do
with the overhead light. What she was thinking, he guessed, was
that she couldn’t trust him, and that he had some nerve asserting
that she could.
    She could trust him now, though.
Except for a brief lapse eight years ago, he had always been
trustworthy around women. Besides, his presence in Daphne’s office
this morning had nothing to do with his behavior, good, bad or
otherwise, toward women. It had to do with the business of
purchasing a house. Daphne didn’t want to waste her time or his in
showing him houses he couldn’t afford. Fine. He didn’t want to
waste their time, either.
    His resentment of her nosy
questions dissipated, replaced by an undefined sense of
frustration. He wanted her trust. He needed it. It would be proof
that she forgave him, that he no longer had to feel guilty about
whatever sins he’d committed so many years ago. It was over, done
with, and if only Daphne would trust him now, he could put the past
to rest.
    She seemed to be scrutinizing him,
sizing him up, trying to determine whether he was worthy of her
trust. “Believe me,” he muttered, surprised by the vehemence in his
tone, “I can afford whatever you want to show me.”
    Daphne chuckled. “In that case...I
don’t suppose I want to show you the cute little cottage in Upper
Saddle Brook that I’ve got a listing on. The asking price on it is
three-point-five million.”
    Brad silently conceded that he
couldn’t afford that. But he wasn’t going to admit it to her. There
was something irritatingly patronizing about her attitude. Maybe
this was her way of knocking him down a peg.
    “Here,” she said, tapping a few
keys on her computer and then swiveling the flat-screen monitor so
it faced him. “This site has the most recent Multiple Listing
Service properties. I have a few places in mind I’d like to show
you, but I’ve got to make a phone call first. Why don’t you scroll
through the site and see if anything catches your eye.”
    She rotated in her chair and
reached for the telephone. Brad understood that he’d been
dismissed.
    He shifted forward in his chair and
studied the thumbnail photos of houses listed for sale, and the
accompanying descriptions enumerating each house’s features. He was
unable to translate a few of the abbreviations, but he couldn’t ask
Daphne to