Heather Graham Read Online Free PDF

both incredulity and outrage and was—possibly for the first time in his life—momentarily speechless.
    The intruder was a woman.
    She might just have stepped off the veranda of a Paris café. His first surreptitious assessment was of a very cool, very sophisticated woman. Her elegant skirt suit was both tailored and ultrafeminine, in a crisp and clean cream color that seemed incongruous when compared to the heat. And the low-brimmed suede hat she wore at an intriguing and fashionable angle over one eye made her look as if she had walked out of a fashion magazine. She was about five foot six, and as fashionably sleek as her outfit. Her eyes, he noted, were an extraordinary shade, neither green nor hazel but a unique blending of amber and lime that was shockingly arresting and bizarrely intriguing. Besides the paralyzing effects of simply seeing a woman—any woman—suddenly appear in his bathroom, he was annoyed to realize that he was further immobilized by the enticing mystique of those eyes. He gave himself a mental shake and continued his secret scrutiny, registering that her hair, pulled into a chignon and neatly secured—not one strand out of place—beneath that chic hat, could no more be called blond than her eyes could be called hazel.
    It was pale gold. Not platinum, because it had deep, rich color. Spun gold, filigree. …
    He broke his thoughts off furiously. What was she doing invading a man’s privacy as if she were the Queen of Sheba herself?
    And she was just the type of woman he disliked: no broken nails because she never lifted a finger.
    She stood in the threshold of the doorway, looking upon the clothing-littered bathroom with great distaste but also with annoying resignation, like royalty stooping to visit the poor.
    The outrage of this unknown woman snooping around his bathroom and looking down her nose while she did so suddenly made his temper snap. His eyes flew wide open, and his voice was a thundering whip crack.
    “What in damned hell are you doing here!”
    She jumped, and a flush seeped into her cheeks. He noticed that for a moment she looked very uncomfortable—and that she was very carefully keeping her eyes upon his face. But she recovered her composure very quickly. He could literally see the stiffening of her spine as she stepped into the bathroom and gingerly took a seat on the commode, crossing one elegant, nylon-clad leg over the other.
    Dan did a double take. The strange woman had the uncanny ability to sit on a toilet seat as if it were the throne of England. But she sat with determination, apparently ignoring the fact that a man’s bathroom was not the place to have a discussion.
    “I’m sorry, Mr. D’Alesio,” she began smoothly but quickly. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for the last two weeks and—”
    “Who the hell are you?” he lashed out again.
    “Dr. Randall, Mr. D’Alesio; Dr. Alex Randall. I kept writing after you responded because you obviously didn’t understand that it was imperative that I see you—”
    “You’re Dr. Alex Randall?”
    She completely ignored the obvious insinuation behind his question and continued to speak, still keeping her eyes carefully level with his. “Yes, I’m Alex Randall, and I wrote, I wired and I called, and I’m sorry to burst in on you like this, but it seemed to be the only way to get to see—”
    “Had it occurred to you, Dr. Randall, that I might be busy, as my letter suggested?” Sitting like a little queen upon her porcelain throne, she was really irritating him. He felt like a fool, trapped naked in a bathtub. And after his long day, she was the wrong side of too much. So cool, so sophisticated, with that delicate femininity, aggressively—but with the best of drawing-room manners—accosting him.
    She was so perfectly put together, from dress to hair to face. Her skin was as flawless as marble, her lipstick a perfect coral gloss upon a perfectly shaped mouth, and it even appeared as if she was wearing