Honor Bound Read Online Free PDF Page B

swindling and destroying people’s lives to sit down and read a book.
    I walked over to the shelves and felt a strange sense of yearning as I scanned the titles. I hadn’t read very many of them. I’d always assumed I would read more classics in college and graduate school, but I’d never gotten that far.
    On a silly whim, I pulled a leather-bound copy of Darwin’s Descent of Man partway off the shelf at my eye-level. If this really were an English mystery, a hidden door would pop open to reveal a tunnel or secret room.
    Nothing happened. Of course.
    I walked past the fireplace and pulled out another book—this one a copy of Villette , which I had to reach up for. Bronte was no more successful than Darwin at revealing secrets.
    Unable to try one more time before I moved on, I leaned over to grab a copy of Seven Dials Mystery . If anything levered the hidden door, then Agatha Christie would.
    She didn’t. I hadn’t really expected her too, but it was still a little disappointing.
    “Sadly, Agatha Christie doesn’t open a secret door.”
    The male voice was familiar but so startling that I gasped and straightened up with a jerk.
    Naturally, I hit my head on the edge of a shelf, since I popped up so quickly.
    “Ouch,” I said, rubbing my head and turning around, knowing exactly who I would see.
    And there he was, looking just as handsome and having just as warm a smile on his lips, in his eyes, as he had the other day.
    I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that this was twice that he’d caught me with my butt prominently displayed.
    “I wasn’t looking for a secret door,” I said, knowing even as I said it that he’d never believe me. What else could I have been doing pulling out three random books in a row for no reason?
    His smile broadened, and it was like sunshine breaking from the clouds, transforming his face in a way that took my breath away. “Of course, you weren’t. But, if you were, I’d check Dickens on the right side of the mantle.”
    I slanted him a questioning look, but his smile had lessened into a look of encouragement. He didn’t appear to be teasing me, so I walked over to look at the row of beautifully bound Dickens novels. “Which one?”
    “ Old Curiosity Shop .”
    I reached up and tilted out the book, feeling a silly sort of thrill that this library did house some sort of secret compartment, room, or tunnel.
    Old Curiosity Shop is a large volume, if you’ve never actually picked it up before. I pulled it out by the top, which was the way hidden doors were always opened in books and movies. Instead of catching some sort of mechanism, the book fell all the way off the shelf and fell with a loud bang to the floor.
    I stared down in surprise at the book on the polished wood floor.
    After a few seconds, I heard Sebastian chuckling softly behind me, and I realized what happened.
    The bastard was teasing me. He thought it was hilarious that I’d fallen for it. He was just having fun with me.
    I was such a little idiot.
    I whirled around and glared at him, which just made him laugh even more. He walked over so he was standing right next to me, his eyes soft like they’d been the other day.
    It was really hard to be mad at a guy who was looking at you like that, but I did my best.
    “It’s not funny,” I said, although it was maybe just a little funny. “I thought you were serious.”
    “I know you did.” He leaned over and picked up the Dickens novel from the floor and slid it back into the shelf. “It does look like a library that should have secret tunnels—or at least a hidden bar—but no such luck. Gentry doesn’t have that much imagination.”
    “Oh.” Something about the way he said it gave me a shiver of hope, since it didn’t sound like he even liked Ken Gentry.
    Maybe he wasn’t like his father and grandfather and uncle and all the other Maxwells, who used people for what they needed until they’d used them up.
    “What are you doing in here anyway?” he asked,