Lie to Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

they were, they’d always been there for him, whether they agreed with his choices or not.
    “Tell me about this baby.” The way she ran her hands over the tan leather seat to either side of her bare thighs had heat pooling in his groin. He nearly groaned as he wondered how he’d make it through the evening without developing an embarrassingly obvious erection. “She looks straight off the showroom floor. Was she like this when you found her?”
    “Not hardly.” Pulling his thoughts away from Chloe’s hands on his body, he remembered the day sales for Vortal Version Three went so viral they crashed the server. He’d decided he deserved a car worthy of his success. A man who made his fortune creating worlds couldn’t buy something off a showroom floor, though. He needed something custom. Something that represented the company he’d built from scratch: a car that had once been dismissed as hopeless but was now powerful, fast, and envied. “I rescued her one step away from the scrap yard.”
    “You restored her yourself?” Admiration lit up her face.
    “No.” He chuckled at the thought, not just of him having time to tackle such a job, but of a klutz like him picking up a blow torch. He’d probably burn the garage down. “I took her to a restorer who specializes in vintage sports cars.”
    “Looks like you added a few aftermarket touches,” she said, eyeing the MP3 docking station and navigation screen in the dashboard.
    “A few,” he admitted, smiling at the understatement.  
    To his relief, Chloe kept the conversation flowing effortlessly, mostly about cars, as he drove across the wooden bridge back to Galveston Island. Harborside Drive took them quickly into the historic district, where the low sun gilded the façades of the Victorian architecture. Pedestrians strolled in and out of art galleries and antiques shops.  
    He ducked his head to get a better look. “Good to see the old part of Galveston survived Hurricane Ike.”
    “No kidding. You should have seen the place right after the storm, though. It was like being in the French Quarter after Katrina.”  
    “Hmm.” He considered her comment as a possible opening for him to confess. “You were in New Orleans during Katrina?”
    “No, but I grew up there. My uncle still has a townhouse in the French Quarter, so I went to help him and Aunt Alli with the cleanup.”  
    “Really? What a coincidence.”  
    “Why’s that?”
    “I live in New Orleans.”
    “You’re from New Orleans?” Her voice lost some of its friendliness. “What part?”
    Glancing over, he found her eyes narrowed with something that could have been suspicion. Had she recognized him? No, he didn’t think so.
    Why would she turn wary at the mere mention that he lived in New Orleans? She was the one who’d brought it up.
    Whatever caused that look in her eyes, he needed to be careful. Maybe wait until they were at the restaurant and had ordered dinner before he spelled everything out. That way she’d have to listen to him plead his case.
    He thought fast for a way to answer her question that wouldn’t be a lie. If he admitted he’d grown up in the French Quarter, it wouldn’t take long before she uncovered the whole truth. An answer sprang to mind. “My family lives in the Bayou Lafourche.”
    “Lafourche?” The wariness vanished. “Are you Cajun?”
    “Ah, mais oui,” he said, drawing on the limited amount of French he knew. “Well, part Cajun on my mother’s side, anyway. My father’s from Texas. Any Cajun in your family?”
    “Sadly, no. Just a big dose of straight French.”
    “Classy.”
    “That’s what they say.” She rolled down the window to let in the early evening breeze along with the sound of people, traffic, and horse hooves on pavement as a carriage full of tourists jangled by.  
    He watched as she tipped her head back and closed her eyes to soak in the sounds and scents of Galveston. His gaze dropped to the tempting curve of her neck, and