Not So Snow White Read Online Free PDF

surfaced once more. He wished he was better at predicting that, but he knew it was a fairly hopeless expectation.
    "Exactly," she said airily. "So why try to pretend otherwise? No amount of time spent at some posh spa is going to magically transform me into the lovely, obedient young lady you so yearn for me to be."
    "That's not true."
    She leveled an amused smile at him. "Which? About it taking more than two weeks ? Or you yearning for me to find my inner good girl?"
    "Both, actually," he said, momentarily surprising her. He immediately capitalized on gaining the rare edge. "I don't want them to change you, I want them to help you." He held up a hand to stall her, surprised when she respected it. "And I don't want you turned into something you're not, no matter what you think." He leaned forward and took her hands, squeezing them together between his own. "You've been amazing these past couple of months. Most girls your age couldn't handle a tenth of what you have. I couldn't be more proud of you and how you've handled the tour so far."
    Instead of being touched by his sincere proclamation, she snorted and tugged her hands free. The tyrant had returned. "Don't bullshit me, Max. Just tell me the real reason you want to dump me in this stupid, godforsaken 'life spa' for two weeks. Vacation plans of your own? Haven't been laid in a while? Because I have no problem with that. Really. You work too hard, you have no life. In case you haven't noticed, I can take perfectly good care of myself. I don't need baby-sitting." She flicked her hand at him. "So go on and have your little fling. You have my blessing."
    Max clenched his jaw. "First of all, enough with the swearing already. And you know perfectly well that I'd never just take off and—"
    Gaby barked a laugh. "Exactly!" She slapped her hands on her thighs and shoved to a stand. "God, Max, you're so uptight you don't even know how repressed you are."
    "I'm not repressed!" he spluttered as he shot off the couch after her, wondering once again just where and when he'd lost control of this conversation.
    "When was the last time you got laid? Hell, when was the last time you even went on a date? And I mean with a woman who wasn't tour personnel, a marketing rep, or a sponsor? In other words, not a business dinner? Honestly, I have more fun than you, and I have no social life."
    Max stood there, hands on his hips, fully prepared to deliver a perfectly worded, stinging retort guaranteed to shut down this particular subject. Only nothing came to mind. Mostly because there was a hint of a chance that she actually had a point. But he'd let her pummel him physically if necessary before he'd give her that kind of power.
    "If you don't have plans for the next few weeks, maybe you should make some," she went on, goaded by his uncharacteristic silence. "Go pick someone up. Everyone thinks you're kind of a hottie. For an old guy, anyway. Though if they saw you in those ratty old sweats you insist on—"
    "They're my fraternity sweats, and I'd hardly wear them out on—wait a minute, I'm a what ? What did you just say?" Max raked his hands through his hair, completely lost now. "Who says that about me?"
    Gaby sighed in teenaged disgust. "You are so hopeless. Of course, that you're so totally oblivious to it is part of what gets them, you know? I mean, I know it's because you're too anal about every last detail of my every living and breathing moment. But to them it comes off like this cute, endearing sort of earnestness."
    "Them? Who the hell is 'them'?"
    "Don't swear," she said, smiling broadly, vastly amused at his complete consternation. "I could give you a list. But do me one favor, okay? You're thirty, so no hitting on anyone under, like, twenty-five. It would be so embarrassing." She lowered her gaze. "For both of us."
    "I'm not going to h it on anybody," he insisted, his mind still racing along this surprising, if unbelievable, new path.
    She crossed the sitting room that connected their