Promises in the Night: A Classic Romance - Book 2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

salesmen at a corner table.
    “Patti takes a little getting used to,” Larkin said as she gathered up her pocketbook and smoothed her hair with the back of her hand. “Believe it or not, she’s the best assistant I’ve ever had.”
    “I believe it. She seems to think pretty highly of you, too.”
    Larkin shrugged. “A lot of that has to do with giving her brother a job. I was just glad I could help.” She slid gracefully out of the booth and stood up, straightening the skirt of her red dress.
    Alex threw some money down on the table. Larkin’s heels made her taller than average, but even so, she came only up to his shoulder. He wondered how she would feel in his arms.
    “I don’t think this will take too long. We could always finish our conversation after, if you’d like.”
    “Name the--” His high spirits fizzled. “Damn it. It’s Thursday. I have a taping tonight.”
    She didn’t even try to hide her disappointment, and he was touched by that. Somehow she seemed to have gotten through thirty years of living without acquiring that hard shell most people used to shield their emotions.
    “You could come to the studio,” he said.
    “The studio?”
    “We could go out to dinner after the taping.” Slow down, Jakobs. You sound like you’re sixteen years old.
    “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have other plans.”
    “I see.”
    “I don’t think you do. My brother keeps setting up these ridiculous blind dates for me. If I could get in touch with this man, I would—”
    “You don’t have to explain anything to me.” Alex’s voice sounded gruff even to his own ears. The softness of her touch was doing strange things to his emotions, making him feel things he’d thought himself well past. A vision of her in the arms of another man switched on inside his head, and despite his cool words, a hot coil of anger stirred inside him. “Maybe another time.”
    “Tomorrow?” His face must have registered his surprise, because Larkin quickly backtracked. “I’m only teasing,” she said “We could exchange phone numbers and work something out next week.”
    “I’m flying down to Virginia tomorrow to spend the weekend with some old friends, or that would have been terrific.”
    “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Alex,” she said, gently turning his own words back on him. “You’re allowed to have other plans.” Her smile, though, wasn’t quite as bright as it had been before. “I’II give you my number.”
    He handed her his notebook and pen and she scribbled something in the upper margin of the first page.
    “I have an answering machine,” she said as she handed the notebook back to him. “You’re not one of those fanatics who hates tape recorders?”
    “Don’t worry,” he said, pulling out one of his business cards and handing it to her, “I promise I’ll leave a message.”
    “I’ll be counting on that.” Larkin kissed his cheek. The lush, female scent of Bal a Versailles called up some vividly erotic images.
    Before Alex could say anything more, Larkin thanked him for the drink, then turned to leave the bar. As she walked by the salesmen at the corner table, they looked at her the way a weight watcher looks at a strawberry milk shake on a sizzling summer afternoon, and Alex’s gut twisted.
    Jealous, Jakobs? Jealousy was a primitive feeling shunned by sentient adults in the twentieth century. Didn’t he tell his patients that?
    However, at that moment Larkin stopped at the landing of the staircase. The recessed overhead lighting picked up the platinum streaks in her sandy hair, which wreathed her face in a way that made her seem almost ethereally beautiful. When she caught sight of Alex, still standing where she left him, she smiled.
    Primitive feelings of possession overpowered him. He had to fight down the wild urge to sweep her into his arms right in front of everyone in the bar. But just enough of the rational, civilized Dr. Alex Jakobs remained, and he smiled back at