Rules of the Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

that went hand in hand with her profession. She fingered the silk, then nodded. It should do very well for her evening with Parks Jones.
    ***
    As Parks drove through the hills above L.A. he considered his actions. For the first time in his career he had allowed a woman to distract him during a game—and this one hadn’t even tried. For the first time, he had called a virtual stranger from three thousand miles away to make a date, and she didn’t even know who the hell he was. For the first time, he was planning on taking out a woman who made him absolutely furious without having said more than a handful of words. And if it hadn’t been for the road series that had followed that night game at Kings Stadium, he would have called her before this. He’d looked up her number at the airport on his way to catch a plane to New York.
    He downshifted for the incline as he swung around a curve. All during the flight home, he had thought of Brooke Gordon, trying to pigeonhole her. A model or an actress, he had concluded. She had the face for it—not really beautiful, but certainly unique. Her voice was like something whispering through layers of smoke. And she hadn’t sounded overly bright on the phone that morning, he reminded himself with a grimace as he stepped on the gas. There was no law that said brains had to go with intriguing looks, but something in her eyes that night . . . Parks shook off the feeling that he’d been studied, weighed and measured.
    A rabbit darted out in front of him then stopped, hypnotized by his beams. Parks braked, swerved and swore as it raced back to the side of the road. He had a weakness for small animals that his father had never understood. Then, his father had understood little about a boy who chose to play ball rather than assume a lucrative position of power in Parkinson Chemicals.
    Parks slowed to check his direction, then turned down the darkened back road that led to Brooke’s tidy wooded property. He liked it instantly—the remoteness, the melodious sound of crickets. It was a small slice of country thirty-five minutes from L.A. Perhaps she wasn’t so slow-witted after all. He pulled his MG behind her Datsun and looked around him.
    Her grass needed trimming, but it only added to the rural charm of the house. It was a small, A-frame structure with lots of glass and a circular porch. He heard the tinkle of water from the narrow stream that ran behind the house. There was a scent of summer—hot, heavy blossoms he couldn’t identify, and an inexplicable aura of peacefulness. He found himself wishing he didn’t have to drive back down to a crowded restaurant and bright lights. In the distance a dog began to bark frantically, sending out echos to emphasize the openness. Parks climbed out of the car, wondering what sort of woman would choose a house so far from city comforts.
    There was an old brass knocker in the shape of a hog’s head at the right of the door. It made him grin as he let it bang. When she opened the door, Parks forgot all the doubts that had plagued him on his drive through the hills. This time he thought she looked like a seductive witch—fair skin against a black dress, a heavy silver amulet between her breasts. Her hair was pulled back at the temples with two combs, then left to fall wildly down to her hips. Her eyes were as misty as hellsmoke, the lids darkened by some subtle, glittering shadow. Her mouth was naked. He caught a drift of scent that brought him a picture of East Indian harems, white silk and dusky female laughter.
    â€œHello.” Brooke extended her hand. It took every ounce of willpower to complete the casual gesture. How was she to have known her heart would start thudding at the sight of him? It was foolish, because she had already imagined what he would look like in sophisticated clothes. She’d had to if she was to plan how to film him. But somehow his body looked rangier, even