Secrets of a Shoe Addict Read Online Free PDF Page A

memory of the lean, dark-skinned, handsome bad boy from her past didn’t quite mesh with the stocky pale-faced man in front of her.
    So, mercifully, it was a mistake.
    “I’m sorry. . . .”She scrutinized the face. Wait.
Could
it be? Could he have changed that much in just twelve years? Where once therehad been the contours of a sharp, square jawline, there was now slightly slack, aging flesh.
    “Now, don’t tell me you don’t remember me,” he said, revealing the ghost of a smile that had once left her weak in the knees.
    Oh, no . . .
    “You must have me confused with someone else.” She turned to leave, but he grabbed her arm, making her drop the small clutch bag she had brought with her. Her license, credit cards, and cell phone spilled out and clattered onto the polished floor.
    She dropped immediately to pick the stuff up, but so did he, zeroing in on her wallet like a vulture and standing up slowly as he read her license. “Abigail Generes Walsh, fourteen-eleven Lamplighter Lane”—he raised his eyebrows—“and not a bad neighborhood. If you’re into minivans.” He pulled the cash out and rifled through it before starting to put it in his pocket.
    She snatched at it, a cat going for a rat. “I beg your pardon.”
    “You used to beg for a lot more than that, as I recall.”
    She was unable to move, unable to do anything but gape at the man before her, with the disconcerting thought that a woman who didn’t know him might still think he was attractive.
    “I think you have the wrong person,” she tried at last.
    “Now, honey, it’s been a long time, but not so long I don’t know that gorgeous bod when I see it.” His breath smelled like alcohol. “Believe me, I had a lot of time to think about it while I was in the pen.”
    Oh, God. It
was
him. Of course, she’d known it from the moment she’d heard his voice. “Damon Zucker.”
    “That’s better.” He gave a broad smile, the pirate grin that, when she was twenty years old, had practically made her clothes drop off spontaneously.
    Her throat tightened at the memory of his tongue in her mouth, along her body . . . She shuddered.
    “I can tell you’re thrilled to see me.”
    “I thought you were in jail.”
    “Yeah.” He gave a mirthless laugh. “Thanks to you.”
    It felt like cockroaches were running up and down her spine. “It wasn’t my fault.”
    He took a long, thin cigar out of his pocket, bit the end off, and spit it on the floor. “That’s, uh, that’s not true. When the public defender went to find you, you’d split. Nowhere to be found.” He lifted the cigar. “Gimme a light.”
    “I don’t have a light,” she said, looking him up and down with disgust.
    “Bullshit, you always have a light. Gotta heat the bazooka, am I right?”
    She swallowed hard. “I don’t do that anymore.”
    He gave a shout of laughter. “Yeah, and I’m the fuckin’ pope.” He stopped a woman passing by. “Pardon me, honey, can I borrow a light?” The woman, clearly seeing something in him that was now practically invisible to Abbey, laughed and handed him her cigarette, which he held to his cigar, puffing like a cartoon villain until it was lit. “Thanks, sugar.” He gave the cigarette back to her, then turned back to Abbey.
    “Charming as ever, I see,” Abbey said. “If you hurry, you can catch up to her.”
    He gave a laugh. “I can catch up to her even if I don’t hurry.”
    She wanted to slap that smug look right off his face. “I see your time in the slammer didn’t change you much.”
    “Not so, Abigail. It taught me not to take no shit from nobody.Including you. Make that—” He puffed his cigar thoughtfully. “—make that
especially
you. I’ve been trying to find you, you know. There we were in the same town and it takes a trip to Vegas to find you. We’ve got business to discuss.”
    “We don’t have
any
business in common.”
    He took her shoulder and spun her around. “I think we do. And you