Storm Front (Reunited Hearts) Read Online Free PDF

the
bedrooms. There was also a well-worn edition of Candy Land, but they decided
Monopoly was probably the better choice for the evening’s entertainment.
    While
Allison made some more tea, Michael rooted around in the pantry until he found
a box of unexpired cookies. Then they set up the game in front of the fire
while the rain pounded down on the roof and the wind shook the doors and
windows.
    By
the time they began playing, Michael’s headache was nearly gone. When he placed
his first hotel on Boardwalk, he decided that, while not a perfect use of the
evening, things definitely could have been worse.
    Allison
sat cross-legged across the board from him, and her wet hair was drying in
kinks and flips from the heat of the fire. Her cheeks were pink now, and her
eyes narrowed as she watched him count his money.
    They’d
been playing in mostly silence, but now she muttered, “I’m not sure this was a
fair game, even at the outset.”
    Michael
arched his eyebrows, hiding a smile at her grumpy expression. “Why not?”
    “How
exactly does a normal person like me have a chance of winning at Monopoly
against a ruthless business tycoon like you?”
    “You
think I’m ruthless?” He wasn’t offended as much as he was curious. It had been
a long time since anyone had been so blunt with him.
    “Aren’t
you?”
    He
gave a slight shrug before rolling the dice and automatically buying the
property he landed on. “I suppose you’d know best.”
    He
intended the murmured reply to be sarcastic, and Allison obviously took it as
such. A flicker of surprise and then guilt passed over her face. “Sorry,” she
said, dropping her eyes. “I guess I don’t really know you anymore, so it’s not
fair to assume everything that’s written about you in the papers is true.”
    “I
wouldn’t trust anything written in the papers,” he said easily. He hadn’t
intended his words as a rebuff. He had nothing against Allison, and putting up
walls at this juncture would interfere with any possibility of getting her into
bed later on. “In my experience, journalists aren’t overly burdened with
qualities like honesty or morality.”
    Another
expression flashed over Allison’s face—this one harder to recognize.
    Then
she slanted him a curious look. “You’ve gotten rather bitter in the last seven years.”
    It
was true. When he was younger, Michael had been willing to take a chance with
other people. Now, he rarely bothered. His one attempt in years had ended as a
humiliating failure. He still cringed inwardly at the thought of Gina’s attempt
to use him and how close she’d come to succeeding.
    Michael
had learned that people were nearly always out for themselves. To expect
differently was to invite disappointment.
    He
had money, power, the thrill of competition, his choice of life’s sensual
indulgences. He could live a very satisfying life without exposing himself to
the vulnerability of risking his heart.
    “What
about you?” he asked, skillfully turning the tide of the conversation to
something he was more comfortable with. “What have you become in the last seven
years?”
    Allison
smiled at him—a smile that reminded him so strongly of the teenager he’d known
before that his heart clenched in his chest. “I’ve got a pretty good life, I
think.”
    He
studied her face and realized she was telling the truth. She was satisfied with
her life, with the way she’d shaped herself since he’d last seen her. She wasn’t
living with huge regrets or with a long history of broken dreams.
    It
didn’t take much for him to remember what Allison had been like all those years
ago. Her razor-sharp wit and driven intelligence had encircled something
uncertain and trembling—a core of insecurity that had spoken to him back then
as much as her beauty and irony.
    She’d
grown up, and she hadn’t let that insecurity define her, but he couldn’t help
but wonder how much it still affected her.
    “How
are your