Taming Tess (The St. John Sibling Series) Read Online Free PDF

couldn't say a nice word to him to save her soul, she sure found ways to keep him on the job longer.
    His stomach growled again and he eyed the steak. What if she was a vegetarian?
    If she were, he might as well go ahead and cook the steak for himself. No sense his starving while she took her sweet time soaking her pampered backside.
    An image of Tess Abbot's skin flushed from steamy bath water popped into his head. Immediately, he shook his head, shaking away the image. He had no business knocking on that bathroom door just to find out her food preference. Besides, it would be nice to eat with someone for change.
    W as he nuts? He was talking about the vixen with a tongue like a switchblade. Better he eat alone.
    #
    The knock on the door jolted Tess from her peace.
    "What?" she demanded.
    "How long are you going to be in there?"
    Wasn't there a man on earth capable of giving a woman five minutes of peace?
    "You got a hot date to get ready for, St. John?"
    "I want to know when to put the steak on."
    "Steak? Swell. My house burns down and you barbecue. What is it with you men and your barbecues?"
    "If you don't eat meat--"
    "My father barbecues a few hamburgers and hot dogs," she ranted, "and he expects the world to stand up and applaud."
    " If you're not a meat eater," he growled through a door with too flimsy a lock to keep out a strapping contractor if he wanted in, "I should tell you I don't have an ounce of tofu in the house."
    "Like you'd know what to do with bean curd if you had any."
    "Care to bet on that?"
    Tess frowned and muttered above the grumble of her stomach, "Something tells me that would be a sucker bet."
    Why was she wasting time arguing with this guy when a steak sounded so good to her? A big, thick, rare steak.
    "When you hear the water draining from the tub, St. John," she shouted at the door, "you can slap the meat on the grill."
    "Helpful," he muttered. "Real helpful."
    Tess heard his footsteps as he departed and sank back into the suds with a groan. Why were men so quick to take offense of a woman who knew her own mind? Why did men think they had to run her life?
    Why couldn't her father see she was as capable an architect as any of the men in his firm? But no, Dad refused to see women in any career but that of a homemaker and mother.
    "A woman's duty is in the home," he'd said so many times she couldn't believe she'd not recognized the futility of fighting his closed mind earlier.
    She should have at least caught on when she'd graduated from college with honors and he'd said, "Wasn't there one man in the whole architectural department you could have married?"
    She'd thought he merely needed educating.   So she'd begged her way into his firm and accepted every menial task he'd assigned her, or rather he'd had other architects in the firm assign her. She'd bitten the bullet, telling herself he didn't want to show favoritism, that he was testing her--making her stronger. She thought she would be the woman to prove to her father that women could do it all.
    By the time Harry Dawson joined the firm, she'd started to notice that drafts men with less experience and lesser schooling were getting promoted ahead of her. Over Manhattan Iced Teas, she and Harry had commiserated over her father's lack of support of her and Harry's less than stellar design skills. The next thing she knew, they were in bed together and Dad was inviting Harry to Sunday dinners.
    She finally had her father's attention . The day Harry produced a diamond engagement ring he couldn't possibly afford on his salary, it had taken very little investigation on her part to uncover why Harry had gotten a substantial raise, and why he was being lauded as the firm's newest rising star. The design Harry had presented to her father, the design that landed the firm a large government contract had been hers. He’d stolen her work.
    But Harry's betrayal was minimal next to her father's. When she'd presented him with the evidence of Harry's