Temperatures Rising Read Online Free PDF

arrived.”
    His words filtered through her chaotic mind, and before she could say anything, he had taken her hand and was leading her back inside.
     
    He intended to invade her territory.
    Although Terrence figured she wouldn’t like it, it would be done. He had gotten a taste of her, a taste that even a full-course meal later, he couldn’t let go of.
    Their conversation over dinner he’d dismissed as chitchat. She’d told him about being an only child with a lot of cousins and the only one of them interested in following in her uncle’s footsteps by working in radio. She’d told him about her best friend, Kim, who had decided to move to the Keyswith her. She’d told him how she intended to go shopping for a new car by the end of the year. One thing she hadn’t mentioned was her love life, specifically the guy her uncle had mentioned, the one who supposedly had broken her heart last year.
    He glanced across the table. After a long, drawn-out silence while they’d enjoyed another glass of wine, he decided to stir up conversation again by coming out and asking point-blank, “Do you engage in affairs?”
    From the way her head snapped up and the surprised look on her face, he knew his question had caught her off guard. He watched as she regained her wits and released a long, slow breath. He even felt when the shiver passed through her.
    Then he saw a slow smile touch her lips when she said, “I understand that you do.”
    She hadn’t answered his question but had made a comment instead, one he fully intended to answer. “Yes, I do,” he murmured truthfully. “Short-term affairs. I don’t do long term.”
    “Commitment phobia?”
    “Not necessarily. I just decided very early in life that I would die single. Matters of the heart are not for me.”
    There was no need to tell her he felt that way because of the pain he’d seen his father endure afterhis mother had walked out on them for another man, nearly destroying their family in the process. Nor would he mention how as a child he had watched a once happily married man learn to cope as a divorced husband and a single father. A man whose life was filled with pain and sadness and for whom the only thing that mattered in his life was his children. Terrence was convinced to this day that his father had never gotten over the betrayal of his wife.
    Just like he had never gotten over the betrayal of his mother.
    “Then what about that article I read in the newspaper the first week I arrived? The one about your broken engagement.”
    He glanced over at her and decided to set the matter straight. “There was never an engagement. I don’t ever plan to marry, and she knew it. I can only assume that she was hoping I would change my mind.”
    Deciding he needed to make sure Sherri fully understood so there would never be any misunderstanding, he held her gaze and then added, “That is one thing I don’t intend to ever change my mind about. I will never marry.”
     
    Sherri could only nod. Terrence was making his position absolutely clear to her, and she appreciatedit because she now knew how to handle him in the future. Virtually the same way she’d been doing in the past. She didn’t regret having dinner with him. It had been both enjoyable and enlightening.
    It would be easy if she were the type of woman who had no qualms in engaging in the same type of affairs that he did, but she wasn’t. Her parents were enjoying a relatively happy marriage, and although at this point in her career, marriage was the furthest thing from her mind, she still wanted the same for herself one day. A man who would love her and cherish her, give her his babies, his life, his world. Terrence had just told her in no uncertain terms that he was not the man for her. He lived for the moment, and the women he dated would never, ever get close to his heart. She wondered if the way his mother had walked out of his life was the reason. In a way, his take on things was no different from