The Backup Plan Read Online Free PDF Page A

shook his head, his expression still blank. “She seems fine to me.”
    â€œYou don’t find it odd that she’s barely left the house?”
    â€œWhat are you talking about, Dorothy? She’s left the house. She’s had lunch with me three or four times in the last week.”
    â€œBecause you made the arrangements and told her where to go,” she said impatiently. “And she turns upfor dinner because I tell her what time to be downstairs. But there’s no life in her, no spark. She stays in her room or sits in the garden and broods. It’s not like her.”
    He looked bemused. “She’s rarely home, so you can’t say if it’s like her or not these days. Hell, after all she’s been through, she’s entitled to some peace and quiet. All this commotion we’ve stirred up has probably been too much for her. After all, this entertaining we’ve been doing is a far cry from the kind of life she’s been used to the past few years. Maybe we’ve crammed in too much of it at once.”
    â€œThat’s pretty much what she said,” Dorothy acknowledged.
    â€œWell, there you have it,” he said, clearly satisfied that the problem was solved. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for this meeting.”
    His dismissal was annoying. Dorothy stood and started for the door, but then she turned back. “When did you redecorate in here?”
    Marshall looked up from his papers, clearly disconcerted by the question. “A few months ago. Why?”
    â€œI’m just surprised you didn’t ask for my help.”
    â€œYou’ve been tied up with your own projects,” he replied. “I had my secretary hire a decorator.”
    â€œAnd you like what they did?” she asked, not sure why any of it mattered so much.
    He looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. He shrugged. “It’s a change.”
    â€œIt certainly is,” she said tartly. “And not for the better.”
    Feeling thoroughly disgruntled by the whole exchange, Dorothy stalked out of his office, her back rigid, her temper barely in check. She’d started the daywith one worry on her mind—her daughter. Now she had two.
    Her marriage, which she’d always accepted as faintly staid, but solid, was anything but secure. She’d been around long enough to know that enough tiny little fissures could seriously undermine the foundation of the most fortified structure. Discovering that her marriage was riddled with such fissures was a shock.
    Unfortunately, for the moment Dinah had to be her priority. She simply had to hope that when she got around to focusing on her own life, it wouldn’t be too late.
    Â 
    Cord Beaufort lazily swatted at the fly circling his bottle of now-lukewarm beer. It was the end of a steamy, grueling day, a day that had tested his patience and sent his nerves into more of an uproar than the last time he’d engaged in far more pleasurable, rambunctious sex.
    He’d met with the board of directors for Covington Plantation and to a man—and woman—they were the most impossible, exasperating group of self-important human beings he’d ever had the misfortune to work for. They wanted to micromanage everything and not one of them had the expertise for it.
    Worse, he’d had to wear a suit and tie, even though the temperature was pushing ninety. If there was one thing he hated more than placating a bunch of wealthy, egotistical bosses, it was wearing a suit and pretending not to be bored to tears while they yammered on and on. Things that should have been decided in less than an hour had taken the whole damn day.
    Stretched out in a well-used Pawleys Island hammock strung between two ancient live oaks, he now wore comfortable jeans and nothing else. He was trying his best not to move a muscle until a breeze stirred, whichprobably wouldn’t happen until November. He was not