Trace of Fever Read Online Free PDF Page A

Murray’s gaze lifted to hers. “Your mother was busty?”
    Good God, the cretin hadn’t yet asked her mother’s name, but he wanted to know her bra size? He was more disgusting than she’d ever imagined.
    Inside, Priss churned with fury, but outside, she stammered like a virgin. “She was, yes.” Belatedly, parts of her rehearsed spiel shot to the forefront of her mind. “After you left her, she never wanted another man. So she did her best to…conceal her figure.”
    “As you did with whatever undergarment Trace removed from your person?”
    “Yes.” She tugged at the material of her blouse, trying to get the gaping front to close. “I’m not at all comfortable like this.”
    “What you have is an asset. You should be proud.”
    Oh, this was soooo not a father/daughter conversation. “Sir, I want you to know—”
    “Give me your mother’s name.”
    Well, ’bout damn time! A deep breath didn’t ease the tension in her chest. “Patricia Patterson.” Priss waited, but there was no recognition, and predictably, no real interest. She forged on. “I’m twenty-four, so it would have been close to twenty-five years ago that you knew her.”
    “I’d have been thirty-two.” He rubbed at his goatee in fond remembrance of the past, then caught himself. “She’s dead?”
    Priss ducked her head, as much from grief as to hide the incandescent rage she felt when she thought of the way her mother had suffered before finding the grace of death. “Yes. Three months ago.”
    “How?” Murray asked.
    “She had a stroke. It didn’t take her right away….”
    As Priss replied, Murray turned to Hell and requested a drink. He even smiled at Hell’s disgruntlement and gave her an intimate kiss that left his mouth shiny with the red gloss of her lips.
    His disinterest in her struggle couldn’t have been more plain.
    As Hell slipped off the desk and went to the other side of the room to pour the drink, Murray pulled out a hanky and wiped his mouth.
    All while Priss told the emotionally draining, all too horrific story of her mother’s ordeal.
    When she’d contrived this plan, she’d expected an unfeeling monster. She’d been prepared for a sleazy villain. But this…this total lack of propriety…the man was a psychopath. He couldn’t possibly possess a single ounce of real emotion.
    Somewhere along the way to building his empire of corruption, he’d become so comfortable with his power and influence that he didn’t bother hiding his innately vicious nature anymore. He had a network of conspirators who would lie for him, cover for him, and enable him.
    Involuntarily, her hands curled into fists. While Hell handed Murray his drink, Trace gave a barely perceptible nudge to her shoulder. He didn’t look at her, and his stance remained alert, on duty as it were, but she caught his warning all the same.
    It could be deadly for her to show her hand this early in the game.
    With ice cubes clinking, Murray sipped his drink, and then asked, “So she suffered?”
    Jaw tight, Priss nodded. “Immeasurably, yes.”
    He took another drink. “I don’t remember her.”
    Of course he didn’t. Theirs hadn’t been a true relationship by any stretch. He’d used her mother for financial gain, and only by the turn of fate had her mother escaped with her life intact.
    Deliberately, Priss relaxed her muscles. “I understand. It was a long time ago.”
    “I won’t give you a dime, you know.” He swirled the drink, clinking the ice cubes again while smiling at her. “If you’re here for money, you’re wasting your time.”
    As if she’d take anything from him—other than his black heart. “Please, you misunderstand. I don’t want or expect anything from you. It’s just that, with my mother gone, I’m alone now.”
    Murray’s eyes glinted, and they went over her again. “No other relatives? No husband or at least a boyfriend?”
    “No, sir. That’s why I wanted to meet you. And…” She tried for shyness.