Untrue Colors (Entangled Select Suspense) Read Online Free PDF Page A

death threat hanging over her.

Chapter Four
    After escorting Gabe to her room, Henry poured himself more coffee and carried it to his study. The drink, infused with a hint of vanilla, soothed his nerves even before the beverage slid down his throat.
    He sat in a leather chair. Gabe fascinated him. She reminded him of the women at the shelter, stoic regardless of the abuse thrust upon them. And in a testament to her mental strength, Gabe hadn’t stayed with the person who had battered her body. She’d run.
    Two hours and eight graded exams later, he sensed her presence behind him and turned. She stood in the doorway, staring into the study with a half smile and her fingers tapping together. Her appearance warmed his blood from her blue jeans ripped to reveal toned thighs to her neon hair draping over her shoulder, to those piercing eyes, the color of the ocean off the coast of Santorini.
    “Am I disturbing you?”
    “Not in the least. Are you ready for the tour?” He stood next to her, a tiny pixie of a thing in bare feet. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder.
    “Can we start in this room?” She pointed with her bandaged hand to the framed masterpiece above the fireplace.
    “It’s by Gustave Courbet.” He showed her several smaller pieces that complemented the seascape. She remained silent, but her gaze took in her surroundings as though cataloging everything for use later.
    They continued through the house. Her comments, although infrequent, gave him pause. For some, art was simply decoration; for others, an investment. Caressing heirloom tables and chairs, Gabe eyed details that only a representative from an auction house would know. She playfully noted the location of a hidden drawer in the John Guilbaud cabinet and the unusual lack of a cabriole leg in the settee in the drawing room.
    The more rooms they entered, the more excited she became. After discussing one of Henry’s favorite portraits in the upper hallway, she stepped to his bedroom door, the scene of her breakdown. She probably wanted to forget she’d ever been there. He hesitated at the door, but Gabe entered. She crossed the room and touched her fingertips, decorated with black nail polish, to the top of his late-eighteenth-century George III dresser. Her hand continued to caress the wood, and Henry’s mind began imagining those fingers on him.
    “This is beautiful,” she said. “See the brass swan neck handles and the mahogany cross-banding? I only know of two cabinetmakers who mixed the wood types with such an eye for detail.”
    “You recognize the cabinetmaker?”
    She stalled and dropped her eyes as though she’d stepped over her bounds, revealing too much of herself perhaps?
    He pointed to a side table. “Can you recognize the wood in that piece?”
    She tilted her head so her hair moved away from her eyes. With an exaggerated squint and the quirking of her mouth to the left, she answered, “Pine?”
    He laughed. “Seriously? Even I wouldn’t guess pine. Don’t tell me you can’t figure it out.”
    “It might be oak.” She shrugged her shoulders.
    It certainly was oak, but was stained to look like mahogany.
    “Are you familiar with the designer?”
    “Are you testing me?”
    Yes, I am.
    He savored the last drops of his coffee and then stepped in front of her. Bending down to look at her eye to eye, he breathed in her scent. Something sweet mixed with something that beckoned him to kiss her. He’d watched her face off with obnoxious university boys and huge police officers. She didn’t seem the type to back down from a challenge.
    “I just can’t imagine you really know what you’re talking about,” he whispered so softly, she moved a centimeter closer toward his lips. Her proximity spiked his temperature and his hunger for her.
    “William Kent,” she whispered in response.
    …
    Alex leaned away from him; his breath had smelled just a little too tempting. And she didn’t intend to run from one mansion into