Paper Rose

Free Paper Rose by Diana Palmer

Book: Paper Rose by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online
Authors: Diana Palmer
hurts us in South Dakota, because he has powerful political allies in Pierre and no scruples about using them against us. One of them,” he added darkly, “is the state attorney general herself!”
    â€œI know,” she said. Her pale eyes gazed into his dark ones. “But I’m working on the senator.”
    He didn’t even blink. “Working on him, how?”
    Here we go again, she thought with resignation. Her eyebrows lifted. He was acting as if she’d already seduced the man! On second thought, why not live down to that image? She leaned forward avidly. “Well, first I smeared him with honey and licked my way down to his throat…” she began earnestly.
    He cursed sharply.
    She laughed helplessly. “All right, it was just dinner. But he really is a very nice man, Tate,” she said.
    He gave her a hard glare. “Listen, Cecily, going around with a man old enough to be your father isn’t the way to fight your hang-ups.”
    â€œMy hang-ups?” She glared at him. “Do feel free to elaborate.”
    â€œYou have friends instead of lovers,” he said curtly.
    â€œI’m a modern woman,” she said coolly. “That means I have the right to decide what I do with my body. Some women, I might add, advocate using men only for breeding purposes. I myself think they’d be more useful as house pets.”
    His black eyes twinkled. He waved to his mother who was just dancing past them with an ear to ear smile. “All the same, I don’t like seeing you with Holden.”
    â€œI don’t particularly care what you like,” she said and smiled sweetly at him.
    He hated that damned smile. It was like a red flag. “Listen, kid, you don’t know beans about some of the political superstars in Congress, and Holden is an unknown commodity. He guards his privacy like a mercenary. I don’t like him and I don’t trust him. He’s too secretive.”
    â€œLook who’s talking!” she exclaimed. “You could probably topple governments with things you know and don’t tell!”
    â€œSure I could,” he agreed. “But I’m not shady.”
    She just looked at him. It was a speaking look.
    â€œMaybe a little shady,” he conceded finally. “A man has to have a few secrets.”
    â€œSo does a woman.”
    He smoothed a hand down the buckskin leggings on one of his powerful thighs. “I hope you aren’t going to let what happened to you in Corryville ruin the rest of your life,” he said without looking at her. “You should go around with men your own age.”
    She met his narrowed eyes. “I had my share of dates when I started college. It’s amazing that every single one of them thought he was entitled to my bed in return for a nice dinner and some dancing. And you know what I got when I said no? They told me I wasn’t liberated.” She threw up her hands. “What does liberation have to do with rejecting a man with bad breath who looks like a lab rat?”
    â€œYou won’t get around me by changing the subject,” he continued doggedly. “Holden isn’t the sort of man you need in your life and neither is Colby Lane.”
    The silence beside her was thick with suppressed anger. Colby was ex-CIA, too, now a mercenary who did freelance work for various organizations, including, so rumor had it, the government. He was almost as tough as Tate. But he had a few more visible flaws. Tate was his friend and he couldn’t miss the fact that Cecily and Colby were close—even Audrey had pointed it out to him. But he didn’t like having Cecily dating the man, and Cecily knew it by his very silence.
    She held up a hand before he could continue. “I know he’s had his problems in the past…”
    â€œHe can’t keep his hands off a liquor bottle at the best of times, and he still hasn’t accepted the loss of his

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