Free The Dying Room by Debra Webb Page B

infamous womanizing Buddy Corlew is smitten. Maybe it’s Sylvia who should be worried.”
    “Trust me,” Buddy assured him, “I’m the one who’s in way over his head.”
    Dan studied him for a moment. “Sylvia was very focused on her education back in school. We lost touch during our college years since I was in Boston with Jess.”
    Damn it. Buddy had forgotten about that. “I guess you don’t know who she was involved with in college.”
    “As a matter of fact, I might.” Dan glanced around as if he feared being overhead. “I remember my mother mentioning that Sylvia and Benton Murdock were an item.”
    Buddy’s gut twisted. “You mean the eldest son of Winston Murdock, as in the governor of Alabama?” Holy shit.
    “That’s him. I think they dated most of her senior year in college, but the next thing I heard he’d married someone else. The daughter of some Texas oil tycoon.”
    “You’re sure there wasn’t anyone else?” Buddy’s heart felt as heavy as a load of bricks. Now he understood why Sylvia wouldn’t tell him the name of the father.
    “If you really want to know more, you should ask my mother. She kept up with everyone who was anyone back then.” He laughed. “I think she still does.”
    “I don’t think your mother would like the idea of Sylvia and me together. She’d probably rush over and warn the senator.”
    Dan shrugged. “I can start a conversation with her. See what I can find out.”
    “I’d appreciate it. This is new territory for me.”
Damned scary territory
.
    “Sylvia has always kept her personal life close to the vest. She’s a very private person, Buddy. With her family being such a prominent one, it’s the only way to maintain some degree of normalcy.”
    Buddy finished off his Corona. He set the bottle aside. “Thing is, I wasn’t looking to fall for a rich woman. I don’t need her money and I damned sure don’t need the grief that goes with the name.”
    Dan nodded his understanding. “When Jess and I first started our relationship, my mother was livid. She wanted the right girl for me. Someone like Sylvia, from the right family, etcetera. When it comes to falling in love, money and pedigree are irrelevant. A person can have a relationship with and even marry a person for all the right reasons, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be happy. There’s no rhyme or reason to true love. Jess and I were in love and no matter how hard we both worked to prove we didn’t need each other, nothing was ever going to change that fact.”
    Dan was right and Buddy was doomed. However he looked at it. No matter how he tried to pretend. He had it bad for the woman. She wasn’t his usual type, but for the first time he didn’t care. He knew for a fact that Dr. Sylvia Baron didn’t usually go for guys like him. Yet, if his instincts were on target, she had it pretty bad for him, too. There was no faking the way she came alive in his arms... the way she surrendered to him.
    What she was asking of him could very well tear her apart in ways he wasn’t sure she was prepared for. But it was what she wanted and he couldn’t refuse her.
    Even if it tore them both apart.

 

Chapter 12
    Crescent Road, 10:19 p.m.
    Joe Pratt threw the damned remote at the television. It bounced off and shattered on the floor. One of these days the damned Coleman bitch would get what was coming to her. He’d hoped when the city learned she’d hidden her secret life as a lesbian she would be finished here. But the fools had forgiven her. Just as the fools had in Sodom and Gomorrah.
    “This city is going to hell.”
    His life had already gone to hell. In the past six months, he’d been forced to resign as mayor, his wife had left him, and his son wasn’t speaking to him. All because he had played the game.
    He stomped to the bar and poured himself another scotch. How was a man supposed to make it in this world if the devil kept throwing obstacles in his way? He’d never done one damned thing