Free The Lady Vanishes by Nicole Camden Page B

smiling in response to the gleaming white grin he bestowed on them.
    “Well, I’d like to try something I’ve never tried before; if I mess up, I never have to see you again, right? You’re not staying in Boston?”
    They promised they weren’t.
    “Okay, then. I’m good at card tricks, pretty good, but not at mind reading. I have a piece of paper here, and a pencil. I’d like to try it, just this once. Can I read one of your minds?”
    “You can read mine,” an older woman with a healthy bosom and bright green eyes volunteered and laughed bawdily.
    Milton wagged a finger at her. “None of that, this is a clean show. I want you to think of a shape, any shape, and concentrate on it. Hold that image in your mind.”
    She nodded and Milton pretended to concentrate, then he bent and seemed to scribble something on the back of the receipt from Uncle Pete’s. He held up the receipt so the women couldn’t see the side he’d pretended to write on.
    “What shape did you imagine?”
    She smirked at him. “An octagon.”
    He smiled and opened his opposite hand to distract them and quickly drew an octagon on the paper with a small piece of graphite taped to his thumb. As soon as he finished, he flipped the paper around. They gasped and laughed, delighted, and he took a small bow again.
    The key was opening the palm of his right hand while he wrote. Their eyes had followed the motion and their brains had missed the hasty scribbling of his thumb—an octagon, most people chose triangle. There was always a key to misdirection, and Roland had taught him all of them. Milton was simply glad he’d timed everything correctly. He’d been thinking about the perfect curve of Regina Burke’s lips. Why wouldn’t she go out with him? What could he do to convince her?
    Startled by his own distraction, he shuffled the cards quickly, and moved smoothly into his next trick, a complicated card trick matching red and black suits of cards without seeming to do anything.
    He laid the cards out quickly; it would have to be something she cared about, something more important to her than whatever was keeping her from going out with him. He refused to believe she wasn’t attracted to him. No woman let you hold her down and kiss the shit out of her if she wasn’t attracted. At least, he didn’t think they did.
    Other than his best friends, Roland and Nick, and his mother, not many people knew about the stubborn streak that ran through Milton Shaw. Once he’d made up his mind, it was made up, and very little could be done to change it. That kind of focus made him a brilliant programmer, and an excellent magician, but his brains didn’t seem to help when it came to women. He was too intense, they said. Of course, not many women had said that since he’d become insanely wealthy. Now it didn’t matter how intense he was—if he crooked a finger, beautiful women came, and they were willing to do anything.
    Not her, he thought and smiled, looking down at the board. The cards were grouped together by color and his audience was clapping in admiration. I want her. To Milton it was that simple, and that dangerous.

“AND THEN HE JUST KIND OF GRABBED ME and it was like I’d been drugged. I wanted him and couldn’t think about anything else,” Regina finished with a somewhat deflated sigh. It was Sunday morning, and Regina hadn’t slept well. Milton Shaw had indeed called her, and, just as she’d promised, she’d turned him down. He didn’t seem to be giving up, though. He’d sent her more flowers this morning.
    “Wow.” Her therapist, Rose-Lindsey Cooper, fanned herself. “That was great. I wish I had some popcorn and a margarita.”
    “Rose-Lindsey,” Regina chided. “My therapy sessions are not supposed to be entertainment.”
    Shrugging, Rose-Lindsey adjusted herself in the flowery armchair that she preferred. She was a large woman with an affection for turtleneck sweaters and knitted hats. She was prone to knitting during their