Free Betrayed by Trust by Frankie Robertson Page B

barstool and my boobs jiggled, unrestrained. I wasn’t offended. He was a guy, after all.
    His smile was warm and his eyes were dark as he pulled his gaze back up to my face. “Morning.” The word drawled out like a caress. Then he turned back to the sizzling bacon. “How do you like your eggs?”
    It was shallow of me, but I liked knowing that he liked what he saw. “Whatever you want is fine with me.”
    His smile broadened, but all he said was, “Over medium, then. I had enough of scrambled in the Army.” He cracked five eggs into the skillet, one-handed, then pointed with the other to several slices of bread on a plate. “You want to manage the toast?”
    A few minutes later we were both perched again on the barstools enjoying the fruits of our labors when the phone rang. It was closest to me and Dan’s deep chest brushed against my back as he leaned over and plucked the handset off the wall. “Hello?” As the caller spoke, Dan’s brows rose and his posture grew more alert. “Sure. Just a sec.” He covered the receiver with his other hand. “It’s Conrad.” Then he handed it to me.
    Conrad? He’d said he’d call, but I hadn’t thought he meant it.
    I tried to sound happy when I answered. “Good morning. You’re up with the birds.”
    “Hi, gorgeous! Am I calling too early?”
    “No, of course not. What’s up?”
    Dan went back to eating his eggs, but I could tell he was tracking every word.
    “I wanted to see how you were. I enjoyed our date last night, even if it ended rather abruptly.”
    I was touched by his thoughtfulness. Barry hadn’t called the day after we first made love—but then, Barry was a jerk. “That wasn’t your fault. And I still had a wonderful time.”
    “I’m glad. That makes it a little easier to tell you that I have to cancel on the green flash. I’m flying back to Paris tonight.”
    “No way! What about school?” It was all I could think to say.
    “Father’s idea.” I could hear the complaint in Conrad’s tone. “But I was thinking, instead of the green flash, I could show you the Eiffel Tower. We could swing by your brother’s place and pick you up.” His voice took on a coaxing tone. “I’d like you to come with me.”
    “To France?”
    Dan’s head came up.
    “It’s a beautiful country. And I think we really have something. I’d like to see where it goes.”
    I’d thought he was just a party boy. A love ’em and leave ’em type. I thought that his attraction to me had been temporarily pumped up by Kalisa’s magic, and that it was over. I hadn’t planned on having to let him down easy. “I—I’m sorry. I can’t. I have to go back to work.”
    “You still have a few days of vacation left. You can come with me, then I could have our plane fly you back to Chicago in time for work. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a real French pastry in France,” he wheedled.
    It was tempting. I’d always wanted to travel. But I had to sever the connection now, before he got to know me any better than he did. “But then I wouldn’t get to see my brother.”
    After a beat of silence Conrad said, “Right. Of course.” The disappointment in his voice sounded genuine. “Our evening was special. I won’t forget you.”
    But that was just what I hoped he would do.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MARIANNE
    T wo days later I sat at my parents’ kitchen table drinking coffee with my mother. Dan had gone out bowling with my dad after the informal lunch of spaghetti and meatballs my mom had “just whipped up,” leaving Mom and me to do the dishes and catch up on our “girl talk,” as Dad called it.
    Both Dan and I had noticed the looks my folks had exchanged, and had exchanged a few of our own. Dan’s barely perceptible smirk held a distinct flavor of, “I told you so.” My parents obviously knew something was up, with me coming home for a visit on short notice and bringing a man home to meet them on top of it. Miraculously, they hadn’t given Dan the third-degree