Free Different Dreams by Tory Cates Page B

your position, your money, and besides, you’re no troll. And don’t duck the question.”
    â€œNo troll, eh? Thanks for the stunning evaluation.” Cam raked her with a mocking grin. “Hmmm, I don’t know what to tell you, Malou. There have been women in my life, probably too many in my more boisterous youth, but fewer and fewer as the years go along. I suppose the turning point came a couple of years ago. I’d just finished a project and turned the developed land over tothe builder. He staged this huge, gala affair and invited every San Antonio notable he thought could get him an inch in the society columns.
    â€œI ended up with what is generally regarded as San Antonio’s most beautiful woman on my arm, squiring her to the event of the year. Should have been a moment of glorious triumph, right?”
    â€œThe elements sound right,” Malou agreed, peeved at herself for the twinge of jealousy that shot through her at the thought of San Antonio’s most beautiful woman on Cam’s arm.
    Cam shook his head. “At the time I was halfway through a John Grisham novel, and the whole night all I could think about was that book and how much I’d rather be home reading. From then on I always asked myself one question before I went out. Would I rather be home reading? I was amazed at how often the answer was yes. Why are you laughing? Do you prefer the indefatigable stud ever ready for any action from any corner?”
    â€œNo,” Malou countered. “I’m laughing because that’s the exact question that’s kept me happily at home tucked in bed many a night. I just didn’t think that a man like you would ever ask it of himself.”
    â€œSorry to disappoint you.”
    â€œI’m far from disappointed,” Malou answered, noticing that, somewhere in this totally unexpected conversation, the knot in her stomach had untied itself. She nolonger felt strangled by intricacies she didn’t understand. Cam no longer seemed like such a menacing mystery. “So, you’re a Grisham fan. Who else do you read?”
    â€œName the author, I’ve probably tried him or her at one time. Books, they were my salvation. Everyone I grew up with was always looking for a way out. Most of the kids found it in drinking, drugs, sniffing glue, fast cars, whatever made them forget for a little while. I was lucky. I turned on early to books and nothing else afterward ever came close to that high, the ability of the printed word to put you into whatever world you chose.” Cam stopped himself with a self-deprecating chuckle.
    â€œDoesn’t exactly fit my image as the ruthless developer with no social conscience or thought for anything other than that almighty bottom line, huh?”
    Malou winced inwardly as he verbalized exactly what she had expected him to be. “So you hung out with a fast crowd when you were a kid.”
    â€œFast?” Cam repeated. “Not really. Where I grew up, that was the only speed there was. You still don’t have the complete picture of what the boyhood of Cameron Landell was like, do you?”
    â€œI suppose I don’t. Why don’t you fill me in? How about some basic stuff like, where did you grow up?”
    â€œI’m flattered that you can’t guess.”
    â€œFlattered?” Malou echoed, liking the companionable ease that had sprung up between them.
    â€œYes, my part of the world is not exactly renowned for the melodiousness of its accents. Come on, try to guess.”
    Malou cocked her head one way, then the other, as if she could find a clue to his place of origin if she studied his face hard enough. “I don’t know, but you have a decided Mediterranean look to you.”
    â€œSwarthy, eh?”
    â€œWell, something that would suggest you have ancestors lurking somewhere who were not unfamiliar with the taste of olive oil.” That “something” Malou jestingly referred