Free Dangerously In Love by Allison Hobbs Page A

series of rapid head nods, nonverbally communicating, Dag, can’t you see I’m busy? Go ahead, leave! Roll out!
    Flustered by the eye contact with the bartender, Dayna didn’t pick up Cecily’s signal; she continued to ramble until she caught a glimpse of Cecily’s strained smile. She bade Cecily and Kendrick a speedy good-bye, gave Cecily two quick air kisses, and fled the restaurant as well as the penetrating eyes of the devastatingly handsome bartender.
    She immediately spotted her Chrysler in the well-lit parking lot, disarmed it, and slid inside. As she mentally reviewed the highly intense connection with the bartender, Dayna could feel a bright shade of pink rising from beneath her honey-toned skin. With all those pretty, slender chicks surrounding him, she wondered how he even noticed her. Maybe she just imagined the whole thing. It didn’t matter anyway. Ending her marriage to Reed was going to deplete all her energy; it would be a long time before she had the strength to get back into the dating game.
    Dayna started her car and then remembered the pretty bottle of water she’d left at the table. She shook her head at her forgetfulness, but after locking eyes with a black Adonis, it’s a wonder she remembered her own name.

Chapter 10
    R eed ate dinner at Champagne’s Restaurant on Chelten Avenue. The combination seafood platter, three beers, plus the tip he gave the waitress had depleted his cash. He swung by the Sunoco station to gas up and to tap the ATM machine inside. After jabbing in the secret code, the message on the screen asked if he wanted to withdraw funds from checking or savings. He and Dayna had joint accounts, but she paid the household bills from the checking account and kept a running tally of the funds in that account. Reed chose to dip into their savings account to get some fun money for the evening.
    Fifty bucks would have been a sufficient amount to indulge his leisure pursuits for one night, but Reed withdrew the entire daily limit—six hundred dollars—just for spite. If his dinner had been ready, he reasoned, he wouldn’t have had to dig into his pocket for a damn meal. It was all Dayna’s fault; she only had herself to blame.
    There was no official PBP meeting at the hall on Broad Street, but he stopped by anyway just to bust it up with his brothers.
    “Yo, what’s up, Reed?” Chris Miller, a member of the PBP, greeted him. Reed didn’t like Chris; he hated the brother’s self-assured smile.
    “Give any more thought to that business deal I told you about? Man, I’m telling you, you don’t want to miss out on this venture. Now, I’m trying to put you down with some serious money.” Smiling confidently, Chris shook his head like Reed was an imbecile for not writing a check on the spot.
    “I’m on it, man. I just need a couple more weeks,” Reed said, stalling.
    According to Chris Miller, the city of Chester, though just a small town, was brimming with financial possibilities. There was talk that casino gambling was coming to Chester in the next five years and Chris had already started buying dirt-cheap property. At only thirty-two years old, Chris had inherited twelve rental properties from his deceased parents and apparently had inherited their real estate acumen as well.
    According to Chris, the deal he offered was not a get-rich-quick scheme. It was a well-planned, fail-
proof business maneuver with guaranteed mega bucks for those fortunate enough to get in on the ground floor. Chris envisioned Chester as the next Atlantic City and spoke with the confidence of Donald Trump. Chris’s next goal was to buy entire blocks of boarded-up and abandoned houses. It was a chance of a lifetime and Reed wanted in, even if it meant five more years of Dayna’s emasculating control. The problem was, Chris expected him to come up with twenty thousand dollars as soon as possible and Reed didn’t have access to that kind of cash.
    Reed’s expensive car and the home he and Dayna