Free After Midnight by Diana Palmer Page B

pass. “I do favor it, but not above conservation, and it depends on what’s being threatened. Some species are going to become extinct despite all our best efforts, you do realize that?”
    â€œYes,” she said. “But it seems to me that we’re paving everything these days. It’s a travesty!”
    â€œI’ve heard of development projects that were stopped because of the right sort of intervention by concerned parties. But it isn’t a frequent occurrence,” he remarked.
    â€œI hate a world that equates might with right.”
    â€œNevertheless, that’s how the system works. The people with the most money and power make the rules. It’s always been that way, Nikki. Since the beginning of civilization, one class leads and other classes serve.”
    â€œAt the turn of the century, industrialists used to trot out Scientific Darwinism to excuse the injustices they practiced to further their interests,” she observed.
    â€œScientific Darwinism,” he said, surprised. “Yes, the theory of survival of the fittest extended from nature to business.” He shook his head. “Incredible.”
    â€œIt’s still done,” she pointed out. “Big fish eat little fish, companies which can’t compete go under…”
    â€œAnd now we can quote Adam Smith and a few tasty morsels from The Wealth of Nations, complete with all the dangers of interfering in business. Let the sinking sink. No government intervention.”
    She stared at him curiously. “Are you by any chance a closet history minor?” she queried with a smile.
    â€œI took a few courses, back in the dark ages,” he confessed. “History fascinates me. So does archaeology.”
    â€œMe, too,” she enthused. “But I know so little about it.”
    â€œYou could go back to school for those last two semesters,” he suggested. “Or, failing that, you could take some extension courses.”
    She hesitated. “That would be nice.”
    But she didn’t have the means. She didn’t have to say it. He knew already. She’d ducked her head as she spoke, and she looked faintly embarrassed.
    She had to stop spouting off, she told herself firmly. Her tongue would run too far one day and betray her brother to this man. She hadn’t lied about college, though. Part of the terms of her settlement with Mosby Torrance at their divorce was that he would pay for her college education. Andhe had. She’d worked very hard for her degree. The pain she’d felt at her bad experience had spurred her to great heights, but she hadn’t been able to finish. She’d had to drop out just after her junior year to help Clayton campaign. Kane didn’t know that.
    â€œWhat do you do for a living?” he asked suddenly.
    She couldn’t decide how to answer him. She couldn’t very well say that she hostessed for her brother. On the other hand, she did keep house for him.
    â€œI’m a housekeeper,” she said brightly, and smiled.
    He’d hoped she might have some secret skill that she hadn’t shared with him. She seemed intelligent enough. But apparently she had no ambition past being her boyfriend’s kept woman. That disappointed him. He liked ambitious, capable women. He was strong himself and he disliked women whom he could dominate too easily or overwhelm.
    â€œI see,” he said quietly.
    He looked disappointed. Nikki didn’t add anything to what she’d said. It was just as well that he lost interest in her before things got complicated, she told herself. After all, she could hardly tell him who she really was.

Chapter Five
    N ikki put the dishes away while Kane wandered around the living room, looking at the meager stock of books in the shelves. She sounded like she was well-read, but the only books he noted were rather weathered ones on law.
    â€œThey were my father’s,” she told him. “He