Free How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams by Dorothy Cannell Page A

chest.”
    “He shave it!” Gerta gathered Tam into her arms and reached out a hand for Abbey, who showed no eagerness to be budged.
    “When you’ve got muscles like his, I say flaunt ’em.” In another moment Mrs. Malloy would have her hands all over the television screen.
    “It is unnatural, it is sick, it is against what the Bible teaches. I know it is not my place to say this to you, Frau Haskell, but I have to live inside myself.” Before bundling the children out the door, Gerta gave me a look that expressedmore clearly than words her fear that I was the Demon Mummy.
    With the study mercifully ours alone, Mrs. Malloy and I perched on the edge of our seats, biting down on our lips to keep from moaning when the man himself—not the cover shot—appeared on the screen.
    “Welcome, Karisma.” The interviewer, an attractive blond woman in a black suit and pearls, sat resolutely back in her chair. The intensity of her gaze, however, was not one-hundred-percent professional. “Welcome to
Good Morning
U.K.” She dragged her eyes away from him to face the camera. “For those viewers just tuning in, I am Joan Richards. And today I have with me in the studio the man hailed as every woman’s ultimate fantasy.”
    “Thank you, Joan.” Karisma shook back his tousled mane and smiled his heart-stopping smile.
    Miss Richards pressed a hand to her throat and quickly converted the gesture into playing with her pearls. “Karisma—you have the most amazing hair. Do you have to work at it?”
    “Every day of my life.” Karisma spoke with a sincerity that was impossible to resist, especially when it was accompanied by that thrilling hint of a continental inflection. “It is not true I was born beautiful. My hair”—he slid his fingers through it so that it spilled in sensual splendour through his hand—“it looks like this, because always I use the body-building shampoo. It is a discipline with me, but one I embrace with my entire soul … because I
lorve
women. All women. Everywhere.”
    “There are women from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s”—Mrs. Malloy gripped the arms of her chair—“who are having orgasms right this very minute.”
    “Well, don’t you have one.” I glared at her. “I’d like to be able to hear what he’s saying.”
    “Karisma, I understand”—Ms. Richards spoke brightly over the ping-pinging of her pearls dropping off her neck onto the studio floor—“that you left Spain as a teenager because your father wanted you to be a bullfighter.”
    “I lorve animals.”
    “And how do you feel about your critics?”
    “I
lorve
them. For someone like me”—Karismashrugged his black leather shoulders and spread his hands in a gesture that was as beautiful as it was expressive—“there is no bad publicity.”
    “Then you were not offended …” Ms. Richards reached out to touch his knee, but swiftly came to her professional senses. “Then you were not the least bit upset by the tabloid article that accused you of being the only man alive who would pick up his dinner plate in order to look at his reflection in it?”
    “A newspaper’s job is to sell newspapers.”
    “And yours, Karisma?”
    “To adore women, to make every one of them know that she is a treasure to be caressed and cherished for-ever-more.” That way he had of rolling his r’s and making every syllable sing would have made him irresistible even had he not appeared to be looking into my eyes alone, so that I was drawn into their wondrous depths, down labyrinths of pleasure …
    Unfortunately Mrs. Malloy had to ruin the moment by falling back in her chair, flinging wide her arms, and crying out, “Take me, Karisma, take me—I’m yours!” Talk about reducing the sublime to the ridiculous!
    I missed most of what he had to say about
Desire
, his new fragrance for women, and his latest exercise video.
    “Your calendar is a lunar sensation.” Ms. Richards had undone the top button of her suit jacket and