Free Butterfly by Rochelle Alers Page A

voice.
    Booth moved his chair closer, placing his hand over hers. “But I am not your father. Call me Booth.” It was a direct order.
    Seneca stared at him, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Okay, Booth. What do you want to talk about?”
    “Do you have another appointment after lunch?”
    She shook her head. “No. I’m free for the rest of the day.”
    “If that’s the case, then I’d like to eat, then talk. Is that all right with you, Seneca?”
    She lifted a shoulder. “It’s fine with me.”
    Resting his elbows on the table, Booth tented his fingers. “Is there something about me that bothers you, Seneca?”
    To say his query caught her off guard was an understatement. What did he expect her to say? That the way he was leering at her made her feel as if he were a pedophile preying on younger women, although she was past the legal age of consent?
    “Your hair is too long.” It was the only thing she could say without openly insulting him.
    Booth resisted the urge to touch the hair falling over the collar of his shirt. “How short should I cut it?”
    Her eyebrows shot up, mirroring her surprise. “You’d cut your hair for me?”
    An unnamed emotion darkened the blue-green eyes. “Let’s say I’d take your suggestion under advisement.”
    His response puzzled Seneca. “Does it really matter what I think?”
    “To a certain extent it does,” Booth countered. “Whenever I consider taking on a prospective client I ask them the same question, and I expect an honest answer.”
    “Do you always get an honest answer?” she asked.
    “Nine out of ten times I don’t. Most are so eager to please they lie to me and to themselves.”
    “So, this was a test.”
    Booth smiled. “And you passed. The next time I meet with my barber I’ll have him cut it shorter.”
    Seneca gave him a sidelong glance. “Is there something about me that bothers you, Booth?” If her question shocked him, he gave no indication as his gaze lowered to the pristine white tablecloth.
    “It bothers me that I can’t seduce you.”
    The seconds ticked before she was able to form a response. “And why not?”
    Booth’s head came up, he giving her a long, penetratinglook. “Because I’ve made it a practice not to shit where I have to eat.”
    There was another pause. “It looks as if we have the same practice,” Seneca said. “I will not sleep with you and pay you commission. That would make you my pimp and me your whore.”
    Booth’s face paled with annoyance. It wasn’t often that he met a woman like Seneca Houston. She continually challenged him, without regard to the fact that he held her future in his hands. All it took was a single telephone call or the scrawl of his pen to make her a very wealthy young woman. And like all those who’d come before her and would come after her, she wanted fame and fortune.
    Some would say she had a great attitude, while he believed she had a chip on her shoulder—a chip directed at authority figures. What Seneca Houston hadn’t realized is that she’d just used up her first strike with him.
    “Did anyone ever tell you that you have an acid tongue?”
    Seneca gave him a sensual smile. “Yes. In fact, Phillip Kingston said the same thing to me the other night.” She’d decided to broach the topic of Phillip before Booth did. “When I told you I had another engagement the night of your dinner party, it was with Phillip. We had an arrangement to leave separately, then go somewhere and talk.”
    “If I’d known you two were getting together I wouldn’t have held him up.”
    “Why did you hold him up?” she asked innocently. Seneca knew Booth’s doorman had reported back to him that she’d been waiting for Phillip, but neither of them knew what Phillip had confided to her.
    “I’d hoped you and Kingston would hit it off, because I’d like to market the two of you as a couple. I got an offer from General Motors to sign Kingston as a pitchman for the CadillacSRX. I was thinking