Free Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers by kps Page B

had got here, and what had taken place before she'd fallen asleep-or passed out. There would be a time for regrets and for self-searching-God, what would Mrs. Preakness be thinking? Would she have sent a search-party out, or would they know already?-not now. Not yet. It was much better not to think. Take another mouthful of these really delicious eggs-bite into a crusty, buttered muffin that Webb handed to her without a word. Don't wonder what he was thinking!
    He had pulled on a pair of faded, pale-blue levis, and he ate much faster than she did, pouring coffee for her after he had finished. And still she couldn't read any expression at all on his face-not even in his eyes when they rested almost imper-sonally on her naked breasts. How could you know someone so closely in a physical sense, Anne wondered, and yet not know them at all? Last night he had been half-satyr, half-man, and today he seemed nothing more than an indifferent, polite stranger, urging more food on her when her appetite suddenly waned.
    "Have some more, Annie. You look like you could use feeding up."

    She flushed, pushing the plate back as she shook her head, suddenly miserably aware that she wasn't nearly as well endowed as Carol, or even Tanya. Was that what he meant?
    Webb wished she didn't look so vulnerable and so young, with the color coming up to stain her cheekbones-pale-red wine in a goblet of translucent alabaster. She made him feel like an executioner, and he wasn't used to the feeling. And yet, damn her innocent blue eyes, she'd been playing games all along. A better actress than anyone would have thought, to look at her. And she could even blush ... His eyes narrowed at her, and he didn't know why he felt angry. What the hell, she was fantastic in bed; there were no inhibitions under that little-girl exterior. But she was Richard Reardon's daughter. He mustn't forget that. Suddenly, angrily, he found himself wanting to strip away all the pretenses she'd surrounded herself with from the first, just as his senses urged him to strip away the sheets that were modestly draped across her slim thighs.
    Reardon's daughter. Kept under wraps by her father's choice of a husband. So far as he knew, no one had ever realized that Reardon had a daughter, a vulnerable spot in his armor. Reardon the King-Maker, as one daring Washington columnist had dubbed him. But then, very few people dared mention Reardon, who was strictly a behind-the-scenes figure, head of a shadowy organization so secret that it didn't even have initials. The only reason Webb knew was because he had once been a part of it, one of "Reardon's boys," until he'd grown wise and much more cynical. One of the few to get out from under and survive, and that only because of Ria, who hadn't survived. Ria, who shouldn't have been involved at all.
    Why now, of all times, did he have to remember Ria, after all the years he'd spent carefully trying to forget her, wiping her memory from his mind by using every other woman he met as just another cardboard image to hold up between himself and the clean, innocent reality that had been Ria before he'd screwed everything up and Ria had died to prove it? Even now, his mind slewed away from that thought. Reardon had been responsible. Cold-blooded, computer-minded bastard, living in a rarified atmosphere where people became pins on a map, to be moved around or discarded at will.
    He hadn't let himself remember for a long time. But Anne had brought back the memories and the hatred. The time when all he'd thought about or planned was killing Reardon. And here he was with Reardon's hidden-away daughter.
    What in hell was he doing, anyhow-making excuses? For Anne, or for his own mixed-up feelings for her? Anger, mostly at himself, made Webb's voice harsher than he intended it to be; almost jeering.
    "What's the matter, Annie? Not hungry anymore? Or are you starting to worry about what your husband might do if he knew where you were right now?"
    Her shoulders grew