Read Driven By The Hero (Hero Romance 1) for Free Online

sorry, Laura but… I just can’t. Not with Claudia suffering at home. You’re wonderful and if things were different, I… I…”
    There was no need for him to finish the sentence. Laura knew. She knew how foolish it would have been, not only emotionally, to act as a proverbial “other” woman, but professionally as well. They both knew that were this to ever make the office rounds, they’d be lucky to even collect severance. Besides, what were the chances of a man as eccentric, brilliant and charismatic as Rick sticking around for the likes of a frumpy HR rep anyhow?
    She left that night feeling dejected, but assured. That was nine months ago, and she had only seen Rick briefly in passing four or five times.
    She thought of him briefly as she lit another cigarette. She let it smolder, periodically taking a puff.  She finished the last of her wine and closed down her laptop. It was 1:19 in the morning and she had to be up a little over five hours. She fell asleep, as she often did most Wednesday nights, in little more than a pair of sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt.

CHAPTER TWO
    Jack DiStefano sat at the bar of the Omni, nursing the same glass of scotch he had been sipping on for the past forty-five minutes. Even though he didn’t have to be in Newport for the auction until that Sunday, he wanted to plan his trip accordingly. He had been coming to Providence once or twice a year for over twenty years now—ever since the collapse of his marriage—and had long since fallen in love with the charms of the waterfront city; the vibrant artistic culture, the scent of the fires burning across Waterplace Park in August, the very electricity and spirit that haunted the streets year-round captivated him, rejuvenating him. He forgot he was 57 years old the minute the taxi parked in front of the Omni. Each year, he felt the pull of the small but bustling downtown area seeping its way into his veins. He promised himself that soon, he’d move operations from Miami to downtown Providence. Who needed all the gaudy and transparent glitz and shallowness of South Beach when these streets were haunted by a spirit that made him feel so goddamned alive? Manhattan and Miami both bowed to the narcissist in him, placating a rich, middle-aged man’s ego; but Providence was where he could feel anonymous and reborn again.
    Jack’s bread and butter was in real estate development, but his passion was for art collecting; and Newport hosted some of the finest private collections in the country. These were reserved collections, for serious bidders; and Jack had his eyes on a few Francis Bacon canvases to round out his collection. He considered himself a Bacon fanatic, his eyes tuned in like magnets to the strange visceral contortions of the figures and the stark, primal savagery of the colors. It was a collection that few of his colleagues understood, other than as a passive name to be dropped to appear more cutting-edge than other dilettante collectors. But Jack was deadly serious about his love for Bacon. Original canvases took up prominent display in the Gramercy Park condo where he lived the six months of the year he wasn’t scouting, developing and prospecting from his Miami operations.
    It was Thursday night, and Jack had already noticed that two attractive young women were attempting to appear coy gazing in his direction from the other end of the bar for the better part of half an hour. One, a short but heavily made-up redhead, made no small notice of the act of licking her lips seductively each time she took a sip of her martini; while the other, bedecked with a wild mane of teased hair, strategically leaned over her drink from time to time, displaying ample cleavage for the eyes of glazed over salesmen and investment managers milling about the dimly lit room. Escorts , he thought, chuckling to himself at the thought that this was, after all, still semi-Puritan New England. But what’s the harm? Let’s play their game.  Might be