Read Eve for Free Online Page B

“You’re an idiot.” She jumped into the car. “Look at you. You’re drenched.” She leaned back in the seat. “Now get in the car and drive me home.”
    “Not such an idiot.” He was in the driver’s seat and starting the car. “I needed something to help you make up your mind.” He slanted a glance at her. “And I don’t melt either, Eve. At least not in the rain.”
    “I should have left you standing there in the downpour,” Eve said. “And I will next time. Or I’ll send out Teresa, one of the girls I work with. She wants to meet you.”
    “Not interested.” He smiled. “And you wouldn’t leave me out in the rain.”
    “Why not?”
    “I might rust. I’m going to be too valuable to you for you to take the chance. You’re going to like the way I move.”
    “Stop it.” She drew a deep breath. “You said we could talk. This isn’t talk. This is some kind of game I don’t know how to play.”
    “I know how to play it. And it’s all I can think about.” He stared straight ahead, watching the windshield wipers brush away the rain. “Okay. Talk. How is Manuel?”
    “Fine. It’s as if last night never happened.” She paused. “What did you do to Rick Larazo?”
    “Who said I did anything?”
    “What did you do?”
    He didn’t answer for a moment. “You don’t want to know. It took a little persuasion to make him see that confession was good for the soul.”
    “Why did you do it?”
    “It was easier for me to remove Rosa’s problem than it was for you to do it.” He paused. “And you told me you wanted it.”
    “As if that would make a difference.”
    “It made a difference. I wanted to please you.”
    “Why?”
    “Why do you think? Because I wanted you to please me. I thought there might be a return on the investment.”
    “You thought I’d screw you if you did that for Rosa?”
    He sighed. “If you want to put it bluntly.”
    “I do. I hate people who beat around the bush. And I didn’t tell you to go after Larazo.” She added grudgingly, “Though I might have done it if I’d thought it would work. He deserved to be punished.”
    “Oh, he was.”
    “But I wouldn’t screw you as some kind of reward. That would be nuts.”
    “It wouldn’t if it turned out to be a mutual reward. I was just hoping to sway you a little in my direction.” He lifted his brow. “Are you swayed?”
    “No.”
    “Then I’ll have to keep on trying.” They had reached the housing development, and he pulled the car over to the curb across the street from the project. “I’ve only just begun.”
    The rain was pounding on the roof of the car and enveloping them in a rhythmic sound that had its own intimacy.
    Intimacy. That was what Eve had been trying to avoid, and all of a sudden it was there, surrounding her.
    “Thanks for the lift.” She reached for the handle of the door. “Good night.”
    “It’s still pouring. Stay a minute until it lets up.”
    “I have to get to bed. I have school tomorrow.”
    “No mother waiting anxiously for her little girl?”
    “No.”
    “You were all bent out of shape when I mentioned drugs. You took it personally. Is she the user?”
    She didn’t answer directly. “I hate what they do to you.”
    He nodded. “She’s the user. I don’t like them, either. My uncle was on prescription drugs for a while, and it turned him into another person. Does she make it rough on you?”
    “You mean, does she beat me? No, she’s not like that even when she’s on the stuff. She just wants everything pretty, and it looks that way to her when she sees it through a veil of crack. She doesn’t see that everything is really falling to pieces around her.”
    “Not a good life for you.”
    “I manage,” she said tersely. “Keep your pity, I don’t need it.”
    “I don’t pity you.” He smiled. “I wouldn’t let myself. It might get in the way of getting what I want. I told you that was my main objective.”
    “Why?” She looked straight ahead. “Why