Read Her Summer with the Marine: A Donovan Brothers Novel (Entangled Bliss) for Free Online Page A

nodded, but she also squirmed a little in the chair.
    He hadn’t made it this far in life by being oblivious to signs of stress and discomfort. Like a good poker player uses tells to win a pot or fold before he has too many chips committed, he could work discomfort to his favor.
    His conscience tweaked. Doing that suddenly felt all wrong. She was upset about her dad. It almost seemed sinful to be pushing her into a deal.
    Still, she needed the money, and he’d come up with a fairly sweet sum.
    He slid the manila folder across her desk. “Here it is.”
    She hesitated. Blew her breath out on a long sigh. Stared at the envelope for a few seconds. And finally caught his gaze.
    “I can’t sell.”
    He struggled not to react but couldn’t stop a “What?” from escaping.
    “My dad wants me to stay around so we can see each other every day.”
    That’s all? Geez . She’d about stopped his heart over nothing. “You can stay in town without having to run the funeral home. Hell, I’ll even let you live here for as long as you need to. That way if you bring your dad home for holidays, you’d be here. You could let him think you still owned the place.”
    She peered over at him with a long, cool look that totally perplexed him. “You want me to lie?”
    “It wouldn’t be a lie. It would be more like a charade.”
    “A charade is a lie.”
    “What difference does it make? You’re trying to get some cash and keep your dad happy. My deal gives you the chance to do both.”
    “You might think lying is an acceptable way to get what you want, but my father and I have never lied to each other. If I sell this place, it will be with his knowledge. Maybe not his consent, since he’s not always mentally here, but he made his wishes known today, and I won’t lie to him.”
    He sucked in a breath, closed his eyes, then popped them open again. “So what you’re saying is that your dad wouldn’t give you consent when you visited him today?”
    “This isn’t just about consent. It’s about him being comfortable.”
    “So what do we have to do to make him comfortable?”
    “ You don’t have to do anything. I have to keep the place running and visit him.”
    He rubbed his hand across his chin. “Okay, let’s go at this one more time. This is all about your needing to be in town. I’ve offered you the apartment upstairs for as long as you want. This morning I all but told you that you won’t get even half the town’s business. You’re going to fail.”
    “You don’t know that.”
    “Of course I know that.” Those damned hormones started to hum again. “I’m a businessman. I’ve been here for six months. I’ve been working a strategy to get the locals to come to me for funeral services.” She caught his gaze with brown eyes that had filled with fire, and heat saturated his blood. “I’ve already got half. The other half are coming around. How do you expect to compete with someone who’s already got a six-month jump on you?”
    “I’ll think of something.”
    “Really?” Anger replaced a desire to negotiate. Why was it the more she argued, the hotter she looked? “And how do you propose to do that?”
    “I don’t know.” She passed her tongue along her lips. “But I’m not dumb and I’ve got a team.”
    “A team that’s going to cost you at least half the money you’ll make! Don’t you see what a losing proposition this is for you?”
    “Are you calling me stupid?”
    He pulled back, stopped his anger. He wasn’t mad at her as much as he was furious with his hormones— their hormones. She was sending off as many signals that she was fighting an attraction as he was. So how much of this argument was about business and how much of it was about denial? He couldn’t answer that, but it might be wise to step away from the negotiations until they both cooled down.
    He counted to ten, relaxed his muscles, and smiled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get excited.” He smiled again. “All I’m doing