Lady Love

Read Lady Love for Free Online

Book: Read Lady Love for Free Online
Authors: Diana Palmer
worry?” she asked Lila.
    “No, dear,” Lila said with an amused smile—because she already knew that Merlyn didn’t trust men and that she hadn’t really spent the night picking them up.
    “I was just having too much fun to come back,” Merlyn sighed, munching on toast and washing it down with coffee.
    “In my time,” Mrs. Radner said coldly, “decent young women didn’t carouse all night. Even at the age of twenty, Delle is not allowed to be out past midnight.”
    “You’re only twenty?” Merlyn exclaimed, staring at Delle. “And you’re…forty-five, isn’t it?” she asked Cameron with pretended innocence.
    “I’m thirty-nine,” he said coldly.
    “Nineteen years.” Merlyn shook her head, glancing at Delle. “You poor child.”
    Cameron slammed down his napkin. “Miss Forrest…!” he began furiously.
    “Do call me Jane, all my friends do,” she told him and pursed her lips in a playful kiss.
    His cheeks had a dull layer of red over them, and she was glad she wasn’t alone with him.
    “Cameron isn’t old,” Delle defended him, touching his hand lovingly. “He’s in his prime. And so masterful!”
    Merlyn sputtered into her coffee and almost choked. Cameron glared at her openly, clenching his fists on the table until the knuckles went white.
    “My, you’re in a good mood this morning, Merlyn,” Lila said. “I must go with you on your next night out.”
    “Lila!” Mrs. Radner said curtly. “You shouldn’t encourage this kind of thing. God knows, there’s enough immorality in the world.”
    “Spending the night alone in a Holiday Inn is immoral?” Merlyn asked, recovering from her lapse. Her dark eyebrows lifted as she stared at Mrs. Radner. “How?”
    The older woman looked stunned. She faltered, searching for words. “I assumed…”
    “Miss Forrest,” Cameron began again, and his black eyes glared holes in her, “you were asked to be in by midnight.”
    “No, I wasn’t, Mr. Thorpe. I was ordered to be in by midnight,” she retorted. “I don’t respond well to orders, even when they’re given by exciting dark men.”
    “Cameron,” Delle interrupted, “don’t you think…”
    “Keep out of this, Delle,” Cameron replied curtly, as if a mere woman’s comments weren’t worth listening to.
    Delle meekly inclined her head toward her plate, and Merlyn glowered at Delle. “Are you going to let him talk to you that way?” she burst out. “My goodness, you don’t have to sit there and take orders like a family pet!”
    Delle looked shocked, but her expression was nothing compared to Cameron’s. He threw down his napkin as if it were a gauntlet.
    “That’s enough,” he told Merlyn, and his voice was like deep, icy water. “That’s more than enough.”
    “You said it, honey,” Merlyn replied with a contemptuous laugh as she got to her feet, oblivious to Charlotte’s glare and Lila’s smothered grin. “I’d choke having to eat beside a male chauvinist like you. If you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to freshen up.”
    She got up with a general nod in the direction of the guests and went upstairs.
    “Male supremacist, sitting there like the first Caesar,” she muttered, stripping off her clothes and coiling her long hair up under a borrowed shower cap as she went toward the bathroom. “And that simpering child sitting there, lapping it up!” she hissed. She turned on the water and stepped under it, quickly soaping herself and as quickly washing off the lather. She grabbed a towel and dried herself, ripped off the shower cap and shook her hair dry. Cameron had made her furious enough, but that Charlotte Radner had really set her temper on fire. Snob! How dare that woman make such assumptions about her? Of course, she had to admit that she’d deliberately begun to give the wrong impression. But she was probably worth twice as much as the Radners, and she hated being put down. If this was how poor people lived, it wasn’t very pleasant. It made her think.

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