Read Love by Proxy for Free Online Page A

grandmother,” he told her with a knowing smile as he opened the passenger door of the Mercedes for her.
    “She likes elegance and style. I prefer subtlety and performance.” As he said it, he gave her own pitifully aging relic a hard glare.
    “The yardman told me to put it in here,” she said icily. “I guessed that you wouldn’t want it standing in your front yard. It might shock some of your friends.”
    “Most of my friends are dead or out of the country,” he said carelessly, getting in beside her. He cranked the car and reversed it smoothly out of the garage. “I thought you might appreciate having it out of the weather. I don’t give a damn if you park it in front of the mailbox.”
    She shifted restlessly. “Sorry.” Her eyes searched his profile, liking the strength of it. It wasn’t the epitome of male beauty, but it was a strong, earthy face, full of complexities. Like the man.
    “Are you an only child?” he asked as he drove.
    “Yes. Are you?”
    He shook his head. “I had a brother, two years younger. He was killed in Vietnam, about half a mile from where I was stationed at Da Nang.”
    “I’m sorry.” She stared at the purse in her lap. “It must have been hard on your grandmother, too.”
    “She grieved for a long time. Jackie was full of fun. He teased her, brought her flowers. He was always into something exciting. She lived through him.” His chest rose and fell gently. “I was never able to replace him in her eyes. I’m not as uninhibited. I work harder than I play.”
    “I can just see you, trying to break dance,” she murmured.
    He laughed. “I’d go through the floor,” he said with a dry glance in her direction.
    She measured the size of him and silently agreed. “What are you going to build?” she asked.
    “At the new site? A condominium.”
    “Another one?” she exclaimed. “But Chicago is full of condominiums.”
    “Not in this part of town,” he countered. “This one is specifically for elderly residents. A sort of low-cost condo.”
    “Don’t tell me you have a soft spot, too?” she teased gently.
    He glanced at her as they stopped for a red light. “Only for grandmother. So look out, if you have ideas in that direction. I gave up dreams of a wife and kids a long time ago. I’m not in the market for an over-the-hill virgin.”
    Her indrawn breath was audible over traffic. “What makes you think I’d ever be interested in you, Mount Everest!”
    “You like kissing me,” he said carelessly, and had the audacity to grin.
    “I like popcorn, too, so what?” she demanded.
    His dark eyes skimmed over her body before he moved into the throng of early-morning traffic again. “So you’re curious. Maybe I am, too.”
    “About what?” she had to ask.
    His mouth curved. “Sex.”
    She turned her gaze out the window at the skyscrapers and city traffic and blaring horns. “I imagine you’ve already forgotten everything I’ll learn for the rest of my life.”
    “I was a rounder in my youth,” he admitted. “And once or twice, things got serious. But I had great instincts for self-preservation.”
    There was an odd note in his deep, gravelly voice, and she turned her head in time to catch the tautening of his jaw. “And someone hurt you, really badly,” she said without thinking.
    The black scowl would have intimidated her if they hadn’t been moving. “Has grandmother been talking to you?” he demanded.
    “Not about your private life, no,” she returned. Her eyes fell to her lap. “I almost got engaged once. He was a nice guy. Very flashy, good family, old money.” She smiled bitterly. “We got on like a house on fire. I would have done anything for him. First love and all that. He was proper about it, though, he wanted to marry me, not seduce me. So he took me home to mother. I was nineteen and in my second year of college.” She stretched and studied the couple in a cab across from them as he made a turn.
    “Obviously you didn’t marry