Read Lovers and Takers for Free Online Page B

sofa.   Aubrey was still seated there, returning a text message.  
    Jake unbuttoned his suit coat, a very elegant Versace suit if Roni had to venture a guess, and sat in the chair flanking the sofa.   “So with what did they bribe a smart lady like you to get you to come here tonight?” he asked her.
    Roni laughed, crossing her legs.   Jake looked down at those legs.   “Kara promised she would leave me alone forever if I came tonight.”
    “Roni!” Kara said as Jake laughed.   “Mr. Varnadore might not realize you’re joking.”
    “I’m not joking,” Roni said and Jake laughed again.   She was all right, he thought.
    “I didn’t have to bribe her at all, Mr. Varnadore,” Kara said.   “She wanted to come.”
    Roni wanted to cut a look at that lying cousin of hers, but she didn’t bother.   It wasn’t going to matter in the end anyway.   Pretty boy Floyd here would try to seduce Roni, Roni would turn him down, and that would be the end of this waste of an evening anyway.  
    “You have a beautiful home,” Roni said, instead.
    “Thank-you.”
    “I’ve always thought South Beach was the place to be.”
    “You live in this area?”
    Roni snorted.   “I wish.   I have a small house in Miami Gardens actually, and I’m struggling just to stay there.”
    Kara could not believe her cousin.   Rich people didn’t want to hear about your struggles!   Too much information , she wanted to whisper in Roni’s ears.  
    “South Beach has its limits too,” Jake said.
    Roni agreed.   “No, you’re right about that.   There’s no perfect place.   But I mean in terms of a family life.   I just think having the privacy of a closed estate provides that kind of life.   The kind you seemed to have built here for Aubrey and Pam.   No wonder they turned out to be such nice people.”
    She’d never know how wonderful that made Jake feel .   Of all of his accomplishments, raising his two children alone after the divorce and doing a good job of it was his proudest achievement.   “Thank-you,” was all he was willing to say out loud, however.
    And Pam and Kara picked up the torch and began what turned out to be a long conversation about raising families in various neighborhoods around South Florida.   Jake, by sitting in the chair flanking the sofa, had the vantage point of being able to watch Roni as she watched Pam and Kara.    And he watched her intently.   She had a quiet dignity about her, he thought, as if she was in the group, but not of the group.   Not because she was above the group, but because she wasn’t the joiner type.
    She sat there, her legs crossed, her small, clean hands on her lap, as she listened with rapt attention to two young ladies who were obviously trying to impress their young men.   Every woman he’d ever dated since his divorce would be chiming in too, trying to impress him, but Roni, to his pleasant surprise, didn’t even make a pitch.   In fact, later, after the talk died down, it was he who had to get her to discuss anything at all about herself.
    “So,” he said, when the conversation stalled, “what do you do for a living, Miss Wingate?”
    “Call me Roni, please,” Roni said.
    “I will, thank-you.”
    “She’s a lawyer, Mr. Varnadore,” Kara quickly interjected.
    Aubrey rolled his eyes.   “Shakara!” he said.
    Kara looked at him.   “What?”
    “Dad was talking to Roni.”
    “Well you were ignoring me by answering all of those text messages, which is rude by the way.”
    “I do have a business to run.”
    “That’s your daddy’s business to run, not yours,” she replied.
    “Tell him, Kara,” Druce said with a grin.
    Jake looked at Roni.   Roni smiled.   “I run a law center,” she said.
    “Ah. In private practice?”
    “Not quite.   I run the Wingate Law Center.   It’s a non-profit that works to exonerate incarcerated men and women who were wrongfully accused.”
    “Oh,” Jake said, fascinated.   “Sort of like Barry