True Bliss

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Book: Read True Bliss for Free Online
Authors: Stella Cameron
at William's smooth authority. The guy liked challenge! Sebastian liked people who liked challenge. "Yes, you're right. I have another appointment."
    Beater, the "ugly front-office statement," levered his part Do-berman, part English sheepdog body off the polished slate and fell in at his master's heel.
    Finally closed inside his private elevator, Sebastian allowed himself to soak up a few moments of blissful peace before reaching into Nose's envelope and extracting the contents.
    He scanned the first sheet of paper, his gaze shifting rapidly over essential facts. Thirty-two. Owner-director of Hole Point, a

    colony for artists in any medium. Former professor in the Women's Studies Department at the University of Washington. Undergraduate degree from Georgetown. Master's, Georgetown. Doctorate, Harvard.
    The elevator came to a gentle stop and the doors to the foyer of the building slid silently open. Sebastian nodded to the doorman and walked outside into a hot, airless afternoon. He preferred to drive himself, in his vehicle of choice—a black Ford pickup. The current model stood at the curb. When Beater had lumbered into the back, Sebastian got into the cab, started the engine and turned on the air-conditioning.
    A second sheet of paper contained, in black-and-white terms, the facts he'd hoped would be confirmed. Unmarried. Unmarried now, and never married before.
    Euphoria might be inappropriate under the circumstances, but he felt it anyway—until he remembered Maryan.
    Why had she chosen today to show up?
    Sonuvabitch! Something had to give with her. The drugs and booze, the sex—always with much younger men, the tantrums that grew wilder. She needed to go into a treatment center— another treatment center.
    He slammed the steering wheel. Last time she'd promised she wouldn't backslide. And he'd been fool enough to believe it.
    Later. Today was too important to louse up with Maryan's sick obsessions.
    Beneath the second sheet of paper lay a photograph.
    Bliss.
    Sebastian's gut smacked together. This was the first time he'd seen her as anything but the serious-faced seventeen-year-old in the snapshots he locked in a fireproof safe wherever his present home happened to be.
    Red-brown hair, parted slightly off-center, fell sleek and straight, to curve toward a pointed chin. The face was a little thinner than he remembered, but he did remember it—perfectly.
    He glanced away, through the side window, at a group of teenage advertisements for Banana Republic. The kids laughed

    as they crossed the street, tossed their expensively cut hair, rugged on the sleeves of cotton sweaters tied about their waists.
    Fifteen years. Fifteen years ago he'd been a teenager—almost twenty it was true, but still a teenager.
    The woman in the picture stared at him with beautiful, honest, dark-blue eyes. Her lips were parted, just a little, in a faint smile. Turned from the camera slightly, her expression showed a hint of self-consciousness. He rested a forefinger on the mouth, outlined the jaw, and got the fleeting impression he felt her soft warmth. And his belly grew even tighter, so tight his next breath wasn't easy.
    Successful, smart men who had outrun a past that would finish many, kept on running. They didn't turn back and risk opening old wounds that had healed too many years ago to open on their own. Fresh wounds could only be deliberately inflicted now.
    He slid the papers back into the envelope, but left the photograph on top and set them all on the seat beside him.
    Just a friendly visit. A friendly visit from an old friend who was newly returned to the area. Sebastian checked his wing mirror and maneuvered into the flow of traffic. They were both grown-ups now. More than grown-ups. They'd lived a lot of years and traveled a lot of miles—they were different people entirely. Surely she'd be glad to see him.
    His shirt stuck to his back. For God's sake, he'd never managed to put her out of his mind and now he intended to try to

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