Read When Somebody Loves You for Free Online Page A

office a week ago, he’d convinced himself he had a vested interest in writing an article and a passing interest in the lady herself. Passing, hell. It wasn’t going away . . . at least not anytime soon. After meeting her face-to-face, he had finally given up trying to reason out why she intrigued him. She just did.
    Rob would call it a midlife crisis. Michael called it hell. Until now the ladies in his life had been as interested as he in no-strings, no-strain relationships. This one had him thinking of hearth and home and a hundred other sappy sentiments that led smart men into trouble.
    Trouble was exactly what he was in.
    He loved to listen to her talk. Even when she was telling him to get lost, her voice had a husky, silky resonance that made him think of black lace, dark midnights, and warm, giving flesh.
    He knew a lot of sexy ladies, but this one had a certain vulnerability, an innocence, even, that was at intriguing odds with her legal prowess and the cool, confident persona she presented to the public. He wanted to crack that cold exterior. He wanted to make January thaw. Hell, he just wanted her, pure and simple. Only it wasn’t so pure. And, he had to admit, it wasn’t so simple. If it were just sexual, he could deal with it. But it wasn’t. And that was the part that was giving him trouble.
    “Why?”
    He whipped his head around to look at her. She had been quiet for so long, her soft voice startled him. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
    She met his eyes for a moment, then, lifting her chin, looked past the swishing windshield wipers to the wet highway and the curtain of dusk that cast the last of the afternoon in incandescent darkness. “Why are you doing this? Why don’t you do us both a favor and just let it go?”
    He let out a soft, self-derisive snort and swung onto the exit ramp. “I was just asking myself the same question.” He didn’t think she was ready for the truth. Not the whole of it anyway. So he offered a part of it that surprised even him.
    “Something . . . something really profound struck a chord when I heard you speak. No wait, let me finish. I think maybe I saw something in you, heard something in what you said that I used to have inside myself. Conviction. Purpose. A whole fistful of determination to make a difference. You reminded me of myself ten years ago, and until I listened to your speech, I hadn’t realized that somewhere along the way, I’d lost all those qualities that make you special.”
    He laughed. “Not exactly what you expected to hear, was it? Trust me, it wasn’t exactly what I expected to say.”
    She was silent for a long time again before finally speaking. “I’ve found no lack of conviction in your work.” Her brow furrowed as though she wasn’t very pleased with her admission.
    The compliment, he could tell, cost her. It made him smile, and it loosened his tongue even more. “I’ve been riding the wave of some earlier successes for too long now. I’ve been content, blindly so, to slide along with a much softer perspective. Fluff, even. I—I guess I finally realized that I don’t like myself much these days. Not so much for the work I’m doing, but for what I’m not doing. When I went to that conference and heard you, really heard what you were saying, it hit me like a missile. It’s time I get back on track. And I owe you for the eye-opener.”
    Once more, she was a long time responding. “I find it difficult to accept credit for a decision that was yours alone to make.”
    He grinned and thought of the date he’d broken for tonight, not to mention the assignment in the Bahamas he’d turned down because he hadn’t wanted to leave without settling this business with her. “If you believe you weren’t instrumental in some decisions I’ve made lately, you’re dead wrong.”
    “I believe people have it within themselves to determine their own course of action.”
    “That may very well be, but in the right place, at the