All Roads Lead Home by Christine Johnson

Author:Christine Johnson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2011-03-31T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

What was Mariah thinking? She was walking straight into danger. Gillard looked more and more the predator after her secret came out. Here she was on his turf and at his mercy. Hendrick stared at the woman he thought he knew. Stay in Frank Gillard’s house alone? Tell him to leave? What had come over her? He wasn’t about to leave her.

“I’ll have my housekeeper make up two more rooms.” A smile snaked across Gillard’s lips. “Glad you saw reason, Mr. Simmons.”

On the surface it was a compliment, but beneath the words lurked a hint of superiority. Hendrick knew when he was being put down. He’d taken it from the wealthy Pearlman families all his life. Oh, they didn’t come out and say he was beneath them, but he could tell they thought it by the way they talked to him and how they hesitated before shaking hands. Yes, Hendrick’s hands were callused, but it was from good, honest labor—something people like Gillard would never know.

Or Mariah. She smiled at the snake. “Thank you for your gracious hospitality.”

“My pleasure. Let’s retire to the living room.” Gillard wrapped her hand around his arm and led her out of the room. “I hope you find everything to your satisfaction.”

“More than satisfying,” she purred.

It was nauseating. Hendrick wanted to yank her away from Gillard’s clutches, even if he had to drag her, kicking and screaming, from the house, but, of course, he couldn’t do that. Instead, he had to watch this disgusting spectacle. She was making a fool of herself, which he intended to point out the moment they were free of the man.

That took far too long. Gillard first called in the housekeeper to order two more rooms readied. He then had coffee served in the living room. After another hour of tedious conversation in which Gillard extolled his accumulated wealth and expressed again his desire to re-create his family, they finally retired to bed.

After Anna settled into her bedroom, Hendrick could finally talk to Mariah. “What do you think you’re doing, staying here overnight?” He could barely spit out the words.

“Doing what I came here to do,” she said, hand on her bedroom door.

“Can’t you tell he’s playing up to you so you’ll give him Luke?”

She rolled her eyes. “Surely you realize I’m bright enough to see that.”

“I was beginning to wonder.” But her words did make him feel a bit better. “I don’t think he’ll tell you anything.”

“I know it’s unlikely, but I must try.” She glanced up and down the hall. “I wonder what’s behind these doors.”

“I don’t know. Bedrooms, I suppose.”

“And who might be in them?”

Had she gone mad? “You, me and Anna.”

“Exactly.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “But is that all?”

He had to lean close to hear, and her scent flooded his senses, driving away anger and replacing it with painful desire. “What do you mean?”

“Come this way,” she whispered, her breath tickling his ear.

She could have told him to jump into an icy creek, and he would have obeyed.

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