Illegal Possession by Kay Hooper

Author:Kay Hooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553905007
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

SIX

DALLAS CAUGHT THE pouch easily in one hand. He stepped from behind the reading chair in the corner and crossed to the desk, where he rested a hip on the edge and watched her gravely.

“I don’t believe it,” Troy said, her voice shaking with rage. “I do not believe it. It was all there, right under my nose and I didn’t see it.”

He waited silently, aware that she was, at the moment, more angry with herself than with him. The anger with him would come later.

Troy was pacing like a caged tigress. “A setup. And I walked right into it like a rank amateur. No wonder the security system was so lax: no wonder the house was conveniently empty.” Even in the midst of her tirade Troy realized that there were conflicting emotions feeding her anger. She was angry with herself for having been too preoccupied to read the signs of a setup and furious with Dallas for making her feel like a fool. And since the latter anger could be safely vented, she let it have its way.

“And you.” She whirled on him suddenly, her eyes glaring green fury. “How dare you do this to me! How dare you.”

“I was trying to make a point,” Dallas murmured, refusing to meet anger with anger.

“What point?” she demanded witheringly.

“That I could be conned like three kinds of a fool?”

He ignored that. “Tell me, Troy. When I told you before that I didn’t think what you do is wrong, did you believe me?”

“No,” she snapped.

“And now?” he asked softly.

Troy stared at him, completely missing the point for a moment because of her anger. Then, slowly, she understood what he meant. “The money,” she said dully. “The bonds, the jeweler’s case. It was all a—a test, wasn’t it?”

Dallas shook his head immediately. “No, it wasn’t a test; I was proving a point. Troy, I knew damn well that you’d take only the figurine—”

“Was that other stuff supposed to tempt me?” she asked tightly.

“It would have tempted a thief,” Dallas responded, “but you aren’t a thief.” He looked at her with a hint of pleading in his eyes. “I mistakenly called you a thief; I don’t want that standing between us.”

Determined to hang on to her anger at least long enough to air her grievances thoroughly, Troy ignored the plea. “This is your house, isn’t it? Did you hire Chris Jordan to impersonate an anxious victim of theft?”

“He’s a friend. Troy—”

“Is this your house?”

“Yes.”

“And Roberts. The supposed thief? Another friend?”

“Yes—”

“Why couldn’t we trace the deed to this house?”

“You aren’t the only one with sources. I made sure the deed was temporarily misplaced.”

Troy stared at him. “That’s illegal.”

“Isn’t it though.”

“Scrupulously legal Dallas Cameron illegally suppressing a deed?”

“You’ve turned me into a criminal,” he said, suddenly mournful.

Totally against her will, she felt a laugh rising in her throat. The one perfect gem of Dallas’s unlawful tampering had destroyed her temper as nothing else could have done.

Encouraged by her obvious amusement, Dallas continued along the same lines.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.