Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
On her lips, the words were sexy as hell.
“Where did you find her?”
She waved a hand. “A private seller.”
“I bought mine from a private seller too.”
She didn’t even raise an eyebrow, as if she’d known he’d make his dream come true. The way he’d made all his dreams come true.
Except one.
He marveled at their similar paths. A flat in the same neighborhood. Their headquarters in the same downtown district. The same car in the garage.
She must have been thinking about him over the years. Otherwise, why would she buy that car? What was she trying to prove?
The attendant handed her the keys, and she rounded the hood to the driver’s side, while Ransom opened the passenger door. He had to bend deeply to slide into the low-slung car, and once in, his head almost touched the roof. But the nice thing about the Pantera was its legroom.
Not the easiest car to drive, though. You really had to control the clutch or it would stall, especially on the San Francisco hills.
But as she revved the engine and gunned out of the parking garage, Ransom knew Ava Harrington would never stall this car.
* * *
The thing Ransom Yates had loved second best to cooking was a sports car. When they were together, he’d driven a beat-up old Alfa Romeo that broke down as often as it ran. But he’d always said that when he had the money, he’d buy a Pantera.
Ava hadn’t bought the car because of him. She’d simply fallen in love with the sleek styling when he talked about it.
Naturally, he would have bought one himself.
She’d chosen San Juan Bautista in order to check on Mrs. Greeley after the other day’s horrific incident. But she also wanted Ransom stuck in the passenger seat for ninety minutes while she drove south. And maybe, too, she wanted to show him how she’d mastered the car. The first few times she’d taken it out, she’d stalled it over and over. Pounding the steering wheel, she’d been certain Ransom would never stall his. But she’d conquered the beauty, had become its complete and total boss.
As she negotiated the San Francisco traffic heading out to Highway 280, usually the clearest route down to San Juan Bautista, it struck her that they were like two halves of a whole. The same Pantera, living in Pacific Heights, high-rise headquarters in the city.
Dammit, she was not his other half. She didn’t need Ransom Yates to make her feel whole.
But she did love this car, loved its power beneath her hands.
When they’d merged onto the freeway, he said, “You might just handle her better than I do.”
“That’s because it needs a woman’s intuition, listening to it and feeling what it wants. Instead of a man trying to bend the car to his will.” She pulled into the fast lane and realized she’d jumped all over him because of her own emotions. But he was actually paying her a compliment. So she said very softly, “Thank you.”
Since it wasn’t rush hour, there was little traffic, and it was almost a straight shot down to San Juan Bautista, with just a couple of freeway changes.
“So,” Ava said, “give me the rundown on your career from thirty-one to forty-six.” Without looking, she could tell he’d turned slightly in his seat. “I know you’ve done some TV.” She sounded as if she’d never seen the show. And really, she’d seen only a couple of episodes, maybe a few more, only by accident as she was flipping channels. It wasn’t a lie to act as if she didn’t know, more like an omission. “And I’ve seen your cookbooks in the bookstore. So tell me the rest.”
There were the snippets she’d heard from Dane and those couple of shows she’d watched. And maybe she’d leafed through a cookbook or two when she was breezing through a bookstore looking for something else. She’d never bought one, of course. Between the recipes, there were too many pictures of him doing what he was good at.
“You know a lot of it from when…” He let the words drift away. From when we were together.
She didn’t want to think about those times. Didn’t want his scent surrounding her in the close confines of the car. Didn’t want to feel that prickle of desire his body’s heat seemed to bring out in her. Maybe she should have let him call his driver. His car would have been bigger, and she could have pushed herself into the opposite corner, far from him. But Ransom seemed to take up the whole cabin of her sports car. She even rolled down her window for air. Being around him made it hard to breathe.
But she pushed on, just in case he tried to turn the conversation personal, the way he had last night. She would make absolutely sure they stayed all business. “Fifteen years is a long time. I can’t know everything. Catch me up.” She hoped she sounded conversational, not overly interested.