The Quiet Seduction by Dixie Browning Page B

Austin’s young married set, with all that entailed.”
    An edge of bitterness colored her voice. He’d heard weariness before—weariness, suspicion, tenderness and amusement. The bitterness was new. He didn’t like it.
    â€œBut then I ruined everything by not following therules,” she said with a whimsical little half smile that tore something inside him.
    â€œI take it you met someone else. Jake?”
    Ellen turned her cup in her hands. Callused hands, the short nails clean but unpolished. He waited. Sometimes you had to prime the pump, sometimes you didn’t. It all depended on how much pressure had built up.
    â€œYou have to understand how it was. Daddy wasn’t always so paranoid, but after the son of one of his closest friends was kidnapped and held for ransom, my freedom was cut off like you wouldn’t believe. No more tooling around town in my own car, I had to be driven everywhere. To the mall, to the club—even to the dentist.”
    Her soft bleat of laughter held little amusement. “Know what? I discovered a talent I didn’t even know I possessed. I got to be an expert on slipping my leash. It never once occurred to Daddy that I might not obey his rules, which only proves he didn’t know me at all.”
    She fell silent, and it was all Storm could do not to lead with a question. A few moments later she continued. “But then, I didn’t know him very well, either. After my mother died, he waited less than six months to start dating again. If you can call it dating. It was more like he’d take these trips, you know? I was never invited, not that I’d have gone—I mean, what girl needs to watch her father make out? Still, it would’ve been nice to be asked. They usually started with Paris. All Daddy’s girlfriends liked to shop there.”
    Storm let the words flow over him and found to his surprise that he was able to visualize a lot of what she described. Not that he thought he’d had an overprotective father. Hell, he didn’t know if he’d had one at all, other than biologically.
    He learned more about Jake—about the man in the snapshot she had framed and placed on her mantel. And yeah, he thought again that he would have liked him, although they probably wouldn’t have had much in common.
    Except for Ellen. Except for a taste for women whose subtle, understated beauty would long outlast the high-maintenance kind that probably appealed to jerks like Greg Sanders.
    â€œLooking back, I’m pretty sure the only reason Greg agreed to get engaged to me was because he wanted that partnership. I guess I sensed it even then. He and Daddy had pretty much the same kind of taste when it came to women. Young, blond, gorgeous and sophisticated, all of which I was not. Except for young, I suppose. Too young in some ways.”
    â€œDid you resent it? Your father’s other women, I mean?”
    After a few seconds she said, “You know, I’m not sure. We were never close, but I suppose I’d have resented any woman taking my mother’s place, even though I can hardly even remember her. If you mean did I resent Greg’s women, I honestly don’t know. I knew he was seeing others even when we were about to become engaged. I guess if it had really bothered me I’d have tried to do something about it.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œWell, what woman doesn’t want to be beautiful?” Her smile was droll, self-deprecating. “The trouble is, bleached hair takes too much maintenance and I’m afraid of the knife, so plastic surgery was out. I’m stuck with plain brown hair, a nose that’s too short and amouth that’s too big. Not to mention the lack of a few strategic implants.”
    â€œOh, lady, you underestimate yourself,” he said softly, and she wrinkled her nose at him.
    Tilting back her chair, she exhaled as if sharing the load had relieved some of the