Blame It on the Blackout Read Online Free

had seen the anguish in his mother’s eyes. The slump of her shoulders, the air of dejection she carried when her husband disappointed her yet again with late nights or canceled plans.
    And Peter would be damned if he’d burden another woman with that type of lifestyle, the way his father had burdened his mother. Especially a woman he cared for.
    Marriage, family, happily ever after…they weren’t for him. His entire focus was on building his business and designing software to rival the competition. Which meant he had little or no time to devote to a relationship.
    Even if he did…even if Reyware and Games of PRey were well-established enough to relax a bit, to go out and enjoy a healthy social life…he still wouldn’t.
    For Peter, it was all or nothing. He could concentrate all of his efforts on business, or he could concentrate allof his efforts on finding a wife and starting a family. He couldn’t do both. And for now—probably for the next ten or twenty years—he chose to concentrate on his work.
    It was a damn shame, though. Spending a few hours in the sack with Lucy might just have been worth losing time on a project or two.
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    The night of the charity event, Peter arranged for a limousine to pick Lucy up at seven o’clock. That gave her two and a half hours to get home from work, shower, change clothes, fix her hair and do her makeup.
    It probably shouldn’t have taken her half that long, but she wasn’t used to attending high-priced dinners and fancy fund-raisers. And the thought of going with Peter, perhaps being mistaken for his latest bit of arm candy, had her stomach in knots.
    Her apartment, only a few blocks from Peter’s town house in downtown Georgetown, was small, but served its purposes. She’d bought several paintings from a local art gallery and framed some pictures of her family and friends to decorate the otherwise sparse white walls. Small area rugs added color to the brown pile carpeting, and the African safari images on her full-size bedspread made her room feel—in her opinion, anyway—wild and exotic.
    And, of course, there was Cocoa, her beautiful, long-haired calico cat, who always rushed to the door to greet her, but ran from anyone else.
    â€œHello, baby,” she cooed, heedless of the hairs covering her skirt and jacket as she swept the cat into her arms. Cocoa began to purr and nudge Lucy’s chin with the top of her head.
    â€œAll right, all right. You’re hungry, I know.”
    As was their habit, she set the feline on the kitchen table while she opened a can of Deluxe Dinner and chopped it up into bite-size pieces on a platter with pastel pawprints and Cocoa’s name painted in flowing script.
    â€œEnjoy your liver and chicken,” she said with a kiss to the top of the cat’s head. “I have a big party tonight and need to get ready.”
    Every item she intended to wear to the benefit lay strewn across her bed, for fear she might forget something. After a quick shower, she rubbed moisturizer into her steam-warmed skin and dabbed her pulse points with her favorite perfume. Then she blew her hair dry and began the painstaking process of getting dressed.
    She started with the matching bra and panty set she’d bought to go with the red satin and black velvet gown before sliding on the black silk thigh-highs the saleslady had talked her into. Thigh-highs or stockings and a garter belt, the woman had assured her, were much sexier than panty hose.
    Personally, Lucy questioned the need for sexy lingerie for a nondate with her boss. She could walk out to the limo naked and doubted he would spare her morethan a glance before once again burying his nose in his laptop.
    With the expensive gown molding to every curve of her body, she swept her hair up and fixed it into a loose French twist at the back of her head. Makeup and jewelry came next, and she pretended not to notice the slight tremor in her