Blow Your Mind Read Online Free Page A

owned the dealership—actually, several of them.
     
    “Wait.” His side of the bed was undisturbed. “You didn’t come home?”
     
    “I’m sorry. I know I promised not to do that. We’ve had some recent employee issues that have me pulling out my hair.” His curly mane was intact, well-groomed, with just a hint of gray beginning to appear. “Besides, you were supposed to come by last night and get me.”
     
    “You’re right. Well, you know how that turned out.”
     
    “You’re joking. Definitely okay.”
     
    “Told you.”
     
    “Are you going by the shop today?”
     
    My head was pounding. “No, I think the ladies around here will have to do without their shoes for one day.”
     
    “Good for you,” he said, pretending to chuck me on the chin. “I don’t like you working anyway. So, how did you get home?”
     
    “I flagged somebody down. A nice family,” I answered, not really knowing what had happened.
     
    Tanner’s fears allayed, he excused himself to shower. He would take a quick power nap, then go back to his office to crack the whip. Honestly, the man never slowed.
     
    Tanner Coleman was a self-made millionaire. The story had appeared in so many newspapers and magazines that I could recite it from memory. After completing college at North Carolina A&T, he lucked out and inherited his grandparents’ small-town fried-chicken business. In less time than he’d spent in school, he’d turned the single restaurant around, developed a blueprint, and sold franchises throughout North America. Of course, he’d diversified his holdings, investing in car dealerships and real estate to round it out. To say he was driven was an understatement. He was a man of many passions, as I’d come to learn in the five years since we’d married. Either please him or get categorized along with that which displeased him. Not somewhere you wanted to be. Me? I just wanted to be loved. I think that’s all I ever wanted since getting off that Greyhound from Seattle.
     
    Fatigued, I longed to return to bed. It was time to get up, though. And somebody had some explaining to do.
     
    As Tanner showered, I decided to use one of the spare baths. If I hadn’t, he would probably coax me to join him in spite of what he imagined to have been my ordeal. I grabbed a towel to wash my face. As I ran my hands under the running water, I waited for it to cool, imagining what Lorenda had cooked for breakfast downstairs. A big glass of orange juice and some wheat toast would do me fine right about now.
     
    I was startled from my thoughts by a figure in the mirror—about my same height and build, but with much longer hair and those wild, fiery eyes.
     
    “Oh!” I shrieked. “Don’t you know how to knock?”
     
    “Did you tell him?” she blurted out before I could recover from jumping out of my skin.
     
    “Damn it, Pumpkin! You scared the hell out of me!”
     
    “Sorry,” she meagerly offered. “Did you tell him?”
     
    “No. And I’m not. He thinks I was driving. He doesn’t know you’re here, and I’m not bringing you up. Not yet, at least.” I brought the cool, damp towel to my face, wishing my houseguest weren’t here. “That’s a touchy subject to begin with,” I continued.
     
    “I hear ya, sis. He would flip if he knew I was visiting.”
     
    “It’s a big house and he’s always at work, so I might get away with it.”
     
    “Always at work? That’s not good.” She tsk ed. “You must not be fucking him right.”
     
    “Pumpkin!”
     
    “What? I’m just saying. I know how men are. Really.”
     
    “Uh-huh,” I offered with a long roll of my eyes. She made me uncomfortable when she talked like this. It was that as well as her prior dealings with Tanner that left me with an ill feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Just shut up.”
     
    “I’m only looking out for you, Bianca. If you’d like, I could teach you a few . . . tricks. Blow the tall fella’s mind.”
     
    “Already causing