Children of Dynasty Read Online Free Page A

counter and sent her a swift appraising glance.
    She shivered.
    “You’re cold.” He unbuttoned his shirt, revealing a nest of crisp hair and rosy brown nipples drawn tight against the cabin’s chill.
    Embarrassed by the flush that warmed her cheeks, she hugged herself to hide her breasts’ inevitable reaction to his splendid bare body.
    He came toward her, a lithe animal on a stalk, and draped the shirt over hers. Once more nervous at him standing so close, she threw out the first thing she thought of. “Do you go to school?”
    “Stanford. Business, that I may be worthy to wear Davis Campbell’s crown.” He gave a sardonic bow.
    “You sound bitter.”
    “You’d be, too, if your father expected you to follow his footsteps without a thought.”
    Mariah had never considered anything other than taking over for her dad someday. The love for building came to her naturally; it didn’t make sense that, as his father’s son, Rory would want anything else. “What would you rather be?”
    “An architect, an archaeologist …” He waved an impatient hand. “I only know I’ve never been given a choice.” The kettle whistled. He poured, dunked teabags, and fished them out with a spoon. “You don’t get to pick your father.”
    He handed her the cup, and their hands touched.
    “My father is John Grant,” she confessed.
    “I thought so,” Rory said evenly. “Mariah’s not a common name.” In the rain-scattered light, his eyes held hers. She felt her pulse flutter at the base of her throat, but in the embrace of his shirt, she felt inexplicably safe.
    He set his cup aside. Very carefully, as though she were a wild thing, he lifted her hair and spread it over her shoulders. She sat still and told herself she should be afraid here alone with Davis Campbell’s son. Yet, she could summon only a buoyant elation. Rory seemed different from what her dad told her of his father. Honest rather than scheming.
    She wasn’t sure which of them closed that infinitesimal space, but his lips on hers had the softness of a remembered dream. The briefest graze and he drew back.
    Mariah cherished the sense he was also feeling his way. With trembling fingers, she touched his smooth-shaven cheek. Its warmth, and the dear dimple in the crease beside his mouth undid her. He pressed his lips to hers again, tasting of tea and a sweetness that intensified her yearning. Though a little voice whispered she didn’t even know him, his kiss argued that he knew everything about her.
    While rain streamed over his father’s boat, the Stanford man seduced a girl who wanted to believe.
    Sitting on her apartment sofa, Mariah had to admit he hadn’t really seduced her. Having dreamed for years of the young man she’d seen playing tennis, she’d been half in love with him before he even spoke to her. Ready to cancel her plans for UCLA and attend a Bay Area college, prepared to defy her father and turn her life upside down … for she’d imagined them as star-crossed lovers defying their families’ enmity.
    How blind she’d been not to see she was on a collision course with her destiny at Grant Development. How fortunate she had managed to learn her lesson. For the past eight years, she’d been a woman who cut to the bottom line, trusting nobody. Men had come and gone in her life while she kept her emotions in check and made sure she was the one in control … Until last night, when she learned how tenuous her rein on feeling was.
    Getting slowly to her feet, she decided she needed a sounding board. While in L.A., she’d missed her best friend Charley Barrett, but on her return to the City, he’d talked her into renting the place downstairs from his.
    She went up and knocked at his door, using a secret code developed during their tree-house days. Outside the rain-streaked hall window, the streetlight was shrouded in fog, far different weather than L.A.’s relentless sunshine.
    Charley opened his door, blue eyes smiling into hers.