Damaged Beauties (Romanced by the Damaged Millionaire (Erotic Romance)) Read Online Free Page A

in plan.
    “I don’t actually feel that well,” I say, pretending to sway a little. “I’m not in a hurry anyway. It’s a long way from home and it’s kind of my vacation.”
    He raises an eyebrow. “In Kelowna?”
    “My aunt – ”
    “Ah yes, your aunt.”
    I think he full well knows that I don’t have an aunt who owns property out here, and I’m a curiosity seeker like everybody else.
    “Mr. Greene will be returning tomorrow,” he says pointedly.
    “Would he mind if I were here?”
    Jeffrey seems unperturbed. “We have hardly any guests, Ms. Tremont, so your guess on his reaction would be as good as mine.”
    “I see. Well, I will try to get better as soon as I can for your sake, Jeffrey.”
    “Indeed, Ms. Tremont.” He gives me a look that says ‘You’d better’.
     
    *
     
    As soon as Jeffrey leaves me alone, I scamper out of bed to explore. Jeffrey didn’t say I couldn’t, and so I pad out of the room. There’s a long corridor outside that leads to other rooms, albeit with closed doors, and a stairway at the end that winds downstairs. The corridor walls are decked with gorgeous pieces of art – so gorgeous that I have to stop to savor them for a while.
    There are watercolor landscapes. Impressionist-like scenes, only set in modern environs. Still life. There isn’t any particular style but a mélange of styles that seem to harmonize and flow smoothly into one another. But then, I’m not an art critic.
    I try the handle to the door of the room next to mine. The door yawns open a tad too loudly for my taste. I enter a library of sorts. Or maybe it’s a study. There are rows and rows of books from the floor to the ceiling, and I read some of the titles: ‘Modern Film’, ‘A Renaissance of Film’, ‘Movie Guide to 1000 Classics’. A gleaming samurai sword is mounted on two wooden pegs against one bare patch of wall. I reckon it might be some sort of film prop.
    So Mr. Greene is a film buff. My theory warms up the thermostat by several notches, and I allow myself a smile of satisfaction. If Ethan Greene is indeed David Kinney, then why does he choose to hide away like this – far from the public eye? Did he just get tired of all the attention? Was he feeling too much pressure to perform – to deliver hit after blockbuster hit year after year – as though he’s some sort of human jukebox?
    Or was he disfigured so badly in some freak accident that he now resembles the Phantom of the Opera?
    This last makes me cringe. I cannot imagine a face as beautiful as David Kinney’s being maligned in any way. It would be a travesty. A disaster of the highest magnitude.
    Or is there some other more sinister reason I have yet to uncover?
    I go to the desk. I know it is wrong of me to snoop in my benefactor’s house, but that has never stopped me. It’s my edge as an investigative journalist. The surface of the desk is neatly arranged with books, documents and papers. I glance at the documents. They are all stocks and bonds of blue chip entities and a few non-blue chip corporations.
    Jeffrey was right when he said Ethan Greene is an investor. Maybe that’s how he upkeeps the house.
    I start to open the drawers. In the second one, I notice a leather-bound diary. My curiosity piqued, I take it out. The entries are filled with spiky handwriting. My heart leaps.
    I know David Kinney’s handwriting. I know it by heart. The fan sites were filled with scanned copies of his autograph. Sometimes, he wrote messages like ‘BE GOOD’ and ‘ALL THE BEST’. I know every slant and curl of his consonants, and the fact that this is left-handed writing.
    Ethan Greene is David Kinney all right.
    I take the diary and hide it within my robe. I am wearing a robe over a blouse and jeans to keep up the appearance of an invalid. I’m going to read this later.
    I hope Jeffrey won’t know it is missing.
    Noises outside alert me. After all, I have left the door ajar. I freeze, cocking my ears to listen.
    Distant voices.