House of Payne: Rude Read Online Free Page B

homicidal as he felt, he nodded down the carpeted, well-lit hallway where he assumed her apartment was located. “Go ahead and get ready, and I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
    She lifted one of those high, haughty brows. “Anywhere?”
    “Anywhere.”
    “Okay. Just remember you said that.” With that, she turned and led the way down the hall.

 
    Chapter Three
     
    What the hell was Rude doing, popping up in her life like he thought he had a right to be there? Clearly the man was confused. And maybe in need of medication.
    The way Sass saw it, she was the one who obviously needed meds, since she was so willing to allow her enemy into her apartment. That was akin to offering Hannibal Lector a seat at her dinner table so she could serve him a juicy slice of her liver. Too bad she didn’t have any fava beans or a nice Chianti to go along with it.
    “Nice digs.”
    That snapped her out of her semi-hysterical ramblings long enough for her to glance around. It wasn’t a huge apartment, just a one bedroom with one and a half baths. But it had large spaces for entertaining and more building amenities than she could shake a stick at.
    It was its location, however, that had sold her. Her apartment sat directly across from Millennium Park’s Cloud Gate, commonly referred to as The Bean. From her balcony she had a breathtaking view of the park and Lake Michigan beyond, something she would have been happy to pay an arm and a leg for. But she hadn’t had to; the apartment had been a never-to-be-repeated deal to a lifetime that even now she couldn’t quite believe she’d managed to swing.
    Mahogany floors throughout contrasted with the sweeping twelve-foot-high white walls and Victorian-style coffered ceilings. She’d always been a texture fiend, and her living room furniture reflected that. An overstuffed deep purple velvet couch was flanked on either side by chairs upholstered in shaggy white sheepskin, with a matching sheepskin rug under a black tufted ottoman. An Oriental-style rug that she and Tonya found in a thrift store rested beneath a small black and gold lacquer table and chairs. When she wasn’t using the table as a set for the food photos she posted online, the table was kept set for two. Windows stretched the entire length of the open living and dining space, so that the view of the lake could be seen from every angle.
    She shrugged, then winced when her shoulder protested. “It’s okay.”
    “You must be doing all right with your columns and cookbook.”
    “ Cookbooks . I’m more than halfway through the first draft of the second one. That’s what I was working on when you showed up this morning.” No one had been more surprised than she’d been when her agent had told her that her proposal for a family-oriented cookbook had been eagerly accepted by her publisher. But considering how well the first book had gone, and how well it was still doing overseas now that it had been translated into several different languages, the publishing company seemed happy to ride the Pinch Of Sass rocket for as long as they could.
    She waved a vague hand at the couch before heading toward the short hall that led to her bedroom. “Make yourself comfortable. I’m not moving too fast with these bruised ribs, so it’s going to take some time for me to get ready.”
    “So that’s the diagnosis, then? Nothing broken? I wouldn’t know,” he added, sending her a dark look, “because I had to leave.”
    “One possible cracked rib, which I doubt, the rest just bruised. Mildly dislocated shoulder, popped back into place and just sore now. A bump on the head, but no concussion thanks to the bun I was wearing at the time. The doc who treated me suspects the way I wore my hair may have saved my life. More bumps and bruises everywhere, but nothing major. They didn’t even tape up my ribs, which tells me I shouldn’t have gone to that stupid ER in the first place.”
    “Would you have reported it if you hadn’t