I Think I Love You Read Online Free Page B

spent the hour extolling the virtues of the city and a new talent agent she'd signed with. She'd seemed content enough, but with Mica, who knew? When Regina dropped her off, Mica had turned and leaned into the open window.
    "Have you heard from Justine?"
    "We talk on the phone occasionally."
    "How is she?"
    "Fine. You should call her sometime."
    "I wouldn't know what to say."
    "I suspect the words would come."
    But to her knowledge, the call had never been made—she was sure Justine would have mentioned it. After all these years, Regina was still suspended between her sisters' personalities, knowing that despite their history, they yearned for each other. She was simply a placeholder.
    After the sixth ring, Regina expected the machine to kick on. Instead, the receiver was lifted from its cradle, wallowed a good bit, then a deep-throated bleary, "Yeah?" came over the line.
    She closed her eyes. Dean Haviland. Only the last person on earth she wanted to talk to.
    "Who the hell's calling?" he slurred.
    "Dean, it's Regina. Metcalf. I was hoping to speak to Mica."
    "Hm? Regina? Well, well, long time, no see."
    She bit the tip of her tongue. "Is Mica available to come to the phone?"
    He grunted. "Can't spare a word for your old friend Dean?"
    "The word that comes to mind isn't fit for the airwaves."
    His laughter rolled out, sultry and confident, even now. No— especially now. Now that Mica was a wealthy personality, one of those rare commercial actors who resonated with viewers to the point that they became more recognizable than the product they represented. Dean Haviland, high school dropout and loser extraordinaire, had hit the mother lode.
    "Regina, Regina, Regina. I always knew you were more of a fireball than your sisters if you'd only let your hair down."
    She set her jaw, a movement that pulled at the smooth hairline created by her French twist. The man was revolting in his conceit. What her sisters ever saw in him—good God, what she ever saw in him—was a mystery even beyond the grasp of Nancy Drew.
    "Mica—is she there?"
    "She's not in bed, but she could be passed out in the john."
    Regina struggled to keep the alarm out of her voice. "Don't you think you should check on her?"
    "Not especially."
    Clenching the phone, she willed herself not to be sucked in by the man's melodrama. "When you see her, would you please ask her to call me at my office?"
    "Sure thang, Blue Eyes."
    She slammed down the phone, then picked it up and banged it down again. "Ooooooh!"
    A discreet knock sounded at her door.
    "Yes?" she called curtly.
    The door opened six inches, revealing Jill's pensive face. "Everything okay?"
    Regina removed her glasses and massaged the bridge of her nose. "Fine. Would you please hold my calls? I'm going to try to get some reading done before the ten o'clock meeting."
    "Absolutely." Jill hesitated a split second, then closed the door.
    Regina sighed and jammed her dark frames back onto her face. She was a respected senior editor known for her level head, yet smarmy Dean Haviland could set her off with a few casual words from three thousand miles away. How many times had she wished he'd never entered their lives? If she'd known the havoc the dark-eyed teenager would unleash on her family when he walked into M&G Antiquities twenty years ago and asked for a job, she'd have found some way to convince her parents to send him on his loose-hipped way.
    But she couldn't turn back time, no matter how many circumstances she longed to change.
    In an effort to shake her black mood, she slipped off her gray suit jacket and draped it across the back of her chair, then faced her bookcase and the massive slush pile. Removing three manuscripts from this heap would be like removing a bucket of water from the river that ran past her building, but today could be the day she struck gold. She slowly scanned the bundles of paper, many with protruding pages or curled edges, and randomly selected three manuscripts of varying