Recipe for Love Read Online Free

the top layers of clothing Alyson had bagged for her, she said, “So, tell me about the man who owns this house. What does he look like? Is he short? Does he sample too many of his desserts? How about his teeth? Does he have any?”
    Finally her fingers touched something silky. Maddy pulled the silky nightgown out and held it up. Although it was long enough to almost reach her knees, the material was thin to the point of practically being sheer. Pink silk with accents of white. Apparently she and Alyson didn’t share the same definition of modest. The pink thong underwear that came with it still had a tag on it. No surprise. Does underwear matter when it’s also see-through?
    She debated discarding the nightgown and sleeping in her slacks. But Alyson had told her she might not even meet Richard. He closed his restaurant late and opened it early. He was okay with her staying there for the weekend as long as he didn’t have to see her. A bit eccentric, but his house was certainly large enough to allow for such an arrangement.
    And his lack of interest in his houseguest made her choice of sleepwear irrelevant. Maddy held the pink nightgown up again. It really was beautiful, and her clothing was damp from the rain. She didn’t plan to leave the suite that night. Giving in to impulse, she stripped and put on the delicately made lingerie. She took a blanket from the bedroom, dug her tablet out of her purse, and took both with her to the couch. Nothing else in her life was as she’d thought it would be, but rereading one of her favorite romances was soothing and provided a temporary escape from the reality that had sent her into a tailspin.
    Minet curled up on her feet, purring loudly. Maddy closed her eyes, lulled by the rhythmic sound, and didn’t notice when she dropped her tablet to one side. The story on the page continued like a movie in her dream. A wondrous passionate scene where all of her wanton desires were being fulfilled by a beefy, broody cowboy.
     
    ***
     
    Tired and irritated with himself for having agreed to a put up a guest for the weekend, Richard entered his mansion. The lack of lighting inside gave him hope. There was a chance his sister had come to her senses and taken her friend where she belonged: a hotel. Or back to her ex-lover. Anywhere but his house.
    He should have never agreed to it, but the mention of his mother and her previous states of desperation had been enough to confuse a yes out of him.
    The cat he’d never named, because he still had no intention of keeping it even though it had lived with him for a year, did not meet him at the door as it normally did. It didn’t twirl around his legs, half tripping him, as he made his way to hang up his coat. Nor did it run up the staircase ahead of him in a wild attempt to beat him to his bedroom, hoping it would be allowed to claim a lower corner of the bed if it got there first.
    No, the cat was strangely absent, which meant that someone else might indeed be present. Richard opened the door to a guest suite in his home. There on the couch, curled on her side beneath a solid blue comforter, lay his unwanted guest, sleeping peacefully. He stepped closer. Her chestnut curls were loose and cascaded around her, looking so soft he had to fight the urge to touch them.
    She moaned softly in her sleep and shifted, revealing only the slightest hint of what filled her dreams. Her lips parted slightly and she moaned again, making Richard’s heart beat rapidly.
    He knew he should walk away and leave her to her dreams, but he couldn’t. He stood over her, wondering what color her eyes were, and if her body matched the beauty of her face. It probably did. When a woman decided to trade her self-respect for the comforts a rich man could provide her, staying trim was often an unspoken part of the deal. His mother was both beautiful and physically fit. She had to be or she wouldn’t be able to lure men, one after another, into marriages with lucrative