Sacrifice Read Online Free Page A

Sacrifice
Book: Sacrifice Read Online Free
Author: Lora Leigh
Pages:
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out. “Yet, I’ve fielded questions concerning your
membership there for several months.”
    There was no censure in her voice,
only the acceptance he had always known from her.
    “I’m sorry.” He could only shake his
head wearily. “I won’t apologize, I knew the risks.”
    Carolyn sighed deeply. “Tell me,
are the rumors concerning Kimberly’s membership there exaggerated, or true?”
    She picked up her cup as though the
question wasn’t dropped like a bomb.
    Damn! The leak was worse than he
had been warned it was. They were going to have to find the person or persons
responsible for it.
    Jared watched her carefully.
Anything between them, he had no doubt, would stay between them, but this was
Kimberly’s secret to bear, not his.
    “You’re so like your father,” she
chuckled then. “I will assume she is, and I will assume that your temper this
week is due from learning of it yourself.” She leaned forward somberly then,
her blue eyes dark and intent. “Jared, that estate means everything to
Kimberly. Everything. Her mother’s last words were a plea for her to stop the
cycle that the women of her family have endured for over five generations. If
she loses her virginity, her father gains control of the estate, the house,
everything that has been passed down, mother to daughter, for so very long now.
In each case, the mother was forced to wed a man chosen by her father, one
deemed capable of restraining her passions and her sexuality. The cycle is
destroying her and, in many ways, Daniel as well.”
    “He can break it,” Jared pointed
out, aware that the anger pulsing inside him colored his voice as well. “He’s
destroying her.”
    “He believes he’s saving her.”
    “For God’s sake.” He came out of
his chair in a surge of energy born of the fury pulsing inside him. “When did
we return to the Middle Ages, Mother? She’s a woman, not a child.”
    “Jared, you can’t fight this,” she
said softly, regretfully. “I’ve discussed this with Daniel until I’m blue in
the face. He won’t relent. It’s the only conflict we’ve had in our marriage in
a year now. He believes he’s right. He believes Kimberly should marry a man of
restrained passions, one capable of controlling what he considers her ‘wild
inclinations’.”
    “He’s a self-righteous prig,” he
snapped.
    “Why do you care?” she asked him,
frowning now as he paced the room. “I understand your desire for her, Jared,
but there have been other women you’ve desired and couldn’t have as well. What
makes her different?”
    “She makes me crazy,” he growled,
pushing his hands into the pockets of his slacks as he hunched his shoulders
against the tension invading them. “She makes me want to throw her over my
shoulder like a damned caveman, and at the same time I want to wrap her in
cotton and protect her from anything and everyone who could hurt her. I want
her happy.”
    His voice, his body, vibrated with
that need, with the complete certainty that he could make her happy.
    “And you think marrying her will do
that?” she questioned him with a shadow of mockery. “Jared, Daniel will never
allow Kimberly to marry a man as sexually intense as you so obviously are. And
she’ll lose everything she’s fought for to this point if she accepts you.”
    “She’s mine.” He winced as the
words tore from him. “Damn, didn’t that sound arrogant enough?” He laughed with
an edge of self-mockery.
    But he couldn’t escape the claim he
had just made. As the words came from his lips, the knowledge wrapped around
his heart. She was his, even if he couldn’t have her. He had seen the pain in
her eyes, the sexuality that tormented her, the ache that shadowed her eyes.
And so much more. He saw the need to be touched, to be held, to let go and
share the passion, the heat that built within her.
    “Do you love her, Jared?” his
mother asked again, her voice firm now, demanding.
    He stared back at her, meeting her
gaze with
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