Simply Irresistible Read Online Free

things in her life, she’d failed—miserably. She’d always been a failure. She’d failed in school and at every job she’d ever had, and she’d failed to convince herself that she could love Virgil Duffy. That afternoon, as she’d stood before the cheval mirror studying her reflection, studying the wedding dress he’d chosen for her, the heaviness in her chest threatened to choke her and she’d known she couldn’t marry Virgil. Not even for all that wonderful money could she go to bed with a man who reminded her of H. Ross Perot.
    “Where’s your family?”
    She thought of her grandmother. “I have a great-aunt and uncle who live in Duncanville, but Lolly can’t travel because of her lumbago, and Uncle Clyde had to stay home and take care of her.”
    The corners of his mouth turned downward. “Where are your parents?”
    “I was brought up by my grandmother, but she took her final journey to heaven several years ago,” Georgeanne answered, hoping he wouldn’t ask about the father she’d never known or the mother she’d seen only once at her grandmother’s funeral.
    “Friends?”
    “She’s at Virgil’s.” Just the thought of Sissy made her heart palpitate. She’d been so careful to make sure everyone matched the lavender punch. Now coordinating dresses and dyed pumps seemed trivial and silly.
    A frown bracketed his mouth. “Naturally.” He removed his big hands from her waist and ran his fingers through the sides of his hair. “It doesn’t sound to me like you have a real firm plan.”
    No, she didn’t have a plan, firm or otherwise. She’d grabbed her vanity case and had run out of Virgil’s house without a thought to where she was going or how she planned to get there.
    “Well, hell.” He dropped his hands to his sides and looked down the road. “You might want to think up something.”
    Georgeanne had a horrible feeling that if she didn’t come up with an idea within the next two minutes, John would jump back in his car and leave her on the side of the road. She needed him, at least for a few days until she figured out what to do next, and so she did what had always worked for her. She placed one hand on his arm and leaned into him a little, just enough to make him think she was open to any suggestion he might make. “Maybe you could help me,” she said in her smoothest bourbon-soaked voice, then topped it off with a you’re-such-a-big-ol‘-stud-and-I’m-so-helpless smile. Georgeanne might be a failure at everything else in her life, but she was an accomplished flirt and a bona fide success when it came to manipulating men. Lowering her lashes modestly, she gazed up into his beautiful eyes. One corner of her lips tilted in a seductive promise she had no intention of keeping. She slid her palms to his hard forearms, a gesture made to seem like a caress but that was purely a tactical maneuver to guard against quick hands. Georgeanne hated it when men pawed her breasts.
    “You’re real tempting,” he said, placing a finger beneath her chin and lifting her face. “But you’re not worth what it’d cost me.”
    “Cost you?” A cool breeze picked up several spiral curls and sent them dancing about her face. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean,” he began, then glanced pointedly at her breasts pressed against his chest, “that you want something from me and you’re willing to use your body to get it. I like sex as much as any man, but, honey, you’re not worth my career.”
    Georgeanne pushed away from him and batted her hair from her eyes. She’d been in several intimate relationships in her life, but as far as she was concerned, sex was highly overrated. Men seemed to really enjoy it, but for her, sex was just plain embarrassing. The only good thing she could say about it was that it only lasted about three minutes. She raised her chin and looked at him as if he’d just hurt and insulted her. “You’re mistaken. I’m not that kind of girl.”
    “I see.” He looked back