Taken Identity Read Online Free Page B

Right down to age, name and God knows what else.”
    “Hell, I hope not in attitude,” Jules said, somewhat shaken. “Or tattoos.”
    He grinned. “Can I see them? Just to check, you understand.”
    Heat flashed across Jules skin. “Er, no. I’m sure she’s not got them.” She stared at him with suspicion as he raised his eyebrows. “Does she have tattoos?”
    He shook his head, and Jules saw the mischief that lurked in his eyes. Without the worry that clouded them, they—and he—would be stunning.
    “Not that I saw, and I saw as much as possible, I’d say.” Gray shrugged. “She wasn’t one to hide her assets. That’s one difference then.”
    That was a relief. A tattoo where she has her own would be a bit too much for Jules to cope with. As far as she knew, only she and Seven, the tattoo artist, had seen the tiny daisy under her left breast. It had been a new year present to herself.
    “I know we’re all supposed to have a double, but you never expect them to rear up and bite you in the bum. What did she do for a living?”
    “She said she wrote children’s books. Showed me some. Although, I never saw her work on anything. She said she did it when I wasn’t around. Why? What’s the matter? You’ve gone as white as a sheet. Hell, woman, you’re shaking.” He pulled her close to him.
    Even in her shaken state, Jules felt the reassuring beat of his heart under her cheek and smelled the citrusy aftershave he wore. Mixed with his macho-male assuredness, it was a heavy aphrodisiac. One she could do without.
    “I write children’s books,” Jules said slowly. “Hold on.”
    She left the room and walked up her narrow staircase into a tiny box of a room she laughingly called her study. There was just enough space for a desk to hold her computer, its comfortable swivel chair—a necessary extravagance as far as Jules was concerned—and a bookcase, its shelves overflowing. She could never bear to throw any book away. Within a minute, she was back, holding several brightly covered volumes in her hands. She thrust them at him and sat down again quickly. Jules hoped he didn’t notice she was trembling, but whether it with fear or anger, she couldn’t make her mind up.
    He looked at the books, jerked his head in amazement and nodded. “Yeah, these.”
    “What the hell is going on?” Jules said. The words burst out of her. If the mysterious woman had appeared in front of her at that moment, Jules reckoned she would probably be well on her way to being hauled up for GBH at the minimum. She’d never felt like hurting someone so much in her life. “This is sick. I feel sick. Raped.”
    “Stop exaggerating. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a mere blip.”
    “And you stop being so rational. How would you like to know that someone, somewhere, is using you…your identity? Who knows what the hell she is doing with it.”
    With strength Jules didn’t know she possessed, she flung her cup at the wall. It shattered into tiny pieces of china, and coffee dregs dripped down the paint and created a mural of brown streaks over the once pristine ivory paint.
    “Oh, shit.” The dismay that cursed through her was such a contrast to the rage she had experienced a few seconds earlier, that when, after a first, startled glance, Gray began to laugh, she reluctantly joined in.
    “Although, it’s nothing to laugh about, is it?” she asked him as she tucked the bottom of her long skirt into the waistband, bringing it to knee-length and out of the way. Then she took a cloth and wiped the wall, as Gray picked up the shards of china.
    “I guess I should be thankful she didn’t get my bank cards, as well.” She saw the sharp glance he gave her and understood it.
    “No, Gray, she hasn’t. Or if she has, I’m not paying for them. I know what I spend and where. Believe me. I am very careful with my hard-earned money. What I can’t understand is why someone thinks it would be beneficial to steal my identity. Unless