What She Doesn't Know Read Online Free Page A

she wasn’t Cheryl Randall. The woman who’d been her personal assistant since she’d moved to Atlanta and started her own fashion design business six years ago was a free spirit who went through men the way some women go through Kleenex. Jolie was a far cry from a free spirit. She took things seriously—her personal life as well as her professional life. Talent alone had not made her one of the premiere designers of children’s wear in the United States. A lot of hard work, determination and a very serious, focused personality had made her a success.
    But was a successful business all she wanted from life? Didn’t she want more, need more? At thirty-four her biological clock had begun ticking a little faster, so if she wanted a husband and children… But did she want a husband? Did she want children? Maybe. If she could find the right man. Someone she could envision spending her life with, growing old with and loving with a mindless passion unlike anything she’d ever known. Was that asking too much? Probably. Most people simply settled for what they could get, for whatever came along that passed for that once-in-a-lifetime love.
    As Jolie finished off the cola, she chuckled at her own romantic stupidity. Love never lasts.
    Okay, so for a few really lucky people, it did last. But for the majority, it didn’t. Most of her friends were either divorced or had gone through a series of unsuccessful live-in relationships. At least she’d never made those mistakes; she’d never married and she’d never lived with a man. She had always liked her independence far too much.
    More than one man had told her that she kept a protective shield around herself and sent out negative vibes, rejecting a guy before he ever made an advance. She wasn’t consciously aware of being an ice queen bitch—something she’d overheard one acquaintance telling another about her at a party a couple of years ago—but maybe she was. Maybe, despite years of therapy, she had never truly recovered from the trauma she’d experienced twenty years ago. Even now there were times when she awoke in a cold sweat after dreaming of discovering Mama’s and Aunt Lisette’s bodies. In those horrid nightmares, she could feel the sting of the bullets that had entered her body. Thank God the killer had thought she was dead.
    Stop this! Stop it right now! Just because Aunt Clarice called last week to tell you that Louis Royale had a massive heart attack is no reason for you to dredge up the past. The painful, better-off-forgotten past . What did it matter to her that a man she hadn’t seen in twenty years might be dying? She had stopped thinking of Louis Royale as her father a long time ago. The day he married Georgette Devereaux, she had cut him out of her life forever. She could never forgive him for bringing that woman into her mother’s home less than a year after her mother’s murder.
    Leaving the empty cola can on the coffee table, Jolie stood and made her way to the bedroom, pausing en route to lift her discarded high heels from the floor. In order to get a good night’s sleep, she should probably take a sleeping pill. She seldom resorted to drugs to sleep, but in the past week, she’d taken something twice. Tonight would make three times. Lifting her arm, she reached behind her and clasped the zipper tab on her dress, but before she could yank it down, the phone rang. God, don’t let it be Gene. She hadn’t broken things off with him tonight and she should have. Ending an affair before it began had become her trademark. What the hell was she so afraid of?
    Jolie sat on the edge of the bed as she picked up the telephone receiver. “Hello.”
    “Jolie Royale, please.”
    Her heart skipped a beat. After all these years, she recognized the voice. Deep baritone, thick Southern accent, and undeniably commanding.
    “This is she.”
    “Jolie, this is Max Devereaux. I’m sorry to inform you that your father passed away tonight.”
    Her breath caught