Words of Seduction Read Online Free Page A

her flash and glamour get to you.”
    Rick glanced at his watch. He tried to make sure that his visits with his mother never lasted more than an hour. “I won’t.”
    “You did once.”
    “That was a long time ago.”
    “Yes.” She dragged on her cigarette, inhaling until her cheeks looked like they’d stick together. “And you can’t trust her. She wrote that filthy book about us. About the whole town. She got rich off of our pain. Keep your distance.”
    Rick laughed. “Don’t try to mother me now. You know I always do what I want to.” He stood and went to his mother’s bookshelf and took Suzanne’s book from it. He looked at the worn spine and battered pages. “I’ve always wondered why you’ve read it so many times, if you hate it so much.”
    “I have my reasons.”
    He replaced the book. “I’m sure you do. And I have mine so don’t worry about me. I’m not interested in her.” That was a lie, but he lied well, and his mother sat back and relaxed.
     
    Suzanne stared up at the ceiling of her bedroom, willing herself to sleep. She was still trying to get used to the quiet. She was used to the cacophonous noises ofa bustling city and the silence of the town had become foreign to her. But she knew her sleepless night had nothing to do with the sound of crickets. She couldn’t sleep because of Rick.
    For years she’d tried to convince herself that the time she had spent with him had been a harmless flirtation. A rebellion. That it hadn’t meant anything. But now she knew she’d been deceiving herself. No matter how he made her feel, she couldn’t succumb again. She knew she had terrible taste in men and her present circumstance proved it. Her father was a bastard leaving her nothing but his debt and memories of his overbearing reputation. Her ex-husband shamed her every day of their marriage by sleeping with any woman who was willing and there were plenty. Then there was John Peckman, her agent. The man she’d at one time thought she was in love with. The man who had helped her get a six-figure contract for her novel and guided her through the shock of sudden fame and fortune. The man who helped her invest in a bad prospect, then developed a drug and gambling habit and ran off with the rest of her money. What a fool she’d been to trust him so completely. She decided she would never trust a man again.
    The investigator she had hired couldn’t find him and Suzanne soon realized that she was quickly going through the advance for her second novel, and she wasn’t close to finishing her next manuscript. Everyone thought she was a rich, successful novelist, but she was nearly broke. She felt like a failure. If she didn’t sell the house soon everyone would discover her lie and her shame. She knew she had no other place to go. She’d left her apartment in New York with the rent two months past due.
    Had her mother been alive, she wouldn’t understand Suzanne’s predicament. Leslie Rand believed that a woman should always have a man pay for everything. “Always let a man pay your way,” her mother had told her. And she meant in all things from a meal to a mansion. Her mother expected men to take care of women. With a coy smile and a compliment her mother had turned the strongest men into mush. “You use the right words, baby, and any man will be yours,” she said.
    “The right words?”
    “Yes, words of seduction. You seduce them with praise, you feed their ego and let them think your advice comes from their own minds and you’ll be indispensable. Your compliments will become like a drug and you’ll have them coming back for more. Your power comes down to three things—E.T.W. Eye contact, touch and words. Use those three things in the right manner and no man can resist.”
    And her mother taught her all that she knew, but she hadn’t taught her which men to choose and that men could be betrayers. She preferred to be alone and the only seductive words she used appeared on the page. No