Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

He’d viewed her as unsmudgeable. Always put together. The beautiful Sophia, no last name, like Cher, an icon that didn’t need two names to identify her. It was why Caprice had hired her. Her reputation, her Sophia Loren looks. Shoulder-length black hair, silky curls a man wanted to bury his face in, to steep himself in her scent. Deep coffee-colored eyes. And luscious curves. In a modeling world of stick figures, Sophia had the courage to flout convention. He knew if he requisitioned her personnel file, he’d find a last name on her W-2. But, like the rest of the world, he didn’t want to know. He wanted the icon.

Until today. When the real woman sat before him.

“I’ve told myself not to worry about it until the biopsy comes back. I keep visualizing it’s benign.” She wiped her eyes. Another smudge, mascara. The woman was unraveling

before him. Her long lashes shuttering her gaze, she lowered her voice. “But I’m so scared.” Her bottom lip trembled.

Watching her, her pain affecting his gut, Ford felt himself unraveling right along with her. He engulfed her hand in his. “Let’s get out of here.”

She glanced up, eyes suddenly wide, almost as if she’d forgotten he was there for a moment. “What?”

Ford rose, tugged her hand. “Let’s get dinner or a drink. Or just take a walk.”

The heels of her shoes snapped together. “I can’t walk in these.”

“You have others in your office.” He’d seen her change occasionally to go out at lunch.

He didn’t ask where she went or what she did, but she’d needed flats to do it.

She tipped her head back to gaze up at him, and he realized he’d revealed his obsession with her. Perhaps he should have said something months ago, after the divorce, when he’d started noticing little things about her. He hadn’t let himself see because he didn’t want the temptation. Even if his marriage was over long before the papers were signed, he’d never been a player. He and his wife had stayed together for the kids, but once their youngest was off to college, there’d been no point in continuing the charade.

He’d been divorced a year now. And he’d finally seen Sophia. He’d created fantasies about her, let his imagination run wild.

“A walk,” she said, as if dinner or drinks was too much of a commitment, yet she needed something.

While Sophia went to her office to change her shoes, he entered his own to log off his computer, snag his coat, and lock the door. In her office outside his, Constance shut down her computer, printer, and other work devices, then grabbed her purse from the bottom desk drawer.

“Good night, Ford,” she said. He didn’t stand on ceremony. He was Ford to everyone. As she passed him, there was a question in her eyes if not on her lips. The same thing everyone wanted to know— What’s up with Sophia? He simply shrugged and smiled his own good-night as she left.

Not openly gregarious, Sophia was nevertheless gracious. When Constance’s daughter was in the hospital with appendicitis, Sophia had bought a pretty nightgown and asked every day how the girl was doing. She wasn’t overt, but she was consistently nice to everyone. People liked her. They just didn’t know her.

Maybe it was time to change that.

When Sophia reappeared, she’d fixed her makeup, lipstick, and hair, once again

reconstructing the barriers she usually hid behind. They’d done an exhaustive search for an executive VP who could keep the company abreast of fashion trends and changing consumer needs, a face to epitomize what Caprice stood for: feminine beauty. The photo that decided him caught her in a field of yellow daisies, a breeze blowing through her hair. She smiled as if she were gazing at a lover the camera couldn’t see. From that moment on, he imagined her that way.

Yet now he wondered who the real Sophia was. The woman in the photo. The

businesswoman. The lady giving him a shy smile now and not quite meeting his eyes. A bit of them all, or none of the above.

He was determined to find out.

The board meeting had run slightly over, and when they exited the building, the San Francisco streets were teeming with commuters. Late dusk. In half an hour, it would be dark except for the millions of city lights illuminating everything. Sophia loved this time of evening. She loved living in the city. Loved walking the sidewalks at lunch. She didn’t have to pretend she was someone special. She was just another San Franciscanite.

Tonight, bundled up against the cool February evening, the air sweet after a recent rain, she liked walking the streets with Ford. It was new, this sense of not being alone. He touched her arm, guiding her, and she liked that, too. It had been a long time since she’d let herself enjoy a man this way, with the simple things. Maybe it was Monday’s

procedure, her fears, breaking down in front of him, then feeling almost whole again, as if she’d let something go in the boardroom. Whatever it was, she thought about lacing her fingers through his, appreciating the texture of his skin, the grip of his hand, his body heat. She would have done it but for the fact they might be seen by someone from work.

He directed her toward the end of Market a few blocks away, Embarcadero Center, and the piers beyond that. The sidewalk gave way to the plaza. Ford stopped at an espresso stand.

“Two large hot chocolates with extra whipped cream.”

She almost countermanded him, thinking of the calories. What the heck. If the lump was malignant, extra calories wouldn’t matter.

“Thank you,” she said when he handed her the steaming cup. The first sip of the delicious concoction was ecstasy. “God, that’s real whipped cream.” So good, she had to close her eyes to savor the scent of the cocoa and the richness of the cream.

Then the blaze in Ford’s eyes as he watched