Million Dollar Road Read Online Free Page B

mutinous eyes were averted, her arms still folded tight to her chest. He put a fingertip under her chin, lifting it so the oval perfection of her face tilted up to his. Okay, Obi-Wan—once more with feeling, Con thought, hiding a weary grimace.
    â€œSweetheart, you know I love you.”
    With a deep sigh of defeat, Liz rested her forehead on his broad, sandy-haired chest.
    Ah, that was better. “Hey, Mrs. MacBride-Costello,” Con murmured, his voice husky and tender. “Guess what? In a couple of months I’m going to take you with me to Paris for the leather show—the Semaine de Cuir. We’ll stay at the Plaza Athénée, eat oysters and caviar, drink champagne. We’ll go shopping on the Avenue Montaigne. I’ll take you to Prada and we’ll have a ball.” He would. Lizzie’s slim-hipped, full-breasted figure was made to wear Prada. And Armani, and Cavalli, and all the other high-end Italian designers. When the French deal was in the pipe he’d be getting a bonus. Hell, they could sure use it. Liz spent money like a Saudi prince and the old bank account would breathe easier for the extra cash.
    â€œSo don’t worry about Rick’s, babe.” Con kissed the top of her head absently.
    With a sniff of disgust, Liz pulled away from him and stalked out of the bathroom.
    Expressionless, Con watched her rigid, retreating back for a second before he went into the walk-in closet to get dressed for the evening.
    A ringing clash of metal sounded all the way from the other side of the house—Lizzie, in the kitchen, banging pots and pans with undisguised fury. It sounded like she was unloading the dishwasher, a job he knew she loathed, and she wanted him to hear it. Liz was turning into a real handful lately.
    Con shook his head and picked out a tie, debating where he’d take Jennifer, and making a mental note to himself.
    Be home before dawn this time.

C HAPTER 3
    A rugula. Baby leeks. Cipollini onions.
    On Friday afternoon, Lizzie MacBride-Costello dropped a mesh bag of key limes into her shopping cart and wondered what the hell to cook for dinner tonight. Enoki mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, watercress. She wasn’t drawing much inspiration from Maestri’s produce department, so she maneuvered the cart around the corner of the narrow aisle to head off into the meat section.
    The claustrophobic old grocery store had undergone a recent transformation along with the rest of downtown Covington, a newly fashionable suburban enclave just forty minutes from the outskirts of New Orleans. Before its upgrade, a year ago Maestri’s produce had consisted of a few heads of wilted iceberg lettuce, heaps of dusty Idaho potatoes, and bruised apples in plastic bags. In the meat department’s cold cases, opaquely frozen foam trays of mysterious animal parts labeled only “service meat” and family-sized packs of turkey necks and hog maws had lurked like suspicious characters. Grimy-linoleumed Maestri’s could still use a real face-lift, but in the last month or so the merchandise had certainly stepped up to the plate of the town’s upwardly mobile expectations. Liz had only just consented to shop there instead of the Winn-Dixie.
    Cornish hen, lamb chops, a beautiful pork crown roast. Lizzie picked up a vac-packed tenderloin selling for $48.98 and studied it without much enthusiasm.
    â€œYou’ll do,” she muttered to the meat and dropped it into the cart. Since giving up her job as a law associate at Milliken-Odom’s satellite firm in Covington, she’d come to employ the remarkable, storm-like energy she’d spent drafting litigation into learning to cook for Con, an arrangement growing increasingly onerous. This venture into the culinary arts was an expensive endeavor—scandalous, really—the cost of which was exceeded only by Lizzie’s clothing bills.
    Well, why not buy the best? To Lizzie, the sight of a refrigerator