Sweet Liar by Jude Deveraux

abuse her, she cried on the shoulders of the people who did love her—usually men—that all men were scum—just as her father had been. As for Mike, she thought he was lovely to look at and he always took care of her when yet another of her boyfriends dropped her, but she didn’t think of him as a man. Not an actual man, because Mike had never treated her with contempt as the men Daphne was attracted to did.
    When Daphne was sober, she laughed about the long list of losers in her life, and when she was drunk, she cried about them. But drunk or sober, she basically understood that the reason she, of all the girls at the club, was invited to this rich house was because she never made a pass at Mike.
    â€œHow’s your book coming?” she asked.
    Mike shrugged. “All right. I haven’t worked on it much lately.”
    Daphne had no reply to that. To her, there was something magic in putting words on paper and having them mean something, so she tried to think of something else to talk about. Feeling the need to try to cheer Mike up was something altogether new—it was usually Daphne crying while Mike laughed and told her she was better off without so and so.
    â€œSo how’s your tenant?” she asked.
    â€œI guess she’s all right. I never see her.” He toyed with his food. “I don’t think she likes me.”
    Daphne laughed. “You, Mike? There’s a girl on this planet who doesn’t like you? ” When Mike didn’t say anything, Daphne kept laughing. “And what do you think of her?”
    Mike looked up at Daphne with eyes so hot, eyes that showed such desire, that Daphne, who thought she’d seen everything a man could dish out, leaned away from him and had to take a deep drink of her cold beer before she could speak. “I don’t know whether I envy her or I’m afraid for her,” she whispered, holding the frosty bottle to her cheek.
    Mike looked back down at his plate.
    â€œHave you asked her out?”
    â€œTried to, but she runs away every time I get within ten feet of her. If she hears me coming, she hits the stairs, and except for meals, she stays in her apartment all the time, never leaves.”
    â€œWhat’s she do all day?”
    â€œAs far as I can tell, she sleeps,” Mike said in disgust.
    Daphne took a bite of her steak. “Poor kid. Didn’t you tell me her father just died and that she just got a divorce?”
    â€œYeah, but from what I heard, her husband was no great loss.”
    â€œMaybe so, but losing your guy makes you feel rotten. I remember the first time a guy walked out on me. Lord! but I was in love with that man. He was my first and I lived my whole life for him, anything he wanted, I gave it to him.” She snorted in memory. “That was when I first started stripping. He said I was so good at it when I did it for him that I ought to make us some money. But even when I did what he wanted, one day I came home and he was gone. No note or nothing. Of course, looking back on it, I doubt if the bum could read and write. Brother! was I depressed after that. I didn’t think I had anything to live for after he left me. I managed to drag myself to work for a few days, but after a while I even stopped doing that; just stayed in the apartment and slept. Hell, I’d probably still be sleeping if that man hadn’t made me see what a creep the guy was—that he wasn’t worth sleeping for.”
    Mike was only half listening to Daphne’s story as her stories tended to depress him. He’d told her once that she could walk into a crowd of a hundred nice guys with one wife-beating scum-of-the-earth hidden among them, and she’d be able to pick out the bad guy within thirty seconds. Daphne had laughed and said that if he was bad enough, she’d have him moved into her apartment and be supporting him within three minutes.
    What Mike was thinking about was Samantha.