Read Online Borrowing a Bachelor by Karen Kendall - Free Book Online

on his ex-wife, something that Yvonne insisted was all a big “misunderstanding.”
    Nikki personally didn’t think there was anything to misunderstand about a black eye, a broken jaw and three cracked ribs, but Yvonne maintained that she could take care of herself if Ricky ever lost that lovin’ feeling.
    Nikki had her doubts, but as Yvonne had pointed out, he had to go to sleep sometime and she was skilled with a serrated-edge knife.
    “You understand me, blondie?” Yvonne’s voice was every bit as cutting. “You’ll be seeing those autographs up close and personal.”
    A cactus had sprung up in Nikki’s throat. She tried to force a couple of words past it, but they got impaled on the spines.
    Like an enraged goose, Yvonne angled her nose forward and bobbed her head up and down in rhythm to her next words. “Do. You. Get. What. I’m. Sayin’?”
    Nikki nodded.
    “Good. Now, besides the money you borrowed from me, you can pay me my booking fee from tonight—fifty bucks—plus another fifty for my trouble.”
    What? She wanted an extra hundred dollars, too? Nikki opened her mouth to protest, saw the dangerous glint in Yvonne’s eye, and closed it again.
    “You got something to say? Because I’m being generous. I should charge you for, like, twenty booking fees—”
    A thousand dollars. Nikki almost fainted.
    “—since that’s what I’m going to miss out on, thanks to you, until I can get my cousin to trust me again.” Yvonne blew out a malignant breath.
    “So, with the extra hundred, that’s five hundred bucks.”
    Blink. Gulp.
    “And bring me cash,” Yvonne ordered. “Not some rubber check.”
    Blink. Blink. Nod. Please, just go away and leave me alone.
    Yvonne, having vented her rage and asserted her power, swiveled and marched to the door, each cosmetically enhanced buttock fighting for space in her sprayed-on jeans.
    If Nikki hadn’t been so tired, demoralized and frightened of the witch, she might have laughed. Instead, she double-locked the door again behind her and slid to the floor. Where was she going to get the four—make that five—hundred dollars she owed Yvonne?
     
     
    ADAM FIGURED THAT he didn’t have the right to be miffed about Nikki denying him her phone number. The night had been one big, humiliating fiasco. No wonder she wanted to forget it—and him. But he wasn’t happy.
    He was even more unhappy when Dev stumbled through the hotel room door at 4:21 a.m., bringing with him a dense fog of alcohol fumes mixed with the aroma of fast-food burritos. Dev trumpeted his arrival with a burp that reeked of hot sauce and then peed for what seemed like a half hour, without closing the bathroom door. Then he proceeded to snore for the rest of the miserable night.
    At 7:09 a.m., he awoke cheerfully despite a raging hangover, popped four ibuprofen and grilled Adam about his evening’s entertainment.
    “So, dude. Did the hot little stripper grease your pole?”
    Adam touched his nose gingerly, lifted his head from the pillow and squinted at him. “Wow, that’s such an elegant way of putting things, Dev.”
    “What can I say? I’m famous for being classy. Well, did she?”
    “No. Now go back to sleep.”
    “You didn’t even try to drill her doughnut?”
    “Dev, my nose was almost broken.”
    “Yeah, so? That’s at the opposite end of things.”
    Adam sighed.
    “C’mon, just give me a brief rundown. Didja go to the E.R.?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did she find some clothes first, or did she put the docs into cardiac arrest?”
    “Yes, she put her clothes on.”
    “A damn shame. I was afraid you’d say that. So what happened after you left the E.R.?”
    “She drove me back here, Dev.”
    “And? Did she tuck you in? Read you a naked bedtime story?”
    “No, Dev. She’s actually a nice girl,” Adam said stiffly.
    “A nice girl,” Dev said with a guffaw. “Right.”
    “She is.”
    After Adam had told him a highly edited version of the story wherein he and Nikki had simply