Read Online Force of Nature by Suzanne Brockmann - Free Book Online Page A

you
drink
too much.”
    “Yeah.” He felt sick to his stomach. “Right. Good excuse, Jane.”
    “It’s not an excuse.” She was mad now, too. “Don’t be a fool. You were sitting right here when I left a message asking Scotty to sit.”
    Scotty, as in their mutual friend Scott, who lived with his longtime companion, Jack…
    “Look at you, you’re drunk right now.” Jane’s anger morphed into thorough disgust.
    “I am not,” he protested.
    “You’re always extra stupid when you drink,” she informed him.
    He’d offended her, and he knew he should apologize, but…Robin got mad all over again. Because this was ridiculous. Did she and Cosmo actually think…? “I mean, yeah, I had a few with lunch, to celebrate the end of the press junkets, but I’m not
drunk.
”
    “There’s always something to celebrate, isn’t there?” Jane asked, crossing the kitchen to pick up Billy, who was starting to get freaked by their raised voices.
    “Yeah,” Robin agreed. “Yes. There is. Life is good, Janey. This movie’s going to be huge—I’m a
star.
I’ve finally made it. I’m allowed to celebrate.”
    “And
I’m
allowed to say that I don’t want you
celebrating
around Billy,” she shot back. “You of all people should understand why.”
    What was she saying? “I’m nothing like my mother,” he whispered. He’d spent the first part of his childhood in an ever-widening black hole of neglect. Neglect that Janey had rescued him from. No doubt about it, his ethereally beautiful mother had loved him, her only child, but she’d loved her gin and tonics more.
    “Yeah, well. I think you got way more than your blue eyes from her.” Jane had never been one to hold back. She covered Billy’s ears. “I think it’s time you stopped bullshitting yourself, Robin.”
    “And maybe you should take your own advice.” He could play this way—unsheathe his claws. “You’re just jealous because I’m the success.”
    She laughed in his face, because they both knew the truth.
He
was the one who was jealous—of her happiness. “Yeah,” she said. “Congratulations. Your agent, your manager, and your accountant all really,
really
love you. That must make you feel great.”
    Robin kept his mouth shut over words he didn’t want to say, words he’d never be able to take back. Instead, he went out the door, slamming it behind him.
    Jesus, he needed a drink.

C HAPTER
T WO
    “L ouellen Jones?” Ric had to laugh as he searched for the switch that would turn on the headlights in Annie’s car. He was driving so she could sit with needy little Pierre in her lap.
    She reached across him, around the steering wheel, her shoulder brushing his chest as she flipped the lights on. “Go ahead and mock me, Dick Tracy. So I panicked and made up a name. I also got the job done.”
    “Maybe,” Ric pointed out. “There’s no guarantee that Brenda still lives in Palm Gardens. It’s a pretty high-end address for an exotic dancer. Particularly one who’s out of work.”
    Annie flipped open her little leather-bound pad, pushing on the overhead light so she could read her notes. “The manager—her name was Mary Allen—she told me that Brenda was given a severance package—of sorts—after her ex-boyfriend showed up at the strip club, looking for her. Apparently, he and his friends tore the place up. Brenda injured her back in the melee—” She glanced up. “That’s a direct quote from Mary, and apparently it was quite the mother of all bar fights. When the dust settled, Brenda signed off on some kind of ‘I will not sue’ agreement, which included a financial incentive—and a provision that neither Brenda nor her ex ever again darken Screech’s door.”
    “Mary give you the name of the ex?” Ric asked, signaling to make a left turn.
    “Nope,” Annie reported, clicking off the light. “When I asked, she said
Satan.
I said,
seriously…
But then my phone rang, and she used that as an excuse to end our