Read Online Her Red-Carpet Romance by Marie Ferrarella - Free Book Online

unsuspecting mouth.
    Her hooded eyes watched Lukkas for any sign that he was about to turn to her or to say something. He seemed very preoccupied with whatever was in the black folder he kept within easy reach, at least from what she’d discerned so far. She quietly turned on her smartphone.
    Still watching Lukkas, she pulled up a search engine and typed in the words
car accident
and then his name.
    The signal reception was reduced to only two bars, rendering the search engine exceedingly sluggish. She watched the little circle that indicated the site was being loaded go around and around for so long, she felt it was stuck in this mode.
    She was about to give up for now and close her phone when she saw the tiny screen in her hand struggle to stabilize both two photographs and the words written directly beneath them.
    She’d assumed that the words would become clear first, but it was the photographs—a beautiful young woman in one and a car that looked as if it had been turned into an accordion in the other—that materialized several minutes before the words.
    After an eternity the circle stopped swirling and disappeared, leaving in its wake the headline from a newspaper article: Producer’s Pregnant Wife Killed in Car Crash.
    The article identified the dead woman’s husband as Lukkas Spader.
    Â 

Chapter Five
    S tunned and appalled, Yohanna could only numbly stare at the heart-wrenching headline, unaware that her mouth had literally dropped open.
    The next moment her brain kicked in and she quickly pressed the home button at the bottom of her smartphone. An array of apps sprang up, very effectively replacing the article as if it had never been there to begin with. Under different circumstances, she would have gone on to read the article, but this was definitely not the time for her to fill in the gaps.
    The idea of Lukkas looking over and accidentally seeing what she was reading was just unthinkable to her. It was bad enough that she’d carelessly said what she’d said just now, comparing the crash rate of planes to cars. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t known Lukkas’s wife had lost her life in an event that she had so cavalierly tossed out. Her not knowing hadn’t lessened the pain Lukkas undoubtedly felt at the unintentional reminder of his loss.
    More than anything, she would have loved to apologize to him, to tell him that she hadn’t known he’d lost his wife this way. Until just now, she hadn’t thought that he was ever married.
    She’d done her homework on him but only partially so. To do her job well, she had been trying to educate herself about Lukkas Spader the producer, not the private man. The one article that had touched on both his professional
and
his private life had referred to him as being one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors. That, to her, had translated to his not being married.
    Had the article been written by a more accurate writer, it would have made some sort of a reference to his being a widower. At least that would have given her some sort of a heads-up.
    Yohanna slanted a look in his direction. How did she go about making this right? She didn’t have a clue, so for now, all she could do was leave the matter alone.
    â€œWe’re about to land,” Lukkas told her, his deep voice cutting through the fog still swirling around her head. “You might want to secure that.” He nodded at the smartphone still in her hand.
    â€œYes, of course.” Feeling like someone who was just now coming to, Yohanna quickly slipped the device back into her pocket.
    After a beat, as they began their slow descent, Lukkas quietly said, “They said that she didn’t feel any pain.”
    Yohanna’s head jerked up as she looked at him. Had Lukkas glimpsed the article she had pulled up on her phone? She fervently hoped not.
    But then, how did she explain the remark he had just made?
    â€œExcuse me?” she said in