Read Online Loved By The Hero (Hero Romance 3) by Kalena Lyons - Free Book Online Page A

including her best friend. Claire took a deep breath before she stepped onto the set and waited for the green screen to turn on.
    She could hear the other news anchors talking about the morning’s accidents on Broad Street and took a moment to breathe before she was on. Just before she was about to speak, a familiar crop of dark hair and pale blue eyes caught her attention.
    Eric Slate.

Chapter Two
    Claire delivered her prompter speech flawlessly and smiled when she knew she was expected to. She told everyone to have a good day with a radiant gaze and her shoulders squared. To those who worked with her, she looked flawless as ever in her delivery of the weather report, but in truth, her heart was pounding against her ribcage like a wrecking ball. Each pump was like a painful blow to her chest.
    When she was off the set, her smile evaporated and her stance became more standoffish than relaxed. Claire tried to do a bypass of her ex-lover, but he caught up to her halfway down the corridor to her office. “Claire,” he called out to her as he reached forward to grasp her elbow.
    “Don’t you dare touch me,” she said so venomously it startled even her. Claire wrenched her elbow from his grasp and swallowed when she saw someone walk past the two of them with a look of mixed fear and grotesque interest.
    “Claire, please. I just want to talk about what happened.” She felt her nostrils flaring and her teeth grit together sharp enough to jolt her. Claire took a step back from the man who had humiliated her in front of a few hundred people and felt a sick turn in her stomach. “Claire, please,” he tried again in a pathetic voice.
    “You make me sick,” she told him with a little less sharpness. “I don’t know what possessed you to think I would ever want to see your face again, but I assure you, I don’t. So please, leave before I call security.” Claire took the step back to her office and closed the door so quietly the sound was worse than a slam would have been.
    What had made her think she was over him, she couldn’t figure out. There seemed to be no end to her self-loathing as she sat down at her desk and put her face into her hands. Heated words from out in the hallway met her ears and brought her out of her wallowing long enough to look up and see Marie stepping through the door.
    “Claire,” she said as she closed the door in a stricken Eric’s face. “I knew I should have told security to watch out for him. I’m so sorry he had the nerve to come here.” The woman who had been her savior the night of her public humiliation and her knight in shining armor for the entire week after sank down onto her desk and put a warm, comforting hand on her shoulder.
    “I’m okay,” Claire lied as she sniffed and wiped at the tear in the corner of her eye.
    “No, you’re not, but you will be,” Marie told her with a reassuring smile. “If the prick would just give up and go away.” Marie pursed her lips together as if she’d said too much and Claire’s fibber radar started to awaken.
    “What do you mean if he would stop? This is the first time I’ve seen him since-” Claire couldn’t bring herself to say it, seeing him seemed to reopen the barely scabbed wound.
    Marie clamped her lips together and clasped her hands in her lap as she crossed her legs at her ankles. She looked up and out of the window that oversaw the business district of New York, City. It was a clear day with very little humidity and she could see for miles beyond the tops of the buildings.
    “Marie,” Claire started warningly as she recognized her friend’s evasive behavior. She knew Marie was hoping she’d drop the subject and leave it go, but when it came to this topic; she was like a dog with a bone.
    “He came by last week after the incident at the party. I intercepted him at the door and told him you weren’t here. He’d been showing up at the front of the building most days in the morning and I kept telling him you were