Read Online My Front Page Scandal by Carrie Alexander - Free Book Online

beets.”
    Her voice rose. “Seriously?”
    “Not very glamorous, huh.” The hard work had been good for him. He’d sweated the impurities out of his body and the confusion from his brain. Talking over his insecurities with Geno Carerra had helped, too. The man didn’t put up with bullshit. He’d said bluntly that David had been a fool to quit the team the way he had.
    With a small grimace, Brooke ran a hand through her hair. “Contrary to appearances, glamour isn’t that important to me.”
    “Glad to hear it.” He leaned closer, touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “I like an uncomplicated girl.”
    “Sure.”
    “You don’t believe me?”
    “I think you’re good at charming women into bed.”
    “Hmm.” He grazed her jaw with his lips. “Is it working?”
    She swayed toward him, her head tipping over onto her shoulder as she made a soft purring sound. For one moment he thought that she would give in.
    She breathed in through her nose. Her eyelids quivered. And then she jerked her head away. “Sorry. There’ll be no banging U-eys tonight.”
    He sat back, the momentary optimism draining out of him. For a little while there, he’d thought that Brooke might be the woman who would see beyond his tabloid reputation to the real man, or at least the one he was trying to become.
    But he’d fallen back on old habits, and now she probably believed he thought of her as just another conquest.
    “This has been nice.” She pulled on the flimsy jacket that had given her little protection on the back of his bike. “But I think it’s time for us to go.”
    The driving force behind David’s less-than-spectacular career in baseball had been his doggedness. Ten-hour bus trips, bad diner food, playing for the Hoot Owls in Frog-wallow, Kentucky—he’d stuck all of it out. Even though he might have become famous for quitting, he was still as stubborn as a mule.
    This time, he wasn’t giving up so easily. His gut told him that Brooke was someone special. He couldn’t let her slip away.
    BROOKE HAD BEEN wined and dined in the finest restaurants and escorted to an endless array of cultural events, but she’d never experienced Boston by night from the back of a motorcycle. They drove by Fenway Park. For old time’s sake, David shouted over his shoulder, and she squeezed her arms even tighter around his ribs. He took her a few miles up Storrow Drive, then through the arboretum—highly illegally—where the trees were shrouded by nighttime and the air was dark and thick.
    It was near midnight when they wound up at a well-known North End bakery. Even at that hour, there was a line out the door. Brooke and David waited their turn in silence, holding hands. He’d made her put on his leather jacket for the ride, so she was warm. And not nearly as sleepy as she ought to have been with David’s hand sending a constant wake-up call tingling through her veins.
    Once they were near the front of the line, they perused the glass cases of pastries. Brooke groaned. “Everything looks delicious, but I don’t know if I can afford the calories and fat grams.” She was thinking of how she’d looked almost voluptuous in the leather-band dress, until it occurred to her that she hadn’t gained weight. She just wasn’t accustomed to seeing herself in such a sexual way.
    David pointed at the rows of pastries, hot and fresh from the oven as the all-night bakery frequently replenished their displays. “We’ll order in Italian.
    The calories are the same, but curves are appreciated over there.”
    She traced her tongue along the inside seam of her lips, already tasting the crunchy almond biscotti and the oozing cannoli. “If only a ticket to Florence came with every dozen Florentines.”
    “Have you been?”
    She nodded. “But only on a family trip. Three weeks being ushered around Europe with my father, who believed in strict itineraries and the benefits of five-mile hikes and cold showers before breakfast. We spent four