Read Online Secret Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 5) by Marysol James - Free Book Online Page A

honey, I’ve been dating for twenty years, and no man has ever just declared himself like that to me.” She took a sip of bitter vending-machine coffee and considered. “I think that no man ever just lays it all out for a woman unless he’s got a ring in his pocket. And even then, most of them can barely get out the four basic words of ‘will you marry me’ without stumbling and stuttering. The fact that Curtis shot you through the heart without even touching you tells me that the man shook you up.”
    Tessa shook her head.
    “Christ on a cracker, Tessa,” J.J. said. “Would you stop with the shrugging and head-shaking and just talk to me? What’s going on with you?”
    Tessa pulled her legs against her body defensively. “I – I’m not sure.”
    J.J. regarded her friend and felt herself softening a bit. Tessa was all curled up in the eating disorder clinic bed, and she looked pale and exhausted. The tube was out of her arm now, which was good, and she was going home the next day, which was even better. But she wasn’t herself, not even close, and J.J. was worried that the second Tessa was left to her own devices, she’d hurt herself again. Time to back off a bit.
    “Tessa.” J.J.’s voice was warm. “What do you think would happen if you talked to Curtis about all of this? What do you honestly think he’d say?”
    Tessa dropped her eyes to the bed sheets. “I think he’d say that he made a mistake. That he – that he didn’t mean it.”
    “I don’t know the man, granted, but he doesn’t strike me as the type that shoots his mouth off.”
    Tessa was silent for a few seconds. “He’s not.”
    “In fact,” J.J. said. “He doesn’t strike me as the type that says much of anything at all.”
    “Uh, yeah. He’s kind of the strong, silent type.”
    “Uh-huh. I figured. And when that type of guy says what’s on his mind, you’d damn well better pay attention and believe it, ‘cause what they have to say isn’t said lightly. Curtis isn’t dicking around with you, Tessa, and he told you what he did because it’s true.”
    Tessa shrugged again, desperate to change the subject. “Maybe. But I have some things to deal with first.”
    “Now that I agree with,” J.J. said, turning serious. After almost two decades of professional ballet dancing, she knew what an unhealthy relationship with food looked like, and although Tessa had been way better at hiding hers than most other girls, time had run out. There was no way she could have gone on the way that she had been, and J.J. was horrified at just how far it had gone, how bad it had gotten. And it had happened right in front of her goddamn eyes.
    J.J. studied her friend with a cool, dispassionate eye, the way that she’d look at a stranger’s body. Yeah, OK, Tessa wasn’t a totally sickly-looking stick any more, that was for sure. At five foot seven and with a medium frame, her healthy body weight ranged from about one hundred and thirty-four pounds to maybe one hundred and forty-eight pounds. When she’d landed in the hospital just over a week before, hyperventilating and dehydrated, she’d been a terrifying one hundred and two pounds.
    J.J. still recalled that first look at Tessa: she’d looked like a hollow-eyed shadow of her former self. J.J. had burst in to tears of shock and horror, and Tessa had just stared at her from the hospital bed, hostile and tense.
    After twelve days in the hospital treatment clinic, paid for by her boss Jax, and under strict dietary supervision and with daily counselling sessions (both private and in a group) with a woman named Rianna, Tessa was now one hundred and twelve pounds. Far, far from where she needed to be to be properly healthy, but she was stronger now, and her humor and calm were returning.
    It had all been close, J.J. knew – way too goddamn close – but Tessa had turned the corner now. She’d have to take it from here, but J.J. wasn’t leaving her on her own. And she suspected that if asked,