Read Online The Wedding Band by Cara Connelly - Free Book Online Page B

cold.
    â€œShe on the list?” Kota asked.
    â€œNo. I told him if she’s not on the list, she wouldn’t get in. But he claims her roommate said she was headed here, so he wants permission to come in and look around.”
    Cold sweat trickled down her spine.
    â€œNot happening,” said Kota. “Tell him he can wait outside the perimeter with the media assholes and grab her if she comes out. Which she won’t, since she’s not on the list.”
    Tony left, and Kota curled his lip in disgust. “Now the idiot reporters’ll say I’m harboring fugitives.”
    Chris offered a sympathetic nod like she knew all about the prying press—­which she did, since she was one of them—­and kicked herself in the ass for lollygagging around the mansion sucking on eye candy instead of getting the hell out of Dodge.
    Now it was too late. She was trapped. When the deputy snagged her leaving the premises, not only would he serve her with summons in the lawsuit, thereby pissing off Owen beyond all redemption, but the phalanx of cameras stationed outside the perimeter would capture the whole nasty business on film.
    With so little real news to report about the wedding of the year, the juicy story of the undercover reporter would flash around the globe, further embarrassing the Sentinel, destroying Chris’s last shred of journalistic credibility, and, worst of all, exposing her treachery to the entire Rain clan.
    She’d hoped to spare all of them—­and her parents—­that final insult by posting the wedding story under an anonymous byline. She’d never get away with that now.
    Unless . . .
    Casually, she strolled to the food cart and plucked a chocolate-­covered strawberry from a silver bowl set in ice. “So, tell me more about your island.”

 
    Chapter Six
    T HE GETAW AY PLANE was gassed up and waiting on the runway at Burbank. Shaking hands with its owner, billionaire playboy Adam LeCroix, Chris realized that he was everything the press made him out to be—­tall, dark, and impossibly handsome, with a presence that made men do his bidding and women do anything.
    But in Kota, he’d met his equal. Watching them clasp hands, Chris decided they were two sides of the same coin, cast in bronze by a beneficent god. A female god. Who liked tall men with extremely awesome arms.
    Adam’s fiancée, Maddie, a bite-­sized blonde with a killer sense of humor, knew exactly how to play both of them. Elbow-­bumping Chris, she murmured, “Watch this.”
    As Kota turned to greet her with his thousand-­watt smile, Maddie’s eyes glazed. Her body went limp as a noodle. “Hi, Dakota.” A breathy whisper.
    â€œMaddie darlin’.” He kissed one cheek. Then the other. Held her tiny hands in both of his.
    And Adam busted in. “That’s enough of that, unless you’ve got someone else willing to fly a thousand miles out of his way to drop you on your island.”
    Kota released Maddie’s hands with a show of reluctance. She let out a tremulous sigh.
    â€œChrist Jesus,” Adam muttered, his European accent making blasphemy sound sexy.
    Maddie dropped a wink at Chris, who bit back a grin.
    The pilot’s voice piped through the speaker, advising them to buckle up for takeoff. Adam guided Maddie to a pair of cushy leather seats, while Kota steered Chris into the facing pair. Sasha and Tana buckled in on the sofa, where they could canoodle in relative privacy.
    Kota murmured in Chris’s ear. “Maddie’s not a great flier. She’d probably feel better if you held my hand.”
    â€œHow do you figure?”
    â€œSee how she’s clinging to Adam? She gets embarrassed about that. So if you were holding my hand, snuggling into my shoulder like you were scared too, she wouldn’t feel like such an oddball.”
    Tempting. Even more tempting when he traced a pattern on her wrist