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“Actually, it was probably not one of my best nights when we met,” Rowan laughed and then tossed a wink toward the camera.
“Oh?” The reporter edged closer, sensing a juicy story was coming her way.
“Yeah, I guess you can say that I was being a bit of a bad boy at a bar,” Rowan answered sheepishly. “As everyone out there in TV land knows, I went through quite an ugly breakup last year.”
K.D. nodded her head sympathetically, just like Corona imagined everyone else at home was doing right now. The entertainment world had been riveted for the past two years over Rowan’s love affair with Hollywood’s hottest sex kitten, Danica Foxx. Glossy tabloid magazines had made a fortune planting their faces on every cover in the western hemisphere. But, predictably, with all the media scrutiny, a couple that hot was bound to implode.
And they did. Quite spectacularly. Danica cheated on him. All that was missing was a set of golf clubs and a small library of lurid text messages to complete Rowan’s humiliation. But it was Danica’s announcement two days later that she was engaged to the movie star whom she did the cheating with that crushed Rowan.
“Anyway, I was sort of drowning my sorrows at the bottom of a Jack Daniel’s bottle, tossing back one shot after another when I looked up and there she was.”
Rowan turned and smiled at Corona. “An angel. A vision in white.”
Corona rolled her eyes at the way he was spinning their story.
“Sounds like you made quite an impression,” K.D. said.
“Yea, me.” Corona twirled her finger in the air with a breezy laugh before thinking better of it. Realizing that she needed to clean up her act a bit, she tried to explain. “You don’t understand. By the time me and my assistant, Margo, had made our way to the bar, Rowan and his new buddy Jack Daniels weren’t getting along so well.”
Rowan tossed the camera another wink.
“Our first meeting happened because I felt sorry for him for not being able to sit on a barstool,” Corona continued, finally starting to laugh at the memory. “Margo and I had a fun-filled evening lugging Mr. Blockbuster here back to his hotel. The whole time he kept telling me how perfect I was for a part in his next film. It was so cliché. Trust me.”
“Cliché or not, clearly whatever you did worked,” the reporter concluded.
“Not really,” Rowan laughed. “They dumped me on my bed—”
“More like he passed out,” Corona corrected.
“And when I woke the next morning, I was convinced I’d only dreamt her up.” He laughed and leaned over to give her another kiss. “Imagine my surprise when I saw her on the movie set later that evening talking to another star on the film. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was convinced that it had to be fate.”
“And I thought that I must have made someone mad in a past life,” Corona joked.
K.D. continued to look astonished. “You’re kidding me?”
“See why I’m marrying her? Anyone else in this town would’ve called the tabloids and made a quick buck.”
Sharp as a tack, K.D. cut in, “But it still proved to be beneficial to her. After all, she did sign you to the Banks Artists Agency, did she not?”
“Only after I tracked her down and begged her to represent me,” he said slyly.
“Really?”
“Well, what else could I do? She refused to go out with me.”
The reporter turned her incredulous eyes back toward Corona. “You’re kidding. You actually told the number one box office star in the world that you wouldn’t go out with him?”
Corona’s apple cheeks darkened with embarrassment. “No. I told the drunken guy that threw up in my shoes that I didn’t want to go out with him. I can forgive a lot of things, but ruining a pair of my favorite Jimmy Choos took divine intervention to forgive.”
Rowan smiled. “But the more she resisted, the more I just had to have her.”
“Ahh. So you’re a man who loves a challenge,” K.D. said.
“You can definitely say that,” he said, pressing another kiss to the back of Corona’s hand and then leaning over and stealing a slow kiss for all of America to see. When he finally pulled back, he declared, “I’m the happiest man in the world right now.”
Chapter 3
Over eight hundred miles south, in Thomason, Georgia, Lyfe Alton cocked his head up at the thirteen-inch television in Parker’s Service Station and tried to keep his drive-thru dinner down while he watched Corona Mae and superstar Rowan James smile and laugh in front of the cameras. Behind him, the small gas station’s door opened and jingled its bell.
“What in the hell is taking you so long in here?” Hennessey thundered, strutting up behind his younger brother and then smacking his heavy hand against his back. When Lyfe didn’t respond, he turned his head up at the television set to see what had caught his brother’s attention. “Hey! Ain’t that—”
“Yes,” Lyfe droned and then folded his arms.
Hennessey twisted up his face. “And ain’t that—”
“Yes,” Lyfe clipped out again, hoping his brother would catch a hint and shut the hell up. Of course he didn’t.
“Well, what in the hell are they talking about?” Hennessey asked and then glanced around until he saw the station’s owner behind the counter. “Yo, Parker. Can you turn this up?”
Lyfe closed his eyes and then drew in a long, steady breath. “C’mon. Let’s just go ahead and go.” He turned, but Hennessey’s gigantic hand locked on his shoulder and held him in place.
“Wait. Wait. Hold up.”
Behind the counter, old man Parker found his remote control and turned up the television set …
“Wow. I really am impressed,” the reporter with the wild hair said. She paused for a beat to allow the cameraman to zoom in on the engaged couple glancing lovingly at each other. “So let’s get to the nitty-gritty. When is the big day?”
“Christmas Day,” Rowan said, beaming. “Believe it or not, I’ve always dreamed of getting married on that day.”
“So did I,” Lyfe argued back at the screen. When he realized what he’d said aloud, he turned to his older brother. “Are you about ready to go?”
“Shh,” Hennessey said. “I’m trying to hear this.”
“Well, ain’t that about—”
“Parker, turn it up some more,” his brother shouted. “Motor mouth here won’t shut the hell up.”
Lyfe snapped his jaw shut while his two brows crashed together. Now if that doesn’t beat all. Grudgingly, he turned his head back toward the screen just as the station’s doorbell jingled again.
“Afternoon, Parker,” a familiar lyrical voice floated in.
Lyfe and Hennessey craned their necks around to watch willowy and leggy Tess stroll into the station.
Old man Parker lifted up the bill of his trucker’s hat and tossed the woman that was young enough to be his great-granddaughter a wink. “How you doing today, Miss Tess?”
“Oh, I’m doing fine,” she sighed, adding an extra humph! to her hips as she sashayed over to the counter. “I’m just looking for something to get into. You know how it is.” She handed over a pile of lottery tickets. “Daddy wants you to check his numbers.”
“Sure. No problem,” Parker said, jumping right to work.
Lyfe snickered. He had a feeling that if Tess asked the man to jump off the roof of the building while singing Old McDonald he would do it. The man was that smitten—just like most men that had the fortune or misfortune to cross her path were.
Catching the sound of Lyfe’s chuckle, Tess finally turned her bored gaze in his and his brother’s direction. She immediately lit up.
“Well, well. If it ain’t the Alton boys.” Tess’s beautiful smile grew bigger as she pushed away from the counter and strutted her way toward them. “Good Lord. All these chocolate muscles up in here. A sister might pass out.”
Hennessey laughed, mainly because Tess was as big a flirt as he was. “Don’t worry. If you faint, know that I got you.”
Lyfe rolled his eyes. He was going to have to take another look at his brother’s birth certificate and doublecheck that his middle name wasn’t “Corny.”
When she drew closer, her eyes widened. “Oh, my God … is that … Lyfe Alton? What on earth are you doing back in town?”
“Hello, Tess,” he said, tilting his head. “I’m on a little sabbatical from my architecture firm, so I came down to spend a couple of months with the folks.”
“Sabbatical, huh? Tired of living in the big city and thinking about coming back home?”
He shrugged to avoid answering.
Tess’s eyes roamed over him. He felt naked. He wondered if he should grab something to cover his private parts just in case she could see through his clothes.
“You know I never told you, but I used to have the biggest crush on you back in the day.”
“Is that right?” he said, straight-faced. The fact that Tess looked so much like her sister was beginning to make his chest hurt.
“Uh, huh.” Tess nodded. “But you were so stuck on Corona Mae that I don’t think you ever noticed any other girl in town.”
“He sure in the hell didn’t,” Hennessey said.
Lyfe gave his brother a hard glare that served as a final warning.
“What?” Hennessey asked, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s the truth.”
Only Tess picked up on his discomfort. “So where is the rest of the litter?” she asked. “Everybody knows that the Alton six-pack travels together.”
Lyfe shook his head as he looked her over again. “Like everything else, times change.”
Tess settled her hands on her hips as she tossed him a flirtatious wink. “Indeed.” She started to say something more when her gaze suddenly cut toward the suspended television set. “Is that—”
“Yep,” Hennessey said. “Looks like your older sister is still doing big things up in New York.”
“Parker, can you turn this up?”
“You got it!” Parker said, hitting the volume on the remote until people outside were likely able to hear the television set.
Lyfe groaned. But instead of leaving, like he should’ve done, his attention returned to the screen. Why not? He was a glutton for punishment, wasn’t he?
“Tess, honey. What the hell is taking you so long in here?” Rufus Banks thundered and then added to his old friend, “Yo, Parker, what’s up?”
“Nothing much. Just running your tickets through the machine here.”
Lyfe stiffened. He couldn’t help it. Things between him and Mr. Banks had never healed since the night he’d walked in on him and his daughter naked in their living room. Bullets flying at you in the middle of a snowstorm generally tended to have a lasting negative effect on a person.
The men’s gazes crashed.
“What the hell are you doing back here?” Rufus barked.
“You’ll never believe who’s on television, Daddy,” Tess said, interrupting a potential war.
Rufus grudgingly shifted his attention away from Lyfe and followed her finger that was pointing to the television. A millisecond later, a genuine smile carved its way into the center of his gray beard while he, too, strolled over to stand beneath the screen. “Well, look at Corona Mae all gussied up. What’s going on?”
Hennessey shrugged. “It appears you’re finally about to get yourself a son-in-law.”
“Say what?” Rufus squinted up at the screen.
“I’ll give you a hint,” Tess said, folding her arms beneath her small breasts. “Guess who’s coming to dinner.”
Rufus’s eyes bugged out. “What? That white boy right there?”
Lyfe gave him a lopsided smile. “Well, look at it this way. It’s not me.”
The men’s gazes locked again and another layer of tension was added between them. When Lyfe was younger, the look Rufus Banks was giving him would’ve been enough for him to trip over himself and scramble home. But fourteen years later, Lyfe was an intimidating man himself.
“Come on, Hennessey. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 4
The minute their wedding announcement segment ended on the entertainment channel, Corona powered off the television then jumped out of bed and raced toward the bathroom. “Oh, God. I think that I’m going to be sick.”
“Hey!” Rowan said from his side of the bed, as he lowered the script that he was reading. “I thought it was a very nice interview.”
Corona ignored him and dropped onto her knees next to the toilet bowl and waited for her dinner to make an encore appearance. But instead her stomach bent and turned like it was playing its own private game of Twister.
“Are you all right in there?”
She gagged and coughed but still nothing came up. “Yeah.” She sniffed and hung her head low so that her voice echoed in the porcelain chamber. “I’m fine.” In her mind, she replayed the syrupy sweet interview and felt another violent jerk in the center of her stomach.
What if my family saw it?
“You’re worried about your family,” Rowan said.
Corona jerked her head up to see her freshly minted fiancé leaning against the bathroom doorframe. He looked so studious in his wire-rimmed frames, and a hunk of his black hair flopped over his left eye. Then again, the man really didn’t have a bad angle on him.
“And don’t bother lying to me,” Rowan warned before she could think of a good lie. “I can tell that you’re worried about them learning about our engagement in the media before we get a chance to tell them in person.”
“Well—”
“Then let’s just fly down there and tell them. Get it out of the way. I don’t understand what the big deal is,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m starting to feel like the black sheep or something.”
Corona stretched up a single brow.
