AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Duke, are you going to finally marry Kristina now?”
Growling, Duke grabbed Kristina by the elbow and just started walking with her until he found a quiet room. “Gosh, Duke!” Kristina breathed when she looked around. “So quick to get me into bed again?”
They were in a bedroom. There were two twin beds against either side of the wall, and a desk separated them. Posters of Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Tavis Smiley and Rachel Maddow covered the walls on one side. Pictures of various baseball teams covered the other. It must have been Gia and MJ’s room when they came to stay with their father. Thank God the kids were out on a hayride and weren’t being subjected to this drama.
Kristina was sitting on the edge of the bed with its pink comforter, stroking her hand along the material. “It’s kind of small, but I’m sure we can make do with it.”
“What are you doing here, Kristina?” Duke folded his arms across his chest.
“I came to uncover a story.”
“The senator’s story or yours?”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be silly. Do you think that I wanted things to happen like they did tonight?”
“Of course.”
“Well, you’re wrong. I’m just doing my job.”
“And your job is to come into someone else’s home and cause a scene?”
Trying to smile innocently didn’t work on Kristina. She was always working an angle somehow. “Now, how could I cause a scene?”
“The paparazzi.”
“I can’t help it if they follow me everywhere I go.”
He snorted. “You could if you didn’t tip them off. I’ve been here over a month now and I haven’t had any trouble from them, and I’ve been on the news.”
“This Podunk town isn’t considered news.”
Tallahassee had grown on him. Insulting the town was insulting him. His anger grew at her smugness. “If it wasn’t news, then you wouldn’t be here.”
“Well, Oscar thinks...”
He stopped her before she could say anything else about their boss, with whom she’d had an affair. “Does Oscar think that’s my child?”
“Of course he does!”
He cursed again, this time not under his breath. “You know this is not possible.” He waved his hand at her physical state. The evidence of her affair not only angered him again, but reminded him of what he could not do as a man. The bedroom he stood in reminded him of what another man could do that he couldn’t.
Throughout his entire life, he’d competed. He competed in baseball, journalism, and to stay on top of his game at all times. Another man providing a woman with a child was something he could not compete with. It was the one spot in life where he failed. And if he could not create his own family, what did he have to offer Macy?
Kristina pressed her bejeweled hand against her chest. “I know. And you know. And Oscar questions that. But more importantly Oscar’s wife doesn’t know that.”
It had been rumored that Oscar’s wife Allegra’s family was in the Mafia. Nothing had ever been proven, but the rumors apparently had Kristina scared. “Tell him the truth, Kristina,” Duke warned her.
“I can’t.”
“It’s not my problem.”
“It kind of is.”
He pushed off the wall. “That’s not funny.”
Kristina picked a fleck of dust off her kneecap as she crossed her legs. Her belly was full. She looked as if she was ready to give birth at any moment. Oscar was crazy for sending her out on a story so close to her due date.
“It is. You know you wouldn’t be where you are if it weren’t for me.”
