Read Christmas Dinner (Crimson Romance) for Free Online

I’m bringing someone home.” She glanced over. “His name is Tate Ryan. He’s my boyfriend.”
    Tate leaned back in his seat and cracked a smile. Was this really happening? The faux boyfriend train had just left the platform. Final destination, Amanda’s heart. But his first stop would be to kick Brad’s ass.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Amanda drummed her fingers on her knee, waiting for Tate to return with more coffee. He had stopped for gas just over the Maryland border. They were making good time even after stopping at her condo so she could freshen up, change, and pack her bags.
    She peered outside the window at the bare tree branches covered with snow. They were fortunate that the roads were clear.
    What a crazy twenty-four hours. The news story she’d get over, but Brad getting married?
    And now he and his fiancée were living with her parents. What the hell? According to her mother, their apartment building had caught on fire last weekend and they lost everything. Amanda knew that Quinn and Mark didn’t have the extra room in their one bedroom cottage behind her parents’ house. They were saving to build their own log cabin the spring.
    She fiddled with his satellite radio, landing on a nineties station. Much better than the alternative rock music Tate had made her listen to for the last three hours. Maybe a little Britney, Christina, or the Spice Girls would cheer her up. It usually did.
    It didn’t surprise her that her parents would extend the offer to stay with them to Brad. She suspected that they had long forgiven him for what he did to her. He was Quinn’s brother-in-law, after all.
    Who was he marrying? Her mom had been about to tell her when she had cut her off by blurting out that she was bringing a boyfriend home.
    She couldn’t believe she had done that. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but what did she really know about Tate? Could he play the part of the doting boyfriend?
    It was only this past January, not even a full year ago, that he was hired to co-anchor with her. She leaned her head on the passenger side window and pressed her cheek to the cool glass, remembering the first time she met him. That bus ride seemed so long ago . . .
    • • •
    “I really . . . hate . . . the . . . bus . . .” Amanda mumbled and took a seat. Her Nissan’s dead battery that morning forced her to take public transportation. “I’ll never get there.” She tapped her foot impatiently, watching fellow passengers slowly board. She should e-mail her new assistant, Lacy, and let her know she would be a few minutes late for the fourth of a series of unimpressive interviews for her new co-anchor. A stranger sat down in the empty seat next to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the man buttoning up his shirt.
    “Morning,” he chirped.
    “Morning,” she mumbled back, looking out the window to avoid his gaze. He couldn’t seriously be getting dressed. She tapped on her phone, texting Lacy. “OMG . . . You will never believe what the man sitting next to me is doing.”
    “Let me guess,” the man said. “You’re probably typing ‘WTF’ to a friend right now.”
    “Assistant,” she corrected him, without looking up from her phone.
    “Sir, your tie is on the floor.” An older woman sitting behind them tapped the man’s shoulder and pointed toward the ground.
    “Oh, geez. Thank you, ma’am.” He picked it up and draped it around his neck. “I had to run to make the bus.” He studied Amanda. “Hey, do I know you from somewhere? You look really familiar.”
    She watched him put on his tie. It matched her royal blue suit perfectly. He was attractive with short black hair, blue eyes, and wire rimmed glasses. She also had to admit the suit he was piecing together made him even cuter. “No. I don’t think so.” She added, “Well, you may recognize me from television. I anchor the local NBC news. That is, if I ever get there.” She sighed impatiently.
    “Sure! That’s it. Say, you’re