Read Kissing Fortune (Man Season) for Free Online

some feeling
in him for her.
    “You were good. But you know that. Girls like you bank on that.”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “You learn all the tricks to pleasing
a man, so you can really hit him hard; leave him begging for more, caught in
your snare like a starving dog after your bones. But I can’t play that game,
Tierney. I’m sorry it looked like I was using you. I wasn’t. I wanted you too,
since the second I laid eyes on you. But lust is easy to satisfy …”
    “It was more than lust for me.”
    “How could it be? You don’t know me.”
    “I knew all I needed to know the
minute I saw your eyes.”
    “Real life doesn’t work that way.”
    “Maybe for some it does. It hasn’t
for me before. But this time I’m certain of my feelings. And I know they won’t
change no matter what you do or say. I love you, Kiel . And if that makes me stupid, fine.
But it’s just the way it is.”
    “I can’t accept that. I …” he paused,
his chest shaking with a sudden, tangible pain, “I can’t let you into my world,
Tierney. It’s a lonely, ugly place.”
    “It couldn’t be any worse than what
I’m going through now. Somebody wants me dead, Kiel . I’m scared. And I don’t know who I
can trust.”
    “You can’t trust me. And you can’t love
me. Go on down to your room. It’ll be daylight soon.”
    He moved past her, disappeared into
the hull. Tierney glanced round, wet-eyed, at the smiling moon and dancing
stars. The hint of a sun was rising in the east. She felt utterly, miserably
alone.
    Late morning found Tierney sitting at
a table in the boat’s galley, sipping good coffee and munching on chocolate
donuts fried by Travers.
    “Like them?”
    “Um hum, they’re great! You could
spoil a girl with this kind of food. I’ll bet I’ve gained five pounds since I
met you.”
    “Wouldn’t hurt you to gain five more! You rich girls are too skinny. You
know, in my youth, there were ads in the backs of comic books, selling stuff
that made you gain weight so you’d attract more fellas ?
Man, have times changed!”
    “Blame it on the fashion mags . And Hollywood . I actually had anorexia when I was
thirteen. My parents were trying to turn me into the next Margot Fonteyn … you know, the ballerina? And I starved myself
sick hoping it would make me lighter on my feet; which it didn’t! It only made
me so weak I couldn’t stand, much less dance!” She made sure Kiel wasn’t near then she whispered:
“Tell me more about him, Travers.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like … everything!”
    “Nah, no doing, girl. If you want to know the lowdown on Kiel Fortune, you’ll have to get it
straight from him! I’m not one for telling tales.”
    “You are. You’re afraid of him,
that’s all.”
    “Maybe I am.”
    She was frowning at him when Kiel came into the galley. Her heart began
to flap wildly in her chest as she stared at him. Ever shirtless, sweat beading
on his sexy muscled arms and midriff; he snitched a couple of donuts and a cup
of coffee, headed for the living room.
    “Too good to eat with us?” Tierney hissed.
    “No, I just came in here to check on
the news. Everybody thinks you’re dead. Someone saw you leave with Travers.
Then the report came in about his yacht blowing up.”
    She jumped up, hurried to the
satellite TV. “I’m dead? Wow. That means I could restart my whole existence,
doesn’t it?”
    “Would you want to?”
    “Hell, yes! I’d like to live a life
where nobody wants to kill me!”
    Travers joined them as they listened
to a pert newswoman with faked concern in her voice. “Yes, it appears that reality
star Tierney Evans is dead, killed in a horrible explosion on a yacht at sea,
though no bodies have been found. Why she was on the yacht, and the cause of
the explosion, are not clear. But recently the billionaire heiress just missed
being killed by a bomb planted on her car. Join us later this evening when our
ace reporter, Hawk Greeley, speculates on these matters