Courting Disaster by Kathleen O'Reilly

Author:Kathleen O'Reilly [O'Reilly, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0373199236
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2008-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

O n Monday morning, the phone at Demetri’s hotel room began ringing early—obscenely early. The first call was from Hugh Preston, who wasn’t happy because apparently in the Internet age, pictures and rumors about Demetri and Elizabeth were already starting to fly. It took about fifteen minutes to smooth those ruffled feathers, and when Hugh hung up, not all ruffled feathers were back in place. The next call was from Thomas Preston, Hugh’s son, who wasn’t happy. Then Melanie Preston, who wasn’t happy, either.

Eventually, Demetri got smart, and stopped answering the phone. He was about to drive out to Quest and talk to Hugh, when Oliver knocked on his hotel room door, bursting in before Demetri could stop him.“You are the sly one, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” asked Demetri, knowing exactly what he meant, and shutting the door behind Oliver before anyone else heard what he meant, too. Bad actions, bad consequences, bad actions, bad consequences. Yes, Demetri had done it again.

“I didn’t realize what the bellman was whispering about until I heard your name, and then I thought, this must be interesting, and then they said something about the magazine reporter, last night, Elizabeth Innis…” Oliver trailed off, waiting for Demetri to fill in the blanks.

“There’s nothing,” said Demetri flatly, not inviting Oliver to sit down, because that would imply he wanted his teammate to stay. When Oliver didn’t pick up on the hint, Demetri checked his watch. Oliver sat down on the couch.

“There was a picture, Demetri.”

Yeah, Demetri knew about the picture. He’d seen it in the Louisville paper after Hugh Preston had pointed it out, in frank, graphic terms. “Two people standing in a hotel hallway. Hell, if that was all it took, we’d be an item, too.”

Oliver grinned, not quite with the finesse of Demetri, but Demetri knew that Oliver would learn. “Very clever. Exceedingly clever. Why couldn’t you have told me?”

“Nothing to tell.”

“Was she with you last night?”

“Go to hell,” answered Demetri tiredly, feeling more and more like a six-year-old. Tragically, sometimes six-year-old worked best with Oliver.

Oliver beamed. “You play this however you want, I’m only happy that you took my advice. With this, and your win over Marcusi, the timing couldn’t be better. Jim said that Anton Valencia rang and left him a message early this morning. Give him a few more days and he’ll be begging Sterling to take him back as a sponsor. Maybe you should take Elizabeth out for a night on the town? Something romantic, heart-tugging, that will have the press salivating for more.”

With thoughts a long way from heart-tugging, more like violent heart-ripping, Demetri walked toward the door, hoping Oliver would take the hint. He didn’t want to talk about this. With Oliver, with anyone. He’d been trying very hard, working very hard not to screw this up.

When Elizabeth got a whiff of a Valencia endorsement, she wouldn’t be happy. He knew that with every fiber of his being. Elizabeth was just beginning to trust him, just

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.