Island of Desire by Lorie O'Clare

Author:Lorie O'Clare
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2011-12-21T16:00:00+00:00

The next day, Andrea leaned against the door to her office after saying good-bye to her Idaho contestant and his agent and publicist. Each candidate’s problems seemed to run together after a while. Either their living conditions on the island were unacceptable, they couldn’t stand their roommate, scheduling conflicts existed, all of which she had handled so many times since arriving on the island she could mediate the worst of arguments in her sleep.

Sighing, she turned to her desk, slumped into her office chair, and picked up her smart phone. Andrea tapped the screen and the text messages she’d exchanged with Mark the day before appeared. She closed her eyes, but the damage was done. The text message burned into her brain. Opening her eyes, she forced herself to read the conversation. It was for the best, she told herself, as she scrolled up and down, reading the exchanged texts.

Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend? She had texted to Mark the previous afternoon after storming away from him and Lieutenant Conkin.

His response had been immediate. Because I don’t.

Does your lady cop know this?

Six minutes had passed before he’d responded. Six excruciating minutes. Andrea stared at the time stamps between her question and his eventual response. Those six minutes had been telling.

It’s one-sided, Dre.

Dre. No one called her Dre. And if anyone had, Andrea would have corrected them immediately. Yet for some idiotic reason, staring at the nickname he’d started using during their text messaging, a warm sensation formed in her gut.

One side is too much drama for me.

It was one thing about text messaging she hated. She had sent her response to his denial immediately, typing and sending without giving it thought. She’d condemned and turned him out. Worse yet, there was no text after that. Her final message sat there, hanging in text message air, ending their text session and their incredibly short relationship. Yet it was far from over.

Mark hadn’t pushed the matter. He hadn’t texted her since. Nor had she seen him. Granted, she’d been in her office since yesterday afternoon, although she wasn’t hiding. The closer they got to the pageant, the more swamped she was. She was never alone for more than a few minutes before someone appeared in her doorway, asking to speak with her, and having a problem that needed to be solved immediately.

Andrea placed her phone on her desk and dragged her fingers through her hair. She’d worn it down today, primarily because she hadn’t had the desire to do anything with it. It was also the weekend, although days of the week ran together sometimes. There was no clocking in at eight in the morning and out at six in the evening. Morning or night, weekday or weekend, her work continued. It was what she loved about this job. It wasn’t a matter of getting her forty hours in but completing the project, which right now was the Mr. Desire Pageant, not Mark.

Since her hair was down, she’d

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