Blitz (Blast Brothers #3) - Sabrina Stark Page 0,98
me. Still, I knew what was right.
I told her, "Whether you're doing a good job or not, you're personally involved, which makes it a conflict of interest."
"So what if I’m personally involved?" she said. "That only means I'll work harder to defend your honor."
It was such an old-fashioned way to put it, and if I weren't so pissed-off at the reporters, I might have smiled. But I couldn’t smile now, not when I considered whose fault this was. "Trust me," I said. "I have no honor worth defending."
Mina frowned. "But that's not true."
She was wrong. The way I'd lived my life, it was nothing to be proud of, at least not on the personal front.
When I said nothing in reply, she said, "How about this? Just give it a couple more weeks, okay? By then, the media will be talking about something else, and I can go back to talking about the festivals." She reached out and took my hand. "Come on. Please?"
With any other girl, I never had a problem saying no. But Mina – whenever she hit me with those baby blue eyes of hers – well, let's just say my resolve didn't hold up so great.
In the end, I agreed to Mina's terms, not because I wanted to, but because I could tell it pained her to think of being replaced.
On the upside, she and I had been doing a decent job of dodging Angelique herself, until our luck ran out the very next week.
Chapter 66
Mina
I swear, my jaw hit the ground as soon as I saw the reporter from the Buckville Shopper. The little newspaper was a small-town publication filled mostly with classified ads and features about local events.
The reporter and I had been corresponding for days, and she'd given her name as Angie Love.
What a crock.
I knew I'd been bamboozled the moment I arrived at our designated meeting spot, directly in front of the Ferris Wheel, only to see not some local reporter, but someone I'd been trying to avoid.
Her name wasn't Angie. It was Angelique Delmonico, the ex-girlfriend from hell. She wasn't alone either. With her was a camera guy – some freelancer from the looks of him.
Talk about rotten timing.
Here it was, a beautiful afternoon in mid-July, and around us, everyone seemed to be having a terrific time. Not me. And if I had my way, Angelique wouldn't be having such a great time either.
I gave her a no-nonsense look. "Let me guess. You're Angie."
"Well, that's what my friends call me." She smiled. "But you can call me Miss Delmonico."
I didn't smile back. Oh, I wanted to call her something, alright. But this was a family-friendly event, so all I did was point out the obvious. "You lied to get the appointment."
"I did not," she laughed. "Trust me, the Buckville Shopper was more than happy to get my name on an article."
When my only reply was a stony look, she said, "Nice job avoiding me, by the way."
Until now, I had been doing a nice job of avoiding her. But of course, I'd been a fool to think my luck would last.
I snuck a quick glance at the camera guy. To my infinite horror, he was already filming us.
Well, this was just terrific.
When I looked back to Angelique, she gave me a nasty smirk. "So, how's lover boy doing?"
Obviously, she meant Chase, but I refused to go there. Stiffly, I replied, "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm only taking questions about the festival."
"Perfect," she said. "So…have you and Chase ever done it on the Ferris Wheel?"
I drew back. "What kind of question is that?"
Her smile vanished, and she leaned in for the attack. "Or, do you prefer to copulate in barns?"
I sputtered, "What?"
"You know," she sneered. "Like livestock."
Embarrassingly, I knew exactly what she was talking about. And of course, it didn't help that yes, we had "copulated" in a barn. But that was only one time and nobody's business, anyway.
I snuck a quick glance around and didn't like what I saw.
It wasn't uncommon for people to stop and stare when an interview was going on, especially if cameras were involved. But this interview was attracting more attention than most, no doubt because everyone knew exactly who the so-called reporter was – and who I was, too.
Probably, the crowd was waiting for the inevitable cat-fight, or maybe a screaming match right here in the midway. But that wasn't going to happen, not if I could help it.
I told her, "That's enough. The interview's over."