Bravo Unwrapped Read Online Free PDF Page B

story. Or the whole thing is off.”
    L.T. sipped his brandy and waved his cigar. “Sorry, B.J. But it looks like the decision’s been made for us.”

Three
    T rapped and fully aware of the fact, B.J. stewed all the way home in the back of her father’s big, black limousine.
    Looks like the decision’s been made for us, L.T. had said.
    â€œUs,” B.J. muttered under her breath as the car hummed across the Henry Hudson Bridge. Us? She should have ripped that prize rhino head off the far wall when her father said that, just got up and ripped it off the wall and stabbed him to the heart with that big, fat horn.
    For the first time, as she rode through the nighttime streets of uptown Manhattan, she actually considered quitting Alpha.
    But the magazine—and her dream of running the whole enterprise someday—had been her life. She simply wasn’t ready to walk away from it.
    Not yet.
    Not ever.
    And because she wasn’t ready to walk out, she was off to California at ten tomorrow morning.
    Off to California, with Buck…
    Â 
    Not twelve hours later, B.J., Buck and Lupe Martinez—sleek and exotic as always in her trademark black—took off from Teterboro for Reno.
    B.J. kept to herself during the plane ride. She sat at the opposite end of the cabin from Buck and Lupe, put on a pair of headphones and tried to zone out with the help of her trusty iPod. She did her best not to seethe—not too much, anyway. She composed a long series of e-mails to Giles on her laptop, instructions on how to handle the various challenges he’d be facing while she was away, notes on priorities, on whom to deal with immediately and whom he could safely ignore for a while. Between e-mails, she shut her eyes, leaned back and concentrated on letting go of her anger and frustration. Anger meant tension and tension seemed to trigger unpleasant activity in her pregnancy-sensitized stomach.
    She did understand that she would have to work through her rage and get past it; it would be pretty difficult to get Buck’s story if she refused to talk to him. Besides, who was she kidding? In the next few months she’d be talking to him, anyway—about his upcoming fatherhood.
    Though she’d never given a thought to having kids before, now that B.J. found herself pregnant, she’d discovered she actually wanted the baby.
    Okay, so maybe she wasn’t so hot at the male/female relationship thing. She’d accepted the fact thatshe would probably never marry. This could very well be her one chance to have a baby and she was grabbing it—even though it was bound to wreak serious havoc on her career.
    She’d manage, somehow. She had an embarrassingly large trust fund, courtesy of L.T., so money would be no problem. She’d hire nannies. The best that her nice, fat fortune could buy.
    And since Buck was the dad, she probably would have to deal with him. How much would depend on how large a part he intended to play in her baby’s life.
    And no, she wasn’t telling him the big news yet. No way. She needed to get through this trip with him, get the damn feature written. Until that was done, she refused to complicate the situation with him any further.
    In Reno, a rental SUV awaited them. They piled their bags and all of Lupe’s equipment in the back and climbed in. Buck took the wheel and Lupe jumped right in behind him, leaving the front passenger seat for B.J.—if she wanted it. She didn’t. However, she did need to practice being civil to Buck.
    So she hopped in front and sent Buck a quick, bland smile. There. Civil. Sort of. And that was certainly enough cordiality for now. He started up the car and she aimed her gaze straight ahead.
    The ride to Buck’s hometown took over an hour. B.J. watched the impressive scenery roll past. Especially after they left Nevada’s high desert behind, it was gorgeous out there. The bare hills and scrubby trees gave way to