Hold Me Closer (Sea Island Brides Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of it.
    How
would she get another job with all this media following her around?
    The
four flights of stairs to her apartment felt like twenty. When the
door to her apartment finally closed behind her, she dropped her
soggy cardboard box to the floor and sighed. She slipped out of her
boots, throwing them to the side of the door. Her pants legs were
soaked all the way up to the knee, and she unbuttoned them, letting
them slide to the floor in a heap. She gathered them up and threw
them into the laundry room, the whole time trying not to cry.
    Yesterday's
paper was on the kitchen table and she snatched it up. The employment
section was smaller than the last time she'd been job hunting.
Finding something fast was going to mean settling for a lot less
money than what she really needed right now, but she could make it
work.
    She
had to make it work.
    After
getting the coffee started in the kitchen, Annabelle grabbed the pink
blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around her body.
She'd gotten through worse times before, and she would get through
this as well.
    Or
at least that’s what she kept repeating to herself over and
over.
    Just
when she was starting to feel better, there was a knock on the door.
Annabelle groaned. More reporters. If she didn't make a sound, maybe
they would go away. She sat as still as she could and waited.
    Whoever
was at the door knocked again, and Annabelle closed her eyes. She
wasn't ready to face all these media sharks wanting to know about her
alleged affair with a billionaire. What was she going to say to them?
    What
if she couldn’t leave her apartment for days? Weeks?
    Her
stomach began to knot up again.
    “Annabelle?
It's Hudson Montgomery.”
    Her
heart stopped. No. It couldn't be.
    Pulling
the pink blanket tighter around her body, Annabelle shuffled her way
to the door's tiny peep hole.
    She
recognized the man in the hallway instantly, with his dark blonde
hair and stunning blue-green eyes. When he caught her by the pool,
she had almost gotten lost in those eyes, and the memory of being
pressed against his muscular chest sent a shiver of desire through
her from head to toe.
    What
is he doing here?
    She
pressed her back against the wall and felt a little bit light headed.
How did he find her so quickly? The tabloid only hit the stands a few
hours ago, and Sea Island was a good five hour drive from the city.
    Was
he here to yell at her? Hit her with some terrible lawsuit?
    He
knocked again. “Annabelle, I know you're home. I saw you come
into the building. We need to talk, and I’m not going away, so
you might as well open the door.”
    She
left the chain on and opened the door just a crack.
    “I'm
sorry, Mr. Montgomery, but if you're here
to reprimand me about that photo, all I can tell you is that I had
nothing to do with it,” she lied. “Besides, I've already
lost my own job over it, so there's no
reason to rake me over the coals.”
    Part
of her was hoping he would just walk away, but there was another part
that wanted to let him in and see if she could find a way back into
those strong arms of his.
    She
quickly pushed those thoughts from her head. He may be the most
gorgeous man she'd ever seen, but he was still a domineering,
self-centered rat.
    Just
like Harrison Peavy. All billionaires were the same. They used you
until they didn’t need you anymore, and then you were nothing
to them.
    Her
heart squeezed in her chest as she thought of how the magazine's
wealthy married client cornered her a few weeks ago when she went to
his apartment to deliver some flowers for a photo shoot. The
photographer sent her into the kitchen to place the flowers into an
antique vase, but just when she turned around to fill the vase with
water, she felt his hands slip around her waist and his groin press
against her backside suggestively. There was no telling how far he
would have tried to take things if she hadn't shattered his expensive
vase into a million pieces.
    Men
were always trying to