My Front Page Scandal Read Online Free PDF

darkened a Winfield doorstep, but she was familiar with it because it had been the guilty pleasure of her mother and her friend, Reba. Primarily Reba, who considered herself an insider in the entertainment industry because she’d done some modeling in the mad, mod world of the sixties and seventies.
    Brooke found a small item on an inside page about David’s accident. DISGRACED BASEBALL HERO KISSES CEMENT. Nice.
    There were two small photos. Her stomach dropped into her shoes, but a quick scan relieved her anxiety. One showed the overturned motorcycle. The other was of David leaving the hospital with a bruised face and bandaged head, strong-arming a photographer. Brooke was a blur in the corner of the shot, mentioned only as an unidentified female companion. The intimation was that she was a pickup from his night out on the town. She might have been insulted at that, but under the circumstances she could only feel fortunate. She’d lucked out, big time.
    The remaining papers were equally unremarkable. One sports reporter speculated about Carerra’s return to the city, suggesting that he would soon rejoin the team. She wondered if that was true. David’s attitude hadn’t been reconciliatory. He’d seemed rather downbeat, in fact, except when he’d been hitting on her.
    Brooke left the papers in the coffee shop and hurried on to work. Usually she would come in late the morning after a window change, but there was a department-head meeting today that she had to attend. Alyce was worried that a vanguard of old-time employees were planning to complain again about them pushing O.M. Worthington in a new, trendier direction.
    After dropping off her bag in her office and changing from flats to a pair of designer heels, purchased frugally with her employee discount, Brooke rode the elevator to the fourth-floor executive offices. At two and three, several of her coworkers boarded.
    “The new window is lovely,” said the housewares manager, a tiny blue-haired lady who’d been at the store so long rumor said that she’d started out selling rug beaters to Victorians.
    Floyd Tibbet from accounting harrumphed. “It was a relief to see the last one go.”
    Brooke held up her portfolio of drawings. “Wait’ll you see what I’ve planned for Valentine’s.” She was usually as sweet as pie to the old-school vanguard, but this morning it gave her a perverse thrill to see Floyd’s nostrils quiver.
    The elevator thudded to a stop and the uniformed operator rolled back the gate with a rattle. Alyce Simmons was waiting. She took Brooke aside as the others rushed to grab up the best pastries from the basket on the coffee cart outside the meeting room.
    With one blink, Alyce had scanned Brooke from head to toe. Brooke thought of the head fashion buyer as a very snappish woman. Snap decisions, snap judgment, snap remarks, snap dresser.
    Alyce’s eyebrow went up. She did a wicked one-up, one-down eyebrow expression that made even Mr. Worthington take account of himself. “Late night?”
    Brooke put a hand on her hair, freshly skinned into a chignon she’d dressed with a splashy print scarf. With her hoop earrings and a stark black formfitting suit, she’d felt very retro 70s glam. “It shows?”
    Alyce blinked. “I was kidding. You look a tad tired around the eyes, but you don’t do late nights.”
    “Not that kind.” Brooke’s fingers tightened on the portfolio. “I was dressing a window.”
    “Ah.” Alyce nodded.
    “What’s the scoop?” Brooke asked.
    “More of the same. Snips and snails.” Alyce dug a stiletto heel into the marble floor. “Nothing I can’t grind out.”
    “The new windows and in-store displays should mollify them. I’m not doing anything too unusual for Christmas, either.”
    “Heaven forbid.” Alyce checked her platinum watch. On the dot of nine, she marched into the meeting room with a toss of her head. Her hair was red, almost magenta, and extremely short. She was probably fifty, but looked