The Alpha Deception Read Online Free PDF Page A

but she wasn’t at any of the nearby tables. He headed for the far wall, where more tables were secluded behind a Japanese screen. As he approached, she stepped out to meet him.
    She was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman in the bar. Her figure had remained tall and lean. She wore only traces of makeup and a dress that highlighted her model’s body. There was nothing pretentious about her appearance. Blaine immediately felt all the old attraction he had tried to forget. She stood there uneasily, her smile slight and nervous, and Blaine knew more was behind the tension than simply their reunion.
    He kissed her lightly on the lips, let his squeeze of her hand linger.
    “You promised me you’d stay beautiful,” he said through the lump in his throat. “And you have.”
    “Still working the old charm, eh McCracken?”
    “Some things don’t change, T.C.”
    “Been a long time since anyone called me that. I still hate it.”
    “Well, Terry Catherine, that’s why I say it.”
    “I see time hasn’t mellowed you in the least. As I always used to tell you, if God had meant us to use initials, he wouldn’t have bothered with names in the first place.”
    Blaine let go of her hand and together they walked to her table, set back against the wall where there was nothing to disturb their privacy. Through a nearby window they could see people passing on the sidewalk outside.
    “I do plenty of things God probably never meant,” he told her when they were seated.
    “And I understand one of those colorful escapades,” she followed without missing a beat, “earned you the title of McCrackenballs. I was offended when I heard about it. They could have come to me for a reference.”
    “Your memory that good?”
    “Some things you don’t forget.”
    “That ring I felt on your finger means you forgot one promise you made to yourself.”
    She nodded emotionlessly. “An unfortunate misstep. Lasted three years. The divorce was a much happier day than the wedding. I keep the ring as a reminder to avoid similar missteps in the future.”
    “Why bother making one?”
    She didn’t answer him right away, and that gave Blaine a chance to gaze into her eyes. She really was beautiful, even more so now than eight years ago. The little her face had aged made it seem fuller, less dominated by the high cheekbones she had always been sensitive about. She wore her hair shorter now, shaggy, neither in fashion nor out—just her.
    “Because I was scared,” she said finally. “Twenty-seven years old, all dressed up, and nowhere to go. I panicked. Promised myself I’d say yes to the next man who popped the question. Could’ve been worse. It could have been you, McCracken.”
    Blaine winked. “Anything but that.”
    “Anyway, I’m now determined to die single.”
    “But not a virgin.”
    “Thanks to you.”
    “If I was the first, I’ll eat your mattress cover.”
    “You were the first that mattered, the first who wasn’t a juvenile, or who didn’t come ready packaged from my family, or who wasn’t a horny Brown undergrad. It’s the same thing.”
    A waitress came and T.C. ordered a glass of wine by name and vintage. McCracken said he’d take the same.
    “Red and white,” he noted with a shrug. “All just colors to me.”
    “A man in your position really should pay more attention to such things, McCracken.”
    “A man in my position shouldn’t be drinking at all. You should see me. I’m really good at swirling the contents of a glass around so no one can tell I’m not drinking it.”
    “The wine you just ordered is twenty dollars a glass.”
    “I’ll swirl slower.”
    She laughed and looked at ease for the first time. “You’re a hard man to keep track of.”
    “You found me.”
    “I never stopped keeping tabs, you know. I know all about your trouble in England and your subsequent banishment to the office pool in France. Learning of your resurrection was second only to my divorce as the best day ever.”
    “But