All in the Game by Barbara Boswell Read Free Book Online Page A

meant a cash prize, with each runner-up—the third, the second and, finally, the first—making more in turn.
    Were she and Lauren both to make the final four, the payoff would be considerable. That was not something to be lightly dismissed.
    The Cullen twins hadn’t turned over their lives to a prime-time game show for the hell of it. They needed the money—the family was counting on them.
    As for the risk Tynan was taking meeting her…
    Well, keeping his job because he needed his salary wouldn’t be a concern for him. Whatever their transgressions, the Howes must still be rich. After all, during the entire time the Howe family had been under the full glare of the media spotlight, one story that had never appeared was their plunge into poverty.
    Ty probably wouldn’t even lose his job. Wasn’t it a universal truth that men rarely paid the same price for breaking the rules that women did? And, of course, Tynan was a Howe, whose family knew a thing or two thousand about rule breaking.
    Victorious concerns aside, Tynan Howe was emotionally dangerous to her. Any man who could effortlessly turn back the clock nine years and transform her into her impetuous young-girl self was a must to avoid.
    Unfortunately, Shannen couldn’t seem to stay focused on all the practical, logical no-nonsense reasons why she should keep away from him. She kept getting distracted by other thoughts.
    Like his name. He wasn’t even using the name Howe.She’d realized that the first day they had all arrived on the island. There were no introductions to the crew, but when she’d seen Ty among them—after getting over the initial stunning shock—she had paid close attention. And heard him called Ty Hale.
    Hale, not Howe. Scrapping Howe for Hale didn’t surprise her nearly as much as the fact that he was working as a television cameraman. After all, the Howe name was no longer a proud symbol of wealth, achievement and privilege. The family had dragged it through so much mud, it had become a stigma.
    But Tynan had gone to law school. He’d been a senior law student at West Falls University Law School when they’d met. She knew he’d taken and passed the state bar exam. The names of graduates passing the various state professional examinations always were proudly published in the university newspaper.
    Since when did a lawyer work as a cameramen on a network game show? Tynan Hale, attorney at law, made more sense than Tynan Hale, working-stiff cameraman, didn’t it?
    She wanted to know; she wondered every time she looked at him behind that camera. Which was nearly sixteen hours a day. The omnipresence of the camera crew was annoying enough, but having Ty always there had reawakened feelings she thought—she’d hoped!—had died.
    Not so. Never had she been so aware of anyone in her life—except during their last go-round nine long years ago.
    So why didn’t you ask him all those pertinent questions last night, Shannen? she silently chided herself. Instead, she’d ended up in his arms within minutes, after making that pathetically lame excuse of why she had risked meeting him.
    Why had she risked meeting him in the first place?
    No use pretending she didn’t know the answer to thatone. Seeing him every day, all day… Having him so near yet so totally out of reach…
    The tension built and burned inside her. Unaccustomed to passivity, she couldn’t stop herself from taking action.
    Oh, who was she kidding? Shannen exhaled an impatient sigh, unable to talk herself into the convenient self-deception. Taking action and losing control were too very different responses, and she knew which one had prevailed last night.
    Memories of last night whirled through her head, making her wince. Tynan had accused her of strategizing by using silence. Thankfully, he hadn’t known she’d been struck dumb by the sight of him, by the tantalizing prospect of being