Crazy Thing Called Love by Molly O'Keefe Read Free Book Online

her absence, he’d pushed away what was left of his family, his friends from back home. His childhood. Because he couldn’t stand his past without her there to make it tolerable.
    When he finally ruined what had been left of them, she took his future, his past, and the best of him with her.
    “Maddy and I grew up together, down the street from each other actually, and we … we used to be married.”
    Tara Jean’s mouth fell open and he held up his hand, stopping the barrage of questions he could see coming. “We were like ten years old and I … I ruined it.”
    “What did you do?”
    “Not your business, Tara. I’m sorry, but it’s not.” Itwas Maddy’s business and he knew that she’d kept it a secret, so he would, too.
    “So is she just going to ask you questions? Or have you play hockey with kids? What?” Tara asked, looking small—but never frail—in her boyfriend’s big T-shirt. He remembered Maddy like that, the sight of her brown legs under one of his T-shirts the hottest thing he’d ever seen.
    “A … a makeover. Teach me how to dress, how to act. That sort of thing. She’s gonna shine me up for Dallas.”
    Tara’s eyes narrowed and he knew how it sounded, how the show would be debasing at best.
    “You gotta admit, it’s good TV and the Mavericks’ PR folks are going to love it.”
    “Billy,” she sighed, her eyes so sad on his behalf, which was sweet, but unnecessary. She had no idea how much he was looking forward to this. To seeing Maddy again.
    “Don’t worry about me, Tara,” he said, spreading the last of the primer over the wall. “I can take care of myself, and if Maddy wants to humiliate me, I owe her that.”
    Tara Jean nodded and went back to priming her section of the room. In that silent moment he thought about his future and how, when you least expected it, the past came all the way back around.
    Dressed up like a second chance.

The photo shoot for the spring promo was in full swing. Gina had done miraculous work, and when Madelyn looked in the mirror she didn’t even recognize herself. She looked perfect. Airbrushed but breathing.
    Which was exactly how you wanted to look when you were going to be on a billboard overlooking the North Central Expressway.
    The blue Calvin Klein dress fit like a second skin from her chest down to her knees. Ironically, when she had stepped out of the changing area, Gina had clucked her tongue and told her she was too thin.
    “What do you want?” Gina had asked in response to Maddy’s incredulous look. “I’m Italian, part of me just wants to feed you manicotti until I can’t see your hip bones.”
    Madelyn had thought about manicotti for a good twenty minutes.
    “Less teeth, more eyes,” Jerome, the photographer, said over the Beyoncé song on the sound system.
    “Can we kill the wind?” she asked, doing exactly what he’d requested, closing her lips and smiling with her eyes, which were getting dried out from the fan blowing in her face.
    “Yeah, let’s try a few that way,” Jerome agreed.
    She tilted her head back, shifted her hips forward, crossed her arms, dropped her arms. She smiled. Shelooked serious. She laughed, tipping her hair back off her shoulders.
    On the table next to the yellow and green screen they were shooting against, her BlackBerry rattled into her bottle of water.
    All work stopped. Such was the power of a buzzing BlackBerry.
    “Just a second,” she said and Jerome nodded, already reviewing the digital shots they’d taken.
    The latest message, from Ruth, bloomed on the screen.
    Billy Wilkins meeting tomorrow morning after the show. 11:30
.
    Her own Brutus hadn’t even had the decency to stab her in the back in person.
    In a sudden panic, she began to sweat and it was so hard to breathe. So hard to pull in air past the anger and hurt that rolled through her.
    Oh God
, she thought.
I’m going to be sick
.
    Forcing herself to calm down, to close her eyes and open her lungs, she yanked away the