Sweet Southern Betrayal by Robin Covington Read Free Book Online Page A

had.”
    Risa flinched at his rant so he took a deep breath and nodded as she slid an icy cold beer across the countertop in his direction. “And I don’t want to even think about the ball-busting Lucky is going lay on me.”
    “Will they keep it a secret?”
    “ Fuck no .” He shot her a look of sympathy; he couldn’t even accurately describe just how much shit they were both going to get for this move. He was the least likely of their crew to do something like this and they would milk it for every ounce of embarrassing opportunity. ”I apologize in advance for my best friends’ being jackasses.”
    “Thanks for the warning.”
    “The problem is with the fine residents of my hometown. Jerline and the Parkers already know there’s a new woman in town and it will start the cycle of gossip. People aren’t mean-spirited, but this town is too small to keep anything like this a secret for long. I only wish we’d had more time to get our story straight before my family walked in.”
    “So the whole secrecy thing was blown within minutes of me being here.” Her lush mouth twisted down into a pretty little pout, evoking fuzzy images of long, slow kisses and deep sighs that had haunted him for the past two weeks. Another thing not in his carefully laid plans.
    “Pretty much. But it’s more important for me to keep this marriage away from my real life in DC. That is what cannot happen.” He slid onto a barstool and motioned for her to sit down next to him as he snagged his laptop from where it rested on the island. Waking it up, he typed his query into the search engine and let it pull up the information he needed. “I’m only here long enough to wrap up my father’s law practice.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry. When did he pass away?”
    “He didn’t. He’s shacked up in Costa Rica with his twenty-five-year-old paralegal while I clean up the mess he left behind.” Teague clicked on the link to the Clark County clerk’s office and the information about getting a marriage annulled. He would do what he did best—figure out how to fix this mess. The work would help quell his urge to pick up the damn laptop and throw it through a window.
    He kept typing and clicking until he noticed Risa was quiet beside him. He glanced over, confused by the expression on her face. “What’s that look for?”
    “So, he just walked away from his wife and family after all these years? Your poor mother.”
    “Who?”
    “Your dad.”
    “Oh.” She was still thinking about that? “I think her pride was hurt more than her feelings.”
    “That’s a callous thing to say about your own mother. This must have been devastating for her.”
    Teague sighed, turning to fully face her while he explained the sad reality of his parents’ marriage. “Look, we were like one of those perfect families on TV. We performed well for the live audience and made them feel bad they didn’t have lives as wonderful as ours. But we were all actors playing a role and my father got tired of pretending.”
    “So they never loved each other?”
    The wistful pain in her voice pierced his hard shell of cynicism when it came to marriage. He recalled her earlier comment about having no experience with real families and now felt as if he was bursting her bubble.
    “Maybe. They had a plan, a course of action, that would make him a player in politics and she would be the society queen. This affair wasn’t his first, but he’d never broken the pact before. I honestly think my mother is more pissed about him busting the image than breaking his vow.”
    “Well, that’s still sad.” Her chin jutted out in that stubborn tilt he was surprised to recognize and chagrined to discover made him want to kiss her. He had officially lost his mind. Pushing down that colossally bad idea, he turned back to the computer.
    “My firm would tank my partnership and decline to back me for own political goals if I turned up with a wife I married in Vegas while drunk off my