Undercover Passion by Raye Morgan Read Free Book Online Page A

valuable time on someone who wasn’t handing out food.
    Abby laughed and opened the door. A balmy breeze was blowing, and something about it filled her with a sense of anticipation. Suddenly she was sure good things were coming her way tonight. As she walked toward her car, she found herself singing a silly love song, and she laughed again.
    Life, it seemed, was exceptionally good.
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    An hour later Abby was at the microphone, getting the overflow crowd into the proper mood for Dr. Richie’s speech. Expectations were running high. She could feel the energy behind all the faces turned up toward her, and it filled her with excitement. She wanted to know and touch every one of them. She’d never felt this way before—as though she were involved in something big, something important, something that had the potential to change a lot of lives. It was wonderful.
    A ripple went through the crowd. She turned. Yes. Here he came, marching like a glorious champion, head high.
    â€œLadies and gentlemen,” she said into the microphone. “Please welcome the man who has taken the Pacific Northwest fitness community by storm, Dr. Richard Strong.”
    Applause shook the rafters, rolling in waves as he walked, smiling and reaching out to take the hands that stretched toward him. Excitement grew as he emerged from the crowd and mounted the stage, taking the podium.
    The consummate performer, she thought as she watched him, overwhelmed with affection and pride. He was perfect. Any woman would be lucky to end up with a man like him. She sighed as he looked over at her with an approving smile.
    Any woman at all.
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    Daniel was standing in the shadows watching Abby and Dr. Richie interact. It was pretty depressing stuff. What did women see in the jerk, anyway? Did he have some sort of spell he cast over them? Looking around the room, seeing the fervent looks on some faces, he felt repelled more than anything else. Strange. He’d never understood the appeal of the man himself.
    He did get the appeal of Abby, however. His gaze kept straying her way.
    Her long shining hair hung down her back like a sweep of silk and her dark eyes looked huge in the stage lighting. She stood with her weightevenly balanced and her hips thrust a bit forward, making her look as if she was ready to dance at any moment. But most strikingly, her face was radiating happiness.
    She looked, he decided, like someone at a revival who had just seen the light. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he was afraid a part of it was complete infatuation with the slick doctor at the podium. And that was enough to make him a little crazy.
    Richie Strong was speaking and the crowd was drinking him in as though he held the secret to life.
    â€œWhen actually,” Daniel said to himself, “what he holds is the secret to hypnotizing a crowd.”
    You’re jealous, a voice whispered in his ear. You’re green with envy. You want to be the one Abby is sending those adoring looks to. Don’t you?
    He shrugged. Maybe. Just a little. But it never paid to be jealous of a media sensation.
    From what he’d been able to glean from casual sources, Dr. Richie was the current star in the pantheon of fitness gurus who often burst upon the scene, spread their glory across the sky andburned out in a spectacular crash of raised hopes, or else faded away into obscurity as the people turned to someone else. Where had he come from? How had he arrived at this exalted status so quickly?
    Those details were sketchy at best. It seemed he had suddenly appeared as a hugely popular motivational speaker, touting his fitness and lifestyle seminars all over the Pacific Northwest. Now he’d taken over the clinic here at Portland General and it was widely assumed he would use it as a base from which to launch an even more powerful enterprise. The man was the latest thing. The sky was the limit.
    Why wouldn’t Abby worship him? Everyone in the room seemed to