Free The Fighter's Secretary by Ann Mayburn Page B

with the outfit, instead compromising on a pair of teardrop shaped pearl earrings with a matching necklace. Not that she was keeping them, as soon as this event was over she was returning them to the jewelry store, or shoving them in the back of one of Dallas’s drawers. Dozens of flashes went off around her and she tried to not squint from the glare.
    While Dallas was used to people taking his picture, and enjoyed it, she was terrified.
    He glanced down at her and grabbed her hand, the cameras flashing like crazy as he leaned down and whispered, “Breathe.”
    She sucked in what she hoped wasn’t a visible gasp of air and whispered, “This is insane.”
    Tilting his head, he examined her as he whispered back, “You don’t like having your picture taken?”
    Shaking her head, one of the photographers asked to see the back of her dress so she turned around and said, “No. If you weren’t here with me I’d have dived back into the limo by now.”
    He gave her an indecipherable look, then grinned. “Well, I am here with you, but you don’t have to stand here and have your picture taken. Let’s go inside.”
    They started to walk the rest of the way down the red carpet to the entrance of the nightclub that was hosting the event with the photographers yelling at them from every direction. One right next to them, a good-looking man that Amanda recognized from some TV show, stopped them with a big smile. “Dallas, who’s this lovely lady on your arm tonight?”
    “This is Amanda, my beautiful girlfriend.”
    At that the press exploded and Dallas hustled her inside, but not before she heard someone asking if Tammy knew he had a girlfriend and what she was going to think when she saw Amanda. She tried to figure out what the heck they were talking about, but as soon as they moved through the doors they were swamped by people wanting to congratulate Dallas. She stood next to him, making small talk, whenever she was acknowledged as existing, for what seemed like hours. After her third glass of champagne her feet were hurting and she needed to use the restroom. Waiting for a lull in the steady stream of people that came to worship Dallas, or in the case of most of the women, throw themselves at him like Amanda wasn’t even there, she tugged his hand.
    He leaned down and she whispered, “I’m going to go use the ladies’ room.”
    “Do you want me to come with you?”
    She tried to glare at him, but his teasing smile took away some of her anxiety at being the center of so much attention. “No, I’m a big girl. I’ll manage.”
    Slipping away from him proved harder than she thought as people suddenly decided she was someone important and tried to suck up to her. By the time she made it to the bathroom her nerves were shot. She was already in the stall finishing up when a group of women entered the bathroom, chatting together about Dallas.
    Amanda froze, debating if she should move out of the stall and leave, or stay where she was and listen in. While she felt kind of sleazy for listening to what the women were talking about, she couldn’t help her curiosity and she was a bit tipsy. They evidently knew Dallas by the casual way they were talking about him, and when Amanda peeked through a crack in the door she saw that it was a group of four of the models, all dressed in their skimpy workout wear.
     “Who’s that girl with Dallas?”
    “No idea. Whoever she is she can’t be that important to him. He’s getting ready to do a photo shoot with Tammy right now. Her boyfriend is really pissed off about it. Not that I blame him. Tammy wants Dallas back, bad, and Kyle knows it.”
    Another woman said in a pouty voice, “Don’t we all.”
    Amanda swallowed hard, trying to fight off her irrational jealousy. He’d just been with her and she’d left him talking with some investors and had made no mention of doing a photo shoot with his ex-fucking girlfriend. Amanda debated leaving right now, or sticking around to hear