Nothing But the Truth. Kara LennoxЧитать онлайн книгу.
in her ears. “La la la, I’m not listening.” But of course, she was.
“Born and raised in Houston,” Beth said as she scanned one of the articles, which looked to have been copied from the internet. “Humble beginnings, broken home, rags to riches…wow, he really overcame some tough odds to get where he is.”
“If that’s even true. He could have made it all up. Not all reporters check their facts.”
“He went to University of Texas on a scholarship. Good for him. Oh, look, his college transcript. Almost straight A’s.”
That was a little surprising. Raleigh would have pegged him as the kind who partied his way through college.
“Graduate school, University of Oklahoma,” Beth continued. “I wouldn’t have guessed he was the academic type.”
“I wouldn’t, either.” Raleigh was getting sucked in, despite herself.
“He’s not all about books and classrooms, though. He has a black belt in judo.”
“Now that doesn’t surprise me.” The way he moved, so decisively but at the same time with grace, suggested some type of athletic training.
“Seems he paid his dues, working at small papers, stringing for the wire services, freelancing for magazines, including—” Beth smiled “—Soldier of Fortune.”
“A magazine for mercenaries and assorted gun nuts. Nice.”
“Then the Telegram hired him. That’s when he started to make a name for himself—oh, look at this. A copy of his driver’s license. He lives on The Heights Boulevard. Cool neighborhood.”
His address put him squarely inside the Loop. The Heights was an up-and-coming area with plenty of young professionals and lots of parks for them to play in on the weekends.
“Here’s the ‘Most Eligible Bachelors’ story. Want to read it? That’s totally available to anyone, no invasion of privacy.”
“I’m not interested,” Raleigh said flatly as she copped a peek at the color printout of the story, which featured a large picture of Griffin leaning against a brick wall, looking tough and slightly cynical—and heart-stoppingly gorgeous.
Beth sifted through a few more photos. “Seems he was into the club scene for a bit—pretty models hanging on him. He doesn’t look particularly happy.”
Which gave Raleigh a perverse sense of satisfaction. From her ivory tower, she liked to think that no one in the club scene was happy, filling their empty lives with drinking and drugs and meaningless banter.
“Poor guy,” she said. “Rough life having to hang with gorgeous women.”
“The boy likes to drive fast. Look at all these speeding tickets. His car insurance rates must be through the roof.”
“Beth, enough.”
“Wait—oh, hmm. Interesting.”
The waitress chose that moment to bring their salads and baked potatoes. Beth closed the folder and suddenly seemed keen on loading her spud with butter, sour cream and bacon.
Raleigh added a few drops of dressing to her salad and a sprinkle of pepper to her potato. They ate for a few minutes in silence before Raleigh couldn’t stand it anymore.
“What’s so interesting?”
“Hmm?”
“You saw something in that folder and you said, ‘Hmmm. Interesting.’”
“Did I?” Beth pretended to look confused. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“Okay, I’m a big liar. I’m fascinated. There, satisfied?”
Beth grinned and opened the folder back up. “He was nominated for a Pulitzer. Did a piece on war orphans in Afghanistan.”
“I remember that story,” Raleigh said suddenly. “It ran in the Telegram’s Sunday magazine, couple of years ago.” She apparently hadn’t paid much attention to who had written the piece, but now the details poured back into her mind. It was one of the most compassionate, emotional pieces of writing she’d ever read. Griffin hadn’t just reported a sad situation, he had immersed himself in it. Those children and their tragedy weren’t simply statistics to him. They were real people he’d taken the time to know.
The story had made her cry.
It was hard to dislike, or even dismiss, a man like that.
RALEIGH TOLD HERSELF a million times that it didn’t make any difference whether he truly cared about his subjects or was an opportunistic paparazzo. He was not her concern anymore.
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