Beautiful Disaster Read Online Free

paranoia. “Did Vinnie put you up to this?”
    Pippa mocked him with a smile. “Relax. This isn’t an episode of Twenty-four . There’s no conspiracy. Vinnie thinks I’m legal.”
    Max Biaggi shook his head with disgust. “You’re a manipulative little bitch.”
    Pippa shrugged diffidently. “Can you blame me? Taco Bell uniforms are scratchy, and the take-home pay is shit.”
    Max Biaggi winced in pain. With his right hand, he rubbed the back of his head, only to discover blood on his fingertips. “You stupid underage whore! I’m bleeding!”
    Pippa, hardly able to conjure up sympathy for his injury, made a show out of inspecting her high-flying Manolo Blahnik. “None of it got on my shoe, thank God.” She glanced up at him, feeling almost powerful, the fear in her heart now replaced with disgust…and a hurt that she hoped would fade fast. “By the way, now might be a good time to tell the pilot we’re going back to Miami.”
     
    “Be perfectly still!” a male voice called out. “I’m going to bring you up nice and easy. Just stay calm, girl. Stay calm.”
    Christina shut her eyes, obeying the stranger’s words, surrendering completely to his nick-of-time rescue. She could feel the vague sensation of being pulled upward.
    With each movement, his words loomed with greater clarity.
    “That’s it. You’re doing great. Everything’s going to be okay.”
    Closer.
    “Almost there. Just a little more to go.”
    Closer.
    “Gotcha!”
    A firm hand gripped one leg, then the other, and in one fluid movement, he pulled her up to the ledge. Only then did Christina open her eyes.
    It was him again—the Abercrombie ad come to life, the guy she had bumped into just minutes before her fall, the one who looked rich, handsome, and chiseled in the manner of an Ivy League star athlete.
    He flashed a brilliant, hunky smile. “A fat girl would be dead right now. How much do you weigh? Eighty pounds?”
    “Ninety-four,” Christina managed to say. And then she proceeded to vomit all over him.
    He stood there, frozen with repulsion.
    Christina was mortified. The sickness had come without warning. Too much vodka, a kiss out of nowhere from Vanity St. John, a near-death experience, and hanging upside down could do that to a girl.
    Physical relief lasted mere nanoseconds, quickly replaced by a punishing nausea. In apology, a meek groan was all she could muster.
    The Ivy League knight stared down at his soiled clothes—a Rebel Yell DON ’ T SWEAT THE TECHNIQUE T-shirt and a ragged pair of 1921 jeans. “The word ‘gross’ comes to mind.”
    Christina lurched, feeling an unstoppable need to hurl again, only this time she twisted away at the last possible moment, just missing her savior’s shiny new Pumas.
    He peeled off his shirt and used the dry side to wipe off his jeans. Then he chucked it into a corner, standing there shirtless on the rooftop, revealing the kind of natural muscular definition that lesser male mortals could never find in the gym, no matter how hard they tried.
    “FYI—if you throw up on me again, I’m tying that string of lights around your boot and tossing you back over the ledge.” His tone was teasing yet gentle.
    Christina smiled faintly, still reeling from the nausea. A light-headed sensation came over her, and she eased her way down to a sitting position.
    He crouched to his knees and helped steady her as she dipped to one side. “I saved your life, and you puked on me. We should at least introduce ourselves. I’m Carb Duffy.”
    Christina regarded him for a moment, temporarily stunned by his phenomenal good looks and impossibly cut abdominals. “ Carb ?”
    “It’s a nickname that stuck. My buddies used to crack on me all the time, because whenever I drank a carbonated soda, I’d belch like a motherfu—”
    Weakly, Christina raised a hand to stop him. The mere idea of a Mountain Dew, the simple thought of a burp, was almost enough to do her in.
    Carb busied himself with the string of