Rachel Gibson - Lola Carlyle Reveals All

Hey, Im one of the good guys.

Good guys dont steal boats and kidnap women!

I didnt steal this vessel. Im commandeering it. And Im not kidnapping you.

But I deserve to know where Im being taken.

Normally, Max didnt enjoy intimidating women, but just because he didnt enjoy it didnt mean he wouldnt if he had to. Listen real close, he began, towering over her and placing his hands on his hips. I can make things easy for you, or I can make them real hard. You can sit back and enjoy the ride, or you can fight me. And I guarantee if you fight me, you wont win. Now whats it going to be?

She didnt say a word. But then her dogthat tiny thing that she had called Baby Doll propelled itself from her arms and lunged at him.

Max swore and grabbed the mutt.

Dont hurt him! Dont hurt Baby!

Hurt the dog ? What about him?

Of all the humiliations Lola Carlyle had suffered in her lifeand the list was quite long and juicy seeing her naked pictures on the Internet was without a doubt the worst. Anyone with a modem and a credit card could view fifteen different photos of her in the buff. Each one a bit more embarrassing than the last. Knowing that they were out there was a constant disgrace, a weight on her shoulders, an anvil on her head pressing into her skull.

The photographs had been taken of her several years ago by her ex-fianc, Sam The Jerk. Sam, the guy whod always professed his unending love, the guy whod told her she could trust him with anything, had used her photographs to bail himself out of his financial problems. Four years after their breakup, hed developed www.lolarevealed.com and had created the source of Lolas biggest shame.

In the past, Lola had posed for professional photographerstoo many times to count. But Sam was an investment banker, and hed shot the pictures with a disposable Kodak hed picked up on a munchie run. In a moment she could only look back on and attribute to complete insanity, shed allowed him to snap a series of butt-naked photos of her in his bed, riding his stationary bike, and sitting in the middle of his kitchen table chowing on candy bars and bags of Doritos.

The absolute worst photograph had been taken of her kissing a king-sized Tootsie Roll. At the time, the pictures had been meant to be funny, a silly joke on her career, for which she never ate anything that wasnt baked, broiled, or tossed in zero-calorie dressing. Never ate anything fattening that wasnt routinely purged from her body.

What the photographs hadnt shown was the sickness that had begun right after shed binged on all that junk food. The vicious cycle of guilt that always began after her total loss of control. The panic that she might have gained an ounce, which always sent her straight to the treadmill or the toilet.

It was a compulsion she now controlled, but at one time it had almost taken her life. Even now, every time she looked at the old images of her five-foot-eleven, one-hundred-and-ten-pound body, it triggered the voice in her head that told her she should skip lunch, or it urged her to visit the Colonel and order a bucket of chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a diet Coke.

Worse than the humiliation of those tacky pictures appearing on the Internet for the world to see was the knowledge that there wasnt anything she could do about them. And shed tried. Shed begged Sam to give her the photos and to removed them from the net. Shed offered him money, but even after all this time, he was still so bitter about their breakup, hed refused. Shed hired an attorney and was told what she basically already knew. Sam owned the photographs and he could publish them wherever he liked. Shed taken him to court anyway, and shed promptly lost.

Her only option now was to hire a hit man. A choice she might actually consider if she knew beforehand that she wouldnt get caught, humiliating herself and her family further. Because in a family filled with fairly prolific sinners, Lola had always been the biggest black sheep. Which was quite an accomplishment when one considered Uncle Jeds recent troubles. None of them had spent time in the penitentiary, though county jail, yes. Pen, no. And seeing her in prison orange just might finally do her poor mother in.

Lola reached for the tabloid shed tucked in her suitcase and glanced at her face on the cover of the National Enquirer . Beneath her picture the headline read, HEAVYWEIGHT FORMER MODEL, LOLA CARLYLE, GOES INTO HIDING.

She tossed the magazine aside, and with her Miniature Pinscher, Baby Doll, tucked beneath one arm, she walked out of the tiny bungalow. It seemed her name was never mentioned anymore without comment on the twenty-five pounds shed gained since shed turned her back on the modeling business. Heavyweight was one of the nicer descriptions used these days. Her least favorite was Large Lola. She tried not to let the names hurt or bother her. Deep down inside, they did.

She wasnt fat, and she wasnt in hiding, either. She was on a much-needed mental health vacation . On a private island in the Bahamas, resting . But after two days of rest, she was bored to tears and likely to go crazy as a bullbat. She had a life to live and a business to run. And now, thanks to the warm sun and fresh air, she had a nice tan, a clear head, and a new plan.

She figured all she needed to force Sam to pull the plug on his site was a good private investigator and some fresh dirt. Sam hadnt always been up front in his business dealing, and she knew there had to be plenty she could use to blackmail him. It was so simple, she didnt know why she hadnt thought of it before.

As soon as she got home, Sam The Jerk was going down.

Max Zamora was getting too old to play Superman. Adrenaline rushed through his veins and raised the hair on the backs of his arms, but did little to dull the fiery ache shooting up his side, stealing air from his lungs. At the age of thirty-six, he felt the pain of saving the world much more than he used to.

He took steady breaths to control the pain and the nausea threatening just below the surface. Above the pounding in his head, he listened to the sounds of tourists and taxicabs, of island music and waves hitting the docks. He heard nothing out of the ordinary filling the humid night air, but Max knew they were out there. Somewhere. Looking for him. If they caught him, they wouldnt hesitate before they killed him, and this time they would succeed.

Light from the Atlantis Casino illuminated blurry patches of the marina, and for a split second his vision cleared, then doubled again, playing havoc with his balance as he moved from the shadows. The soles of his tactical boots made not a sound as he boarded the yacht tied to the end of the dock. Blood trickled from the cut in his bottom lip and dripped down his chin to his black T-shirt. When his adrenaline ran dry, he knew hed be in a heap of hurt, but he planned to be halfway to Florida before that happened. Halfway from the hell hed visited on Paradise Island.