The Girl With Diamonds (Midtown Brotherhood Book 2) Read Free Page A

sensible for the commute. She locked her door while she slipped on her sneakers.
    Her phone started beeping before she made it half a block. Early bird Stella to the rescue.
    “I’m not late.” Magnolia held her phone with her shoulder, searching her pockets for her subway card. “Not yet.”
    “I didn’t say you were. I’m just calling to let you know I’m waiting at the exchange next—”
    “Next to the escalator. We meet there every day, Stells.”
    Magnolia imagined Stella waiting there, bouncing on the heels of her perfectly practical Dr. Scholl’s in her argyle sweater. “Sorry,” Stella said, taking a moment, “I’m just nervous.”
    Magnolia sighed into the phone. “Why? You’re working in the booth tonight.”
    A quiet buzz echoed behind Stella’s delicate sigh. “I’m not nervous for me.”
    Magnolia slid her card across the sensor at the gate and made a beeline for the train. “Wait. Are you worried about me?”
    “It’s your on-air debut. This is big time.”
    Magnolia snorted, slipping between two men and onto the train. She found a vacant seat next to the door and sat down. She had two stops until the exchange where Stella waited. “It’s an internship at a local network. It’s not primetime.”
    Magnolia couldn’t ignore the flux of butterflies in her stomach. She’d been waiting weeks for her turn to do an on-air post-game interview. There were five paid interns at the Madison Square Garden network. She would rotate between interviews, stats, and post-game write-ups with Marc and Troy. Stella rotated between running the blog and working the booth with Cressida. Post-game write-ups were great, and Magnolia loved finally putting her communications degree to work, but she wanted to be on-air. She wanted that red light pointed at her.
    “Is Cressida there yet?” Magnolia wanted to change the subject. She had enough nerves brewing in her stomach without Stella stirring them up with her giant worry-wart spoon.
    “No. She said she’d meet us at the game.”
    That sounded like Cressida. The daughter of a Wall Street executive, Cressida didn’t exactly take her responsibilities seriously. Cressida was always late, and not just walking the edge of on-time like Magnolia did most days. The lights flickered inside the train, and Magnolia knew the routine well enough to know she’d lose signal soon. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said quickly. “Don’t worry about me.”
    She didn’t have to hang up because the call failed, and the brakes on the train squealed. Another day in Manhattan. Magnolia pulled out her trusted field notebook, marking the accomplishment with the tip of her pen across the top like a survivor stranded on a deserted island. It felt the same. Home felt a world away and out of reach. The winter chill and nameless faces made her miss Atlanta.
    It made her miss her family.
    She could do without the constant knife in her back from so-called friends and the gossip mill that kept her poor mother’s phone ringing off the hook, though. Her fingers flexed around the pen in her hand. She knew she couldn’t go back home yet. She’d punch Felix Hayworth in his ladder-climbing nose. She needed the distance right now. Her hot temper and betrayed heart needed time to forgive, or at least enough time to stop contemplating Felix’s unfortunate demise.
    This internship was her ticket away from the rumors. It offered her a chance to change her own fortune. She wasn’t a party girl like those pictures suggested. She spent her Friday nights in college with Jane Austen and Dr. McDreamy. On the rare occasion she did go out, it was with her friends for a cocktail or a movie.
    As constant and reliable as the bells on Big Ben, Stella waited for her next to the escalators at the exchange. Magnolia loved Stella. She wasn’t a New York native, but her family visited the city from New Jersey so much that Stella knew it well enough to thrive as a new resident. She found Magnolia