Excerpt from 'Double Entry'

The banging on the door sounded like kettle drums in Lauren Henderson’s head. She pulled the pillow around her ears to shut out the noise only it just got louder.

“Go away,” she shouted, cringing as sound reverberated through her skull. That would teach her to drink too many appletinis.

“Lauren, I know you’re in there.” Her friend Marcia’s voice had all the soothing qualities of a screech owl. “I’m not leaving until you open this door.”

Muttering curses and imprecations, Lauren dragged herself off the bed and stumbled to the front door, turned the lock and threw the door open. “I’m up, okay? Now go away.”

Marcia pushed her way inside and shut the door. “I think it’s great you decided to flash the neighborhood. You might want to brush your hair and put on some makeup first.”

Lauren squinted her eyes open and looked at herself. Naked from head to toe. Great, just great. She plodded back to the bedroom and grabbed her long T-shirt from beside the bed where she’d dropped it. Last night putting it on had seemed more effort than it was worth.

She opened one eye and stared at Marcia, too perfectly dressed and put-together for the night they’d just had. “How come you’re not hungover and looking like trash?”

“Because I stopped after two of those headbangers and drank iced tea.” She tucked her smooth blonde hair behind one ear with a nail polished with hot pink enamel. The emerald stud in her lobe winked in the sunlight. “Unlike you, my friend, who tied one on bemoaning your birthday, the lack of available men and the reasons why all the good ones got away.”

“Crap.” Lauren raked her fingers through her thoroughly disheveled hair and ran her tongue around her mouth. Her garbage disposal would probably taste better.

“Yup. That’s exactly what you look like. We’re going to fix that right now, though.”

“You’re going to shoot me and put me out of my misery?” Lauren looked at her friend hopefully.

“Better than that. I’m giving you a birthday present.”

“I told you I’m not celebrating anymore. I passed that stage,” Lauren pointed out.

“So this is an exception.” She pushed Lauren toward the bathroom. “Go shower and turn yourself into a human. I’ll make coffee. Go! Now.”

Excerpt from 'A Very Private Performance'

Hypocrites! Bloody two-faced smug bastards. Fuck!

I slam the door as I flounce from Miss Pritchard’s office. She’s no better than they are—pretentious, superior, always looking down on me, always finding fault. Still, I need this job—correction, needed—so I should have been more careful.

Fuck! Fuck, fuck!

It’s been exactly twenty-eight minutes since I was summoned to present myself before the head of Corporate Services. I knew the moment I read Miss Pritchard’s email that this did not bode well.

An issue has arisen which I need to discuss with you. My office, 12.15.

Miss Pritchard is a woman of few words and rarely does she waste many of them on me. I reread the terse message, then checked the time at the foot of my screen. It was already four minutes past twelve and I had to get right the way up to the seventh floor. I sighed and shut down my computer. No point in making matters worse by being late.

She didn’t even invite me to sit when I presented myself in front of her desk.

“It has come to our attention that you have some…” she paused, her pinched features creased in concentration as she sought the right words to express her disdain, “less than salubrious personal habits. We are given to understand that you frequent places of inappropriate entertainment and what is more, you have actually been known to perform in such establishments.”

She wrinkled her narrow nose as she spat out the final words, as though a particularly disagreeable smell had wafted beneath her fastidious nostrils. Then she settled back in her oversized office chair waiting for me to comment.

I didn’t give her the satisfaction. I had a pretty good idea what she was referring to but I was determined to wait her out. What I do in my spare time is no one’s business but mine.

“Well, what do you have to say, Miss Santori?” She peered at me over her rimless spectacles. “Explain yourself.”

Excerpt from 'Wishful Thinking'

As the dream faded, Jiya rolled into a languid stretch under Egyptian cotton sheets and opened her eyes. The elegant frame of a four-poster bed registered first. Gauzy curtains danced in the morning breeze and the sound of rain gently drumming on the wooden floorboards reminded her they’d never closed the windows last night.

They.

Jiya shivered as vivid recollections dispelled the last glimmers of indolence. Her nudity registered next, then the two men asleep on either side of her.

Torpor vanished.

The party. Crap.

Jiya stopped breathing. If she moved, she might wake them. If she didn’t, they might wake on their own. Either way, there would be questions, awkward conversation, maybe even the promise to call—which they wouldn’t.

Quiet as a mouse, Jiya slid her feet out from beneath the sheet and sat up. Her heart thundered. Curiously, she was still wearing one of her stockings. Less curiously, she was otherwise stark naked.

Heat ignited in her cheeks. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Jiya tucked her long black hair over one shoulder to keep it out of the way, and quietly made her way to the foot of the bed. Her clothes lay scattered all around the bed, tangled with black slacks and socks and a pair of briefs that categorically weren’t hers.

There was no sign of movement from either of her partners as she snatched up her things and tugged them on. She found her other stocking by the open window, stepping into a shaft of sunlight to retrieve it.

A flash of memory intruded—hands on her skin, warm breath on her cheek—only to dissolve in a rush of urgency.

Her miniskirt was in decent shape but her shirt sported a wine stain the size of a dinner plate. Though she had worn far more revealing things in front of hundreds of people—and been photographed virtually nude and had her appearance scrutinized by countless employers—buttoning her jacket over her bra made Jiya feel cheap.

Needs must. She’d change at the office.

Temptation nudged her to indulge in one last look around the room, but she resisted. There was no time. It would serve no purpose.

Excerpt from 'A Sinful Tune'

Dillon Tyson sat on the stool in the dressing room area of the Salt Ring and tuned his guitar. He both loved and hated the late-night sessions at the bar. Loved them because he could play acoustic guitar and riff with his best friend, Robbie. He could try out new songs and fiddle with them until they worked. The crowd was thin and quieter, but he appreciated the lower-key setting. But he hated the late nights because he didn’t have someone to go home to…other than Robbie. They shared the second floor of a house, a bathroom and women, but nothing else.

He strummed the guitar again and sighed. Almost in tune. He glanced over at Robbie. They’d been through the fire together. Robbie had been there when Dillon’d been at rock-bottom with his drug use, and stood by him as he recovered. Four years on, they were still tight and had the band going, playing some of the bigger venues. Tonight, he’d be able to play his latest tune and work with Robbie to get it just right.

“Where’d Phil go?” Robbie twirled his drumsticks. “Left, didn’t he?”

“Of course.” Dillon ran through a set of scales to limber up his fingers. He closed his eyes and played a snippet from one of his songs, Collide. “He jumped ship as soon as he could because he didn’t want to schlep the drums into the supply closet.”

“If we didn’t need him on rhythm guitar, I’d so fire him.” Robbie drummed on the wall. “But most of the crowd left, too, so what can we do?”

“I don’t know.” He stopped playing and sagged on the stool. “How’s Elaine? I haven’t seen her around the apartment in the last couple of days.”

Robbie froze. “She left. She pulled a middle-of-the-night escape kind of thing two nights ago. She took the money I had hidden in a boot in the closet, my good amplifier and a print of a Monet painting. All of her clothes, shoes and that awful fur coat are gone. No note, just gone. I thought you knew. You hadn’t said anything.”

“I wondered why I hadn’t seen her, but I guess I appreciated the quiet too much.” Dillon folded his arms on top of his guitar. His heart ached for Robbie. Elaine hadn’t been good for his friend, but he wasn’t about to tell Robbie that. Personally, he was glad she’d gone. “Why would she want that old art print?” Of the inventory of things to take, an art reproduction seemed silly. “Did you have cash stuffed in the frame or something?”

Excerpt from 'Claiming Zara'

“Your husband’s been seen with yet another woman…”

“The fourth woman this month.”

“What are you going to do?”

“How can you just keep turning a blind eye?”

Weren’t those the questions she’d been asking herself lately?

Zara King ducked the cameras and queries, relying on her guard to put a wall between herself and the suffocating press of the paparazzi. She darted into her limo, followed a split second later by a big, hard body.

“Vultures.” Tobias Lang, her head of security, slammed the door hard enough to test the vehicle’s suspension.

Even as they settled into the buttery leather and he pulled her back to lean against him, Zara turned to stare through the tinted windows at the clamoring mass of faces and arms bearing phones and cameras. “They’re only doing their job.”

“Which is to be vultures,” he grumped.

“It’ll soon die down.”

“At least until your husband pulls his next asinine move, then it’ll get worse, as it’s been progressively getting.”

Zara rubbed her temples, trying to massage away the tension. Tobias was right. The biggest mistake of her life had been marrying Robert King. When their families had urged them together at a young age it had all seemed to make sense. They were from illustrious dynasties, they’d found each other attractive—they had been convinced a marriage of convenience would only work in their favor.

Except it hadn’t.

She had gone into the union a wide-eyed and dutiful daughter, aching to be a good wife. The shine on the deal had tarnished in swift and terrible fashion when, within the first year, Robert’s eye had started to wander. Meanwhile Zara had been left rattling around their sprawling mansion alone, forgotten and rudderless.

Excerpt from ‘Ménage on the Rocks’

“What is it this time?” Stella glanced toward the waitress at her door.

As manager of the Rockshore Tavern and Grill, Stella dealt with a lot of difficult personalities. That was just how it was in Rockshore, Maine, where the elite came to enjoy summers away from the big cities. But the look on Megan’s face showed it could only be one particular personality who would be a thorn in her side today. Ozzy DeMeer, the critically acclaimed chef the owners had forced her to hire. Critically acclaimed pain in my ass. Since the day the man had arrived he’d been nothing trouble. Today wasn’t shaping up to be any different.

“It’s…” Megan tapped her Easter egg-blue nails against the knob. “One of my customers made a substitution.”

Stella fought the urge to scream. Substitutions. If she could get back all the time she’d spent fighting Ozzy over substitutions she could write the book she’d been dreaming about since college, or at least get out of this damn office before three in the morning.

“Did Ozzy refuse to make it?”

Megan looked up at her with big eyes. “I didn’t put it through yet.”

These chicken-shit college girls they hired for the summer rush. If they didn’t need the help so bad she’d never hire another one.

“What do they want to substitute?”

Megan twisted her blonde hair around her finger. “They want cheddar on their grilled cheese.”

Now Stella understood why the girl had come to her. After Ozzy had sent two flaming—literally—grilled cheese out to a customer who had wanted Gruyère, the whole staff avoided the dish altogether.

Still chicken-shit, but more understandable.

“All right.” Stella rose, setting aside the month’s budget reports—again. “I’ll go tell him.”

A few feet from the kitchen, the air filled with the smell of the Rockshore’s renowned food. Ozzy might be an asshole sent to destroy her life, but he could cook. The Rockshore was seeing profits, no matter how much she loathed to admit it. And outright refused to acknowledge in his presence.