by Maya Rodale, Caroline Linden, Miranda Neville, Katharine Ashe
“I know how you feel about the written word. And I didn’t want you to doubt my intentions.” His arms tightened around her. “When do I get an answer?”
“Hm…” She fiddled with the top button of his shirt. “Given that you didn’t tell me who you were for three months, should I make you wait?”
His face got very sober. “You can make me wait as long as you need, California, as long as in the meantime you let me in.”
“You’re already in,” she whispered.
He bent his head. “Come again? I didn’t quite hear that,” he said with a smile of thorough confidence. But his heartbeat beneath her palm was hard and very fast.
“I love you.” Her eyes were misty. “Do you want me to write it in the sky now?”
“It’s already written in the only place I need it.” He touched the low neckline of her T-shirt. Right over her heart.
That night in his apartment, Piers undressed her and showed her again where and how he needed her love. He showed her with kisses and caresses and words, and Cali thought that maybe—just maybe—there was something better than books after all.
Author’s Note
The building in which Prescott Global occupies the top several floors doesn’t exist, nor does Green Park. I loosely based the building on the tallest building in Philadelphia at the time of writing this novella, the fifty-eight-floor Comcast Center. The library at which Cali works is also fictional. With fifty-four branches, Philadelphia’s actual public library, the Free Library of Philadelphia, is a wonderfully accessible institution with programs that serve the city’s population in many ways, including a Homebound Service for patrons who can’t leave their houses and a Tech Mobile unit that offers digital literacy training off-site.
For you sticklers, Christopher, patron saint of travelers, has been retired from the official calendar of saints venerated in the Catholic Church. But many people (Catholic and not) still look to him for comfort during difficult journeys.
I offer heartfelt thanks for assistance with this story to Georgie C. Brophy, Noah Redstone Brophy, Mariana Eyster, Jennifer Lohmann, Mary Brophy Marcus, Bob Steeger, Martha Trachtenberg, and my coauthors of this anthology, Caroline Linden, Miranda Neville, and Maya Rodale. Any mistakes in this novella are all me.
Stay tuned! Sexy ex-Marine J.T. Prescott’s story is coming soon. For news of upcoming books, a free short story, and other fun stuff, sign up for my e-newsletter at http://www.katharineashe.com.
About the Author
Katharine Ashe is the award-winning author of romances that reviewers call “intensely lush” and “sensationally intelligent,” including How to Be a Proper Lady, an Amazon Editors’ Choice for the 10 Best Books of the Year in Romance, and How to Marry a Highlander, finalist for the prestigious RITA® Award of the Romance Writers of America. Her books are recommended by Publishers Weekly, Women’s World Magazine, Booklist, Library Journal, Barnes & Noble, and many others, and translated into languages across the world.
Katharine lives in the wonderfully warm Southeast with her beloved husband, son, dog, and a garden she likes to call romantic rather than unkempt. A professor of European History, she writes fiction because she thinks modern readers deserve grand adventures and breathtaking sensuality too. For more about Katharine’s books, please visit www.KatharineAshe.com or write to her at PO Box 51702, Durham, NC 27717.
Other Books by Katharine Ashe
The Prince Catchers
I Married the Duke
I Adored a Lord
I Loved a Rogue, coming February 2015
The Falcon Club
When a Scot Loves a Lady
How to Be a Proper Lady
How a Lady Weds a Rogue
Rogues of the Sea
Swept Away by a Kiss
Captured by a Rogue Lord
In the Arms of a Marquess
My Lady, My Lord
Again, My Lord, coming 2015
Captive Bride (A Regency Ghost Novel)
Novellas
Kisses, She Wrote
How to Marry a Highlander
A Lady’s Wish
Chapter One
That moment when your date to the wedding of the year asks you to sell out the bride, who happens to be your best friend.
Brampton House, England
Oh, he did not just ask her that.
Roxanna Lane dropped her heavy suitcase with a thud on the gravel drive outside of the fancy old ancestral house. Mansion or castle could be fitting descriptions. Towering and imposing hunk of stone would work too.
She stared up a grand stone staircase to the grand stone castle. Jane would certainly be getting married in style.
They had only just arrived after a day of hellish, albeit first-class, travel. They hadn’t even crossed the flipping threshold when the oh-so-dashing Damien Knightly, her sort-of date for the wedding, ruined everything. Everything.
“I hope you brought your laptop,” he had murmured in his devastatingly sexy British accent.
“Never leave home without it,” she replied “Why?”
“Just think of the stories you’ll get for Jezebel from the events this week,” he said with a sidelong glance and a spark in his eye. Bastard.
Roxanna wrote for Jezebel.com, a snarky website that combined feminist news with celebrity gossip and videos of cute baby animals. Damien Knightly, a roguish British aristocrat, owned the website, along with dozens of others, and some ancient newspapers, a TV station, and God only knew what else.
Their relationship ought to have been strictly professional. It was anything but.
Roxanna glanced at her Gentleman Friend. Manfriend. Boyfriend was too boyish a word for Knightly. Lover was too serious, though she sometimes thought he was too serious. Whatever he was or they were, the man made her tremble, feel girly, feel something like butterflies when no one else ever had. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.
At the moment, however, he was annoying her.
“I wasn’t planning on writing any stories about the wedding,” Roxanna told him.
He turned to face her, all of his noble, chiseled, gorgeous features assembled into an inscrutable expression. Then he merely lifted one brow. With just that, the question was conveyed perfectly: I beg your pardon?
Or, to translate into her own vernacular: What the fuck?
Roxanna could have been sly and lifted one brow back herself—it was a talent of hers that she employed to great effect. But she was tired. And hungry. And in no mood to talk business.
They had just flown from New York City to London for a few meetings, after which they had traveled for hours along windy, backcountry roads in his Aston Martin to get to Brampton House, scene of the epic wedding between her best friend and her billionaire tech entrepreneur fiancé.
On the way, they had stopped to help an old woman whose car had run out of “petrol.” There hadn’t been cell service, so Damien drove to the nearest town for help, leaving Roxanna to make small talk with the strange old woman for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, Damien had returned, saved the day, etc., etc. She had never admired him more than in that moment. But now she was more than ready to relax.
She turned to face him, eyes blazing.
“Do you honestly think I’m going to do gossipy, snarky stories on my best friend’s wedding?”
“Have you known me to be the sort to jest?”
Roxanna might have cracked a smile had she been in a better mood. Her whatever-he-was was so aloof and broody. She delighted in acting outrageously to get a reaction out of him. But right now, she really wanted to get into their room, shower and change, then relax with a cocktail.
Where was the concierge? Or bellhop? A footman? Anyone?
“I have not known you to jest,” she said, mimicking his accent. “I can’t imagine you would ask me to sell out my best friend and her fiancé. Honestly. I just couldn’t fathom what kind of heartless bastard would do such a thing.”
“Who else will have access to the bachelorette par
ty stories and photographs?” Damien asked, missing the point entirely.
“You are so uninvited to that,” she mumbled. “If you were ever invited to that.”
Where was a staff member?
Finally, Roxanna picked up her suitcase, stomped up the stairs, and pushed open the front door. The foyer was vast and rocking a ton of marble and gold leaf. It was also empty. There was no one to show them to their room. Maybe they could just bunk up in the first one they came across?
Roxanna started toward the grand staircase.
Damien caught up with her and took her suitcase like a gentleman.
“It’s just a story,” Damien said. For some reason he was still talking about this.
Before she could answer, another voice cut in.
“Can I help you?” Roxanna turned and saw an Armani model strolling across the foyer. Yes you can she thought, with a wicked upturn of her lips. “I’m Mark, the manager of Brampton.”
“We’re here for the wedding,” Damien said and he smoothly handled all the check-in details and small talk.
“Is it five o’clock yet?” Roxanna asked no one in particular. “Because I could use a drink.”
“What sort of drink would you fancy?” asked Handsome Mark. She decided she liked him.
“Perhaps you might show us to our rooms and we’ll freshen up first,” Damien said. “Then this spitfire of a woman would like a tumbler of your most expensive whiskey.”
“Charge it to this guy,” she said sarcastically, with a nod in Damien’s direction, even though Jane and Duke were paying for everything. “That’s why I brought him.”
They were shown to a room that had been recently renovated and had the fresh paint smell to prove it. Jane had been a super stressed-out bride, wanting everything to be perfect for her big wedding. It didn’t help that she chose Brampton House, which was still under renovation, while she was trying to plan every last detail … or that she’d been planning from another continent while trying to write books on deadline and keep up with her job at the New York Public Library.
Thank God she had Arwen Kilpatrick as her wedding planner to coordinate all the logistics and to act interested when Jane waffled over floral arrangements, cake styles, seating arrangements, and a billion other little details that strengthened Roxanna’s intention to elope, if she ever married.
Damien began to unpack while she started stripping off her clothes, first kicking off her Charlotte Olympia flats and tossing her whisper-thin cashmere scarf on the bed.
“I mean it, Damien. I won’t sell out my friend,” Roxanna said, pulling her silky soft gray James Perse T-shirt off and tossing it on the floor. He glanced at it, obviously dying to pick it up—he was such a neat freak—but then his gaze settled on her breasts, clad in a pink lace bra that was a naughty mixture of debauchery with a hint of innocence.
“Is that so? Tell me why,” he said.
“She’s my friend.”
Roxanna wriggled out of her skinny jeans. A grin tugged at his lips. He was not focusing on their conversation at all.
“Your point being…”
“You don’t have friends, do you?” Roxanna said, standing before him in just her bra and undies. He was obviously distracted by her lack of attire, as Jane might say in one of her delicately worded historical novels. Roxanna would say tits and ass. Either way, she was having a freaking insight about her Gentleman Friend/Lover/Boss and she was never shy about sharing. “You have business associates, contacts, a network, you never lack for company for drinks or dinner. But you don’t have a guy who you can just kick back, have a beer, watch the game, and bitch about women with.”
“With whom you can kick back, have a beer, watch the game, and bitch about women,” Damien corrected.
“Whatever.”
“Said the writer. None of those activities appeal to me,” he said with a shrug. “Except for one.”
“Bitching about women.”
“Beer.”
Roxanna laughed and strolled into the bathroom. She turned the shower on, stripped off her lingerie and stepped into the steaming hot water, careful not to get her hair wet and ruin her blow-out. Ahhh. Bliss.
Damien followed her in, watching her. God, she loved his eyes on her. He was not at all aloof or inscrutable when he was looking at her. His expression had darkened considerably. The man’s gaze positively set her on fire in a really, really good way.
“I understand,” he said. “I do. But something has come up and let’s just say if it weren’t for this one reason, I would never ask this of you.”
“What is this mysterious serious reason?”
“I can’t say,” he said softly.
“Then I can’t do it.”
“What if this is an order from your boss?”
She did, often, enjoy orders from her boss. Just not at work. And not for this. Not when it involved Jane, who was so freaking sensitive, and would be devastated by a betrayal from her maid of honor.
“Jane is my friend. She’s had enough of her romance splashed across the Internet. This is her big day and she doesn’t need grainy iPhone photos of her puking at her bachelorette party all over the interwebs.”
“And why was her romance splashed across the Internet to begin with?”
“Touché.”
On that high note, Damien returned to the bedroom.
Roxanna might have launched Duke and Jane’s entire relationship with a prank post to Jane’s Facebook page declaring that she and the guy she’d met but once were engaged. A sham engagement ensued (naturally), followed by real love … and now this wedding. Because so much of their relationship had been conducted online—as will happen when you fall in love with a famous tech entrepreneur—Jane was desperate to keep their wedding as offline as possible. Guests would be asked to leave their phones in their rooms for the events this week and it was requested that guests keep the location and all details secret.
No way could Roxanna be the one to share intimate details of the wedding. Not for her boss, or her boyfriend, or whatever he was.
She turned off the shower, dried off, and started rummaging through her luggage for underthings and a dress. She slipped on a matching bra and undies made of an insanely delicate black lace under a slinky navy blue wrap dress. Damien was frowning at his computer and glaring at his phone.
“There’s no bloody Internet or cell reception.”
“Oh God, that’s terrible.” In this, she was not jesting. Jane was marrying Duke Austen, a billionaire tech entrepreneur who lived and breathed via the World Wide Web. Thus, so did many of the guests. Including her. And Damien. There would be a swarm of angry people suffering from Twitter and e-mail withdrawal. Hardly festive.
There was one plus to this, though…
“Guess I can’t do the story, then! Wah wah!”
“What about the dress?” Damien asked.
“I am not leaking pictures of the dress!” God, she wanted to smack some sense into the man. “Duke will see and everyone knows that’s bad luck.”
“No, I mean your dress,” he said. “Off with it.”
“Gawd, listen to you. All haughty British aristocrat, giving orders,” she retorted, but there wasn’t much fire in her reply. The man made her positively weak in the knees when he did that.
“That’s right,” he murmured. “Impertinent American.”
He had that look in his eye: like he had all sorts of wicked intentions and Would Not Be Stopped from executing his plans. She never thought she was the nervous, feeling butterflies kind of girl. But when he looked at her like that…
When he crossed the room, all towering male and totally determined…
When he slid his arm around her waist and gave her the most devastating smile that promised all sorts of trouble…
“I know you happen to have a thing for impertinent Americans,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around him and savoring the feeling of his hard body against hers.
“I also have a thing for providing
exclusive and original content to millions of readers, to whom I also deliver millions of dollars in advertising, all for a nice, big bottom line.”
His hand playfully swatted her ass. She scowled.
“I love it when you talk business to me,” she said dryly.
“This isn’t some new facet of my personality, Roxanna. I believe it’s been widely reported. In fact, I know you’re intimately acquainted with my … personality.”
“You don’t need this story,” she protested. “Your sites are performing well. You have money to burn. So why?”
He turned away, glancing out the window at the green lawns and blue skies beyond. This was a man who always looked you in the eye, who never shied away from anything. She had once seen him face down a would-be mugger on the Lower East Side with nothing more than his steely gaze.
“I can’t tell you,” he said.
“Oh?” And now she did lift one brow. “The plot thickens.”
“There’s no plot,” he said, pushing his fingers through his hair. “There you go with your imagination again.”
“My friend is the one who has the imagination. I just detect bullshit. You are up to no good, Knightly. Spill.”
“To a known gossip like you?”
“I’ve kept our secret. So far.”
What with him being the owner and CEO of the company for which she was just a writer, she supposed she ought to think of him as her secret Gentleman Friend or secret Manfriend or secret lover.
“I can’t tell you this. But I need stories on Jane and Duke’s wedding. With pictures.”
“Why don’t you take them?”
“Because I’m not as close to Jane and Duke as you are, which means I can’t get as close. But if I have to, I will. I’ll send awful iPhone photos to that woman in your office with whom you have a rivalry. What was her name…?”
