by Alice Bello
Hope Jones has two problems: one is new, the other is depressingly old.
The new problem: the bestselling author the publisher she shoots romance novel covers for hates her newest batch of covers. She has until the end of the week to come up with a breathtaking shot or she’ll be replaced. And there’s a sudden model shortage; they’re out of season.
The old, depressing problem: she hasn’t had a date, sex or a relationship in over two years.
She also has one hell of a headache.
Hope finds the cures for her two problems during a search through Wal-Mart for a painkiller to kill her headache.
Turns out the aisles of the retail giant are rampant with hot young model worthy specimens. And when her trusty Ford Taurus breaks down in the parking lot, a hunky mechanic in the Tire and Lube Express department fixes more than just her car.
Seemingly her troubles are good as gone…but then her new, fabulous cover is rejected, and in a desperate moment she has to choose between keeping her job and keeping the man she’s just starting to fall in love with.
Hope Breaks
***
Alice Bello
Copyright, 2013
Kindle Edition
Cover Image, Istockphoto.com
Edited by the incredible Stephanie T. Lott (aka Bibliophile)
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Chapter 1
HE TICKLED MY FOOT: one big, strong hand holding onto the ball of my foot, the other hand’s forefinger running languidly down the curve of my instep.
I squirmed and tried to pull my foot free of his grip. He scowled at me and gave me one of those roguish, stunning smiles of his. No wonder women—and quite a few men—had been in love with him for the last two decades. It was more than the fact that he literally got better looking every damn year. It was more than the amazing shape he kept his body in.
It was even more than the restless leviathan between his muscular legs that was now discreetly covered by my Hello Kitty pink and white sheets.
Brad Pitt was just the sexiest man to ever live…and—tabloid rumors aside—he was a great guy… a humanitarian. Heck, he’d done more than FEMA for New Orleans.
“I’m not done yet,” he admonished, his voice deep with want.
“Well, stop with the tickling, then, and get to it,” I said, pressing my free foot into his hard, hairless chest. Good god, his flesh was soft and warm… and he smelled delicious.
He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Yes, ma’am.”
As Brad reached over to the bedside table, his thick fingers caught hold of the nail polish applicator, and then he set to work once more on painting my toenails. A subtle pink called Unabashed.
I can only imagine he does the same thing for Angelina…
And isn’t it nice that she lets him come here too. Those two really love their fans…
Brad looked up and frowned, and I realized a phone was ringing somewhere.
“The machine will get it,” I said, wiggling my toes at him. He smiled and dipped his head to resume my pedicure.
I heard the machine click on, and then a beep. And then my boss’s voice shrilled into the room, as if the damn machine was right by my head—which was ridiculous, since I kept my answering machine on my desk in the studio.
“Hope! I know you’re there… where else would you be!” Janine groused. “You never leave the house.”
That made me mad. I was not some hermit. I went out all the time: to Wal-Mart, to the fruit and vegetable market, to…
Well, I wasn’t much for painting the town red, but I was not some pathetic shut in… I just wasn’t!
“Hope…this is a code red emergency! I haven’t gotten any new cover shots from you, and Olivia is getting nervous.”
I groaned and looked up at the ceiling. This was bad… very bad.
“This is bad… very bad!” Janine echoed.
Brad looked to me confused, and I could only shrug my shoulders. Bye, bye Brad… hello reality.
I woke from my daydream sitting at the desk in my studio, my mouth dry as cotton balls, my body feeling hot and sweaty all over.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up!” Janine brayed.
My heart leapt and I lunged for the telephone. “I’m here,” I said breathlessly. My daydreams featuring Brad always took it out of me, even if we’d never gone any further than a naked foot massage, or his washing my hair… also naked, in the shower…
“Thank god!” Janine bellowed with relief. “You’ve got to fix this.”
I had to fix it. Me? Why didn’t that thought fill me with confidence?
“Hope… are you still there?” Janine called from my phone. She was the owner, CEO, and Senior Editor of Branded Publishing, and she was the busiest woman I’d ever met: organized like a general or an accountant… and quite possibly the most annoying human being on the planet.
I covered the phone’s receiver and took a deep breath, held it for a ten count, and reminded myself—again—that it was the copious amount of work I was getting from Janine and her ever expanding e-publishing house that insured I was caught up on my mortgage and not working shifts at Wal-Mart or Denny’s.
“I’m here… just had to load some images onto my laptop.” Which wasn’t exactly true.
I already had all my recent photos loaded on my laptop… and as I clicked them open they were coming up… lacking. Really lacking. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what was wrong with them.
The young man I’d shot was handsome and very well built, and the girl was what they’d call rockin’ in the body department.
But the pictures of them together just seemed so… flat… lifeless…
Maybe he was too buff? Maybe the shine on her recently capped teeth and spanking new breasts was causing havoc with the lighting?
Whatever it was, none of my new batch of images was going to even make it to my next round of cuts. And I needed a cover for the new Olivia Lovelace novel by next week.
“You know we need to get the advance copies out to the reviewers by next week, don’t you?” Janine queried.
“Yes,” I sighed, clicking rapidly through my new collection of mediocre shots, hoping that speed might make one of them look more appealing. “Believe me, I know.”
“Hope, nothing says cheap and rushed to romance bloggers more than sending out ARC copies with no covers.”
“I know, I know… and I promise I’ll have something gorgeous for you in plenty of time.” I just had no idea how. It was the middle of summer, and the bevy of hot young men and pretty girls who usually signed up to model were away, back home—wherever the hell that was—since college was over until fall.
“Olivia’s our hottest burning star, so we need to keep her happy. She’s only contracted for one more novel and she’s already let it slip that Doubleday and Penguin have made offers.”
Oh… now it all made sense. The unprecedented hype and publicity for the new Olivia Lovelace novel, and why Janine was so hell bent on getting the cover done.
Olivia had already rejected my first cover, saying it looked too much like some of the other covers I’d done before. That’s why I hadn’t even looked at my stock photos and had plunged right into securing new images with fresh faces.
I stared at a pictu
re that was almost good, almost passionate…and absolutely gratingly generic.
Maybe my ego was bruised? I mean, after having my first effort brushed aside with such a prickly rebuke, I could just be looking at my new crop of stills with an injured ego.
I clicked on the “almost right” picture and threw it to Photoshop and played around with colors and contrasts.
Still no good.
“Don’t worry, Janine. I’ve got it all under control. I promise.”
Janine sighed on the other end of the connection. “I know you do, babe. I know you do. It’s just that Olivia’s ebooks account for over half our sales this quarter. I can’t afford to lose her to a… Legacy Publishing House.” She said those last words with real venom in her voice.
Janine had started out in the traditional publishing world, working for Harlequin and then St. Martin’s. But then ebooks went viral, and the print publishing industry started cutting authors and whole publishing lines.
Janine had been one of those cut at the editorial level. It had devastated her, and she’d been teetering on the edge of becoming a statistic in the Print/eBook war when she ran into a fellow “downsized” editor named Greta from a rival publisher, and her stinking rich ex-boyfriend who owned half of downtown Dallas and three sports teams.
In her usual browbeating manner, she pulled both her ex and the other editor into her wake, and pitched them an idea off the top of her head. A new kind of publishing house where only ebooks were put out and the prices for them could rival even those of self-published ebooks.
She’d been right, of course. And she and her fellow downsized editor put out no less than twelve top ten Amazon romance novels in the first year.
But this year she’d ratcheted up the tension with two a month publications. And two months ago she’d added two new lines: Hot Branded and Night Branded. Erotica and Paranormal romance lines.
Just thinking about it made me exhausted. I couldn’t imagine putting out so many books. Nevertheless, I was making the covers, and it was turning out to be more and more hectic.
I had to. That or she’d find a new photographer.
And that would be bad.
“I’ve got it under control,” I told Janine, and then told her I’d call her in a couple days.
When I hung up I called Vincent Call, my contact at the modeling agency.
“Need a model, call Vincent Call!” the man cooed into the phone.
I rolled my eyes. Good god, he was tacky.
“It’s Hope Jones. I need two more models, and I need them quick.”
“Sorry, toots,” the little shitweasel said, sounding anything but sorry. “But we don’t have anyone we can send you until next month.”
I huffed out my held breath and fumed. “How about one of your competitors?” I cringed the second the words left my mouth.
I heard him hiss out the breath he’d taken. “I don’t have any competition down here. This is San Antonio, Texas, for crying out loud, not Manhattan!” And he hung up.
Crap. Not only didn’t I have any models coming in for my much needed shoot, but I’d inadvertently pissed off my supplier. I’d have to send him some booze, or a strip-o-gram.
First I needed to find some models.
I checked the phone book—zilch: turned out that Vincent the shitweasel really was the only game in town.
I googled modeling agencies in Houston, Dallas, and then for all of Texas. None, it turned out, were running any actual models this time of year.
Models were out of season.
I shook my head and then rested it on my kitchen table.
Maybe if I looked far enough back in my stock photos I’d find something I’d forgotten about, something that was fresh and new looking.
Problem was that before I started shooting racy covers for romance novels, I pretty much shot weddings, birthdays, and graduation pictures…
I cringed just remembering some of the dead eyed, pimply teenagers with too much eyeliner, too much hairspray, and way too much cologne and perfume on. Thank god, you can’t smell that crap through a picture.
If I didn’t find a way to keep my position at Branded Publishing, then I might end up doing portraits at Wal-Mart, if not stocking the shelves there as well.
I lifted my head and there it was… a headache from hell—pounding, throbbing, sharp pains around my eyes, and a heavy weight squeezing my frontal lobe.
I staggered over to the cabinet in my kitchen where I kept my mini-pharmacy: band-aids, salves, balms, first aid kit, ice packs, and painkillers.
I picked up my bottle of Tylenol and found it empty. When had I used the last ones?
I sighed deeply and reached for my car keys. Prophetic or not, I was going to have to go to Wal-Mart before I could go any further with my model hunt.
Chapter 2
MY CAR WASN’T THE newest model. It ran well, it always started, and it got me from point A to point B and then home again. But its air-conditioning was anemic at best, and since I lived a mere six miles from the closest Wal-Mart, it hadn’t even started blowing cold air yet.
I stepped out of my car, sweaty and with an even worse headache than I’d started out with. I was tempted to get back in the car and go to a bar. At least then I’d be in air-conditioning, and a few drinks might make my aching head go numb.
Of course, it might just make my headache worse.
Besides I hated cigarette smoke, so walking into a bar wouldn’t be a good idea.
So I kept my heading and walked into the retail giant.
At first their air-conditioning seemed heavenly, but that was just the blower stationed over the front sliding glass doors. Five paces in it became abundantly apparent that their air-conditioning was on the fritz.
Good lord, could this day get any worse?
As if on cue, the theft deterrent scanners went off like the death screams of Valkyries, and shot directly into my brain. I stumbled and almost got myself mowed down by a husband/wife team racing handicapped motorized scooters back towards the dairy department.
Guess there was a sale on Activia.
I went to the left and headed back toward the pharmacy department. The glare from the cheesy jewelry counter made my headache flare even hotter, so I swerved into the other lane and quickened my pace toward the painkiller aisle.
That’s when I started to hear the clanking. It was loud, and getting more earsplitting by the second. I looked behind me and vaguely made out a Wal-Mart employee pulling freight behind him with one of those pallet jack thingies.
I held my head as it passed me by, clanging and thundering as it went. But then my impending migraine just evaporated. The guy pulling the freight was to die for: tall, broad shouldered, tight of waist, with rumpled chestnut brown hair, and youthfully glowing skin.
I passed up the painkiller aisle and picked up my pace, trying to catch up with the young stud with the freight jack.
Luckily, he slowed down around sporting goods and started maneuvering the shrink-wrapped skid of freight into the middle of the aisle. So I got a very, very good look at him as he lowered the pallet of freight and then pulled the pallet jack from underneath.
His face was slightly angular, which was fantastic—I’d had too many pretty boys pose in front of my camera with the same all American bone structure.
Maybe that was the problem. Too shallow a gene pool!
I noted that he had a good chest, great arms, and his ass was bubble-licious.
He turned and caught me checking him out—how embarrassing. I was tempted to just turn and run, but I had a deadline, and the fresh face and body I was looking for was staring me right in the eye.
And those eyes... lovely and as pale blue as a winter sky.
I took a deep breath and walked over to him, ready to coax and grovel to get him to take his shirt off and pose for some pictures—which reminded me I needed a girl too.
I wondered if they had any pretty girls lurking somewhere in the bowels of the store.
; I took a breath to speak, but he cut across me.
“Look lady,” he said, and I saw the name Drew unevenly pasted with blue stickers on the nametag on his chest. “I’m not interested.”
My head snapped back a little, like I’d been slapped in the face. “What?”
He took an irritated breath and looked around to make sure no one was listening.
“I know we’re not supposed to be rude to the customers, but a guy can take only so much.”
“I haven’t the—”
“I get it, I really do,” he interrupted. “Between that Shades of Grey crap and that Magic Mike movie, hormones are out of control in the female population. I wrote a paper on it for Sociology last semester.”
“I’m not—”
“And I’m neither into S&M or a male stripper. And I’m not into cougars… no offense.”
Cougar? I was only twenty-six.
I clapped my hands in front of his face, and he suddenly jerked and fell quiet.
“Just stop talking, okay?”
“Okay…” he mumbled.
I dug in my purse and found some of the business cards I used to hand out at weddings and birthday parties, and tacked to bulletin boards from Dallas to Fort Worth. I pulled one out and handed it to the suddenly puppy eyed Drew.
“I’m a photographer. Mostly covers for romance novels now-a-days. And I desperately need some models.”
“Models?” he asked incredulously.
“Yeah, I’ve got a deadline, a nervous client that keeps my bills paid, and since it’s summer I can’t find anyone through the agency I usually go through.”
He looked dubious.
“Everyone went home for summer break.”
“Oh,” he said, and then looked down at my card. “It says you do weddings and birthdays.”
“They’re old cards. I haven’t…” I stopped and shook my head. “We’re getting off subject. I need some hot, fresh faces, between…” I looked him up and down. “Between your age and twenty-five. You’d do great for what I need right now, but if you have any friends that fit the bill, I could use them later on, probably soon.”
