by Noelle Adams
Carrie had to swallow over the lump of emotion and slowly walked over to the dresser to put on her earrings as a way to control her rush of trembling.
She hadn’t quite managed to pull herself together when she met Matt’s gaze again. She knew he could see her reaction.
In response to what she hadn’t said—what she hadn’t needed to say—Matt murmured, “Good definitely trumps easy.”
Unable to contain her feelings and giving up on even trying, she went over to hug him again.
The last year hadn’t been easy. But it had been good. So good.
And tonight was New Year’s Eve.
Next year would be even better.
Teaser Excerpt from A Negotiated Marriage
If you enjoyed Holiday Heat, you might enjoy A Negotiated Marriage by the same author.
She liked Luke. They got along. He didn’t expect anything she didn’t want to give. She enjoyed her lifestyle and she enjoyed her work. She hadn’t wanted to date in the last three years, having been burned so badly by Baron, and there was a sense of safety in being so completely off the market.
Despite all of that, seeing the James Coffee shop made her feel kind of depressed. She didn’t like that she’d been so incredibly foolish. So weak.
“You shouldn’t still be thinking about him,” Luke said, his voice breaking into her glum reverie.
She turned toward him and blinked. “Huh?”
“James. He’s not worth still brooding over.”
She studied Luke’s face, trying to figure out why he was bringing it up at all. Obviously, he knew about her former relationship with Baron, but they didn’t often talk about it. “I wasn’t. I’m over him.”
“Are you?”
He sounded so skeptical that she stiffened her back. “Yes. You didn’t think I was still hung up on him after three years, did you? I’m not that pitiful.”
“I don’t think you’re pitiful.” His expression was casual and unrevealing, as usual. “But, because of James, it’s going to be hard for you to trust another man. Isn’t it?”
She made a face, although she knew in some ways he was right. “I trust you, don’t I?”
“Not with your heart.”
She stared at him, completely perplexed by what looked like diffidence in his expression.
“I’m not saying you should,” he continued, barely missing a beat. His hazel eyes rested on her face with a strange sort of caution. “Obviously, that’s not what our marriage has ever been about. I just meant your thing with Baron still has an effect on you—and I don’t think he’s worth it.”
She shrugged and glanced out the window, since Luke’s steady gaze was too unsettling. “It’s not really about whether someone is worth it.”
When Luke didn’t respond, she turned to look at him again. Still couldn’t read his expression. “I don’t think I’m bitter because of him.”
“Not bitter. Just wary.”
“What about you?” she demanded, feeling vulnerable in the face of his perception. “You’re too much of a workaholic to even date someone for real. When was the last time you trusted someone with your heart?”
His lips tightened.
“Well?” she prompted, when he didn’t answer.
“Wasn’t that a rhetorical question?”
“No. I want to know. If you think I’m so damaged—”
“I never said you were damaged—”
“Whatever. If you think I’m so burned by Baron that I can’t jump into love again, what about you? What exactly burned you?”
She knew Luke well—maybe better than anyone else—but even she didn’t really know the answer to that question. Luke was a great listener and a very engaging conversationalist, but everything personal about him she had to learn indirectly. Never from his willingly sharing it with her.
“Nothing burned me.”
She arched her eyebrows.
“That’s the truth. I haven’t had any tragic love affairs.” He cut his eyes away from her briefly. “I just prefer to do what I’m good at.”
“What do you mean? You’re good at almost everything.”
“I’m good at business. I’m not good at relationships.”
She thought about that for a long time, the admission ringing true with her somehow. She enjoyed a rising sense of emotional closeness with him, since his opening up in any way wasn’t an everyday occurrence. Finally, she concluded, “I’m not good at relationships either.”
“Sure you are. You’ve got more friends than you could talk to in a year.”
“I meant I’m not good at romantic relationships.”
He smiled at her—the warm, full smile she rarely saw, the one that always took her breath away. “That’s because you always pick the wrong man.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, overwhelmed with a wave of familiarity and affection for him. He might be a workaholic businessman who tried to compartmentalize his life to the point of absurdity, but he was still a really good guy.
She responded to the feeling, leaning over to give him a friendly hug. “Well, I picked you to marry, so what does that say about you?”
For just a moment, he hugged her back. “I’m just lucky, I guess.”
Her breath hitched at the slight thickness of his voice, and she pulled back. Her eyes searched his face, trying to figure out whether he was being ironic or not.
“Do you want Thai?” Luke asked, shifting slightly in his seat.
“What?”
“Thai?” he repeated. “You said you were hungry.”
“Oh. Yeah. I am.” She shook away her momentary distraction. “Only I don’t really want to go out.”
“We can pick it up and take it home.”
Molly perked up at the prospect of Thai food and decided she must have imagined any strangeness just now.
*
A half-hour later, she sat on the floor watching a cable news channel. She hadn’t wanted to change clothes before she ate, so she’d just slipped off her shoes and spread a napkin in her lap.
Her dress wasn’t really made for sitting on the floor, but she made do, tugging down the hem of her skirt when it got hiked up too much.
Luke was going through emails on his tablet as he ate, so he sat in a chair. The only gesture toward relaxing was taking off his suit jacket and sliding off his shoes.
She wasn’t finished eating when Luke stood up. Instead of leaving the room, as she expected, he just looked at her.
She stared up at him. Since her mouth was full, she gave him a questioning look.
He lowered his lean body to the floor beside her. “I want to renegotiate terms.
Molly groaned. “Come on, Luke. We just did that three months ago, and it took ages to reach an agreement.”
“Even so.” His expression didn’t change. He looked matter-of-fact and business-like, as he always did. His brief vulnerability in the car had disappeared.
“Fine. But I’ve already bumped it up to six social events a month. If you want me to go to even more, then you’re going to have to give me something big.” When he opened his mouth to reply, she spoke over him. “I mean, really big. Like I do one fewer job for you a year. No more client referrals. I’ve already got more business than I can handle, so that’s not going to do it for me.”
“It isn’t about more social events. Six is adequate.”
“Oh. Then what is it?”
Luke glanced away from her momentarily. Then he met her gaze, his eyes bland and steady. “We agreed that, in terms of sexual activity, the only acceptable outlet for either of us is discreet professionals.”
Molly blinked, taken by surprise. “That was your idea, since dating outside of our marriage would have gotten in the way of the stable reputation you were trying to build.”
Luke, of course, hadn’t wanted to stop having sex altogether when they got married. So they’d agreed that either one of them could use the services of a high-priced, very discreet escort service. Molly, early on, had tri
ed it. She’d been bitter enough to think it might be the best, easiest way to have sex. It hadn’t been exciting or satisfying, though. It had felt weird and unnatural. So, for almost three years, she’d taken care of her sexual urges with a small collection of mechanical devices.
Luke, she assumed, made use of call girls regularly. They’d agreed never to have such encounters in the apartment, so he probably went to hotel rooms. She didn’t think about it much.
“Yes, it was my idea, but I would like it to change,” Luke responded. “I’m finding that unsatisfying.”
Molly frowned, feeling a little sick as she processed his words. “Well, I’m sorry. I don’t want to be unreasonable, but you can’t have a girlfriend. It would be…it would be humiliating. Everyone would think you were cheating on me.”
She wondered if he had met someone. Perhaps that was what had prompted this. Irrationally, she didn’t like the idea at all.
He was a classic workaholic—often at his office eighteen hours a day when he wasn’t traveling. She bleakly wondered when he’d even have time to hook up with someone regularly.
“I don’t want a girlfriend. If I wanted a girlfriend, we could simply end our marriage. I don’t want to do that. In fact, I don’t want anything significant about our agreement to change. I simply want to adjust this one item.” He glanced away again, his eyes resting on the large, flat screen of the television.
“Then I don’t understand. If you want to have sex with someone other than a call girl but you don’t want a girlfriend, then what exactly do you want?”
Luke cleared his throat and cut his eyes back to her. “I want to have sex with you.”
***
You can find out more about A Negotiated Marriage here.
About the Author
Noelle handwrote her first romance novel in a spiral-bound notebook when she was twelve, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. She has lived in eight different states and currently resides in Virginia, where she teaches English, reads any book she can get her hands on, and offers tribute to a very spoiled cocker spaniel.
She loves travel, art, history, and ice cream. After spending far too many years of her life in graduate school, she has decided to reorient her priorities and focus on writing contemporary romances. For more information, please check out her website: noelle-adams.com.
Other Books by Noelle Adams
One Hot Night: Three Contemporary Romance Novellas – Hearts can change in just one night…
A Negotiated Marriage – Sex wasn’t supposed to be part of the deal…
Listed – A marriage of convenience has never been like this.
Bittersweet – Love is as strong as death.
Missing – Sex would never be enough…
Revival – There wasn’t enough left of his heart…
Seducing the Enemy – She’ll never let him win…
Playing the Playboy – She’ll never fall in love…
Married for Christmas – It wasn’t exactly the marriage of her dreams…
Mistletoe Between Friends
Samantha Chase
One
Staying up all night on the phone with a friend was nothing new to Lily Cavanaugh. If someone was in a crisis, she was the go-to-girl to help out. Snuggling down deeper on her bed and into a more comfortable position, Lily did her best not to laugh.
“So was it Bitsy, Mitzi or Kitten that they tried to set you up with?” she asked, barely containing her mirth.
“You are so not helping.”
An unladylike snort escaped before she could stop it. “I can’t help if I don’t have all of the information. So? Details please!” On the other end of the phone Lily sensed more than heard Cameron’s frustration growing.
Cameron Greene and Lily had been friends since before they could walk. Their families were the best of friends and being so close in age – less than a year apart – it was only fitting that Cam and Lily continue the tradition.
“I’m telling you, Lil,” he began, “I’m thinking of moving overseas just to get some peace and quiet.”
“Oh, come on. How bad could it have been? Was she pretty?”
“In a plastic Barbie doll kind of way.”
“Most guys go for that kind of thing. Okay, so what about the rest? Did you have anything in common?”
“I don’t have anything in common with most people, Lil; you of all people should know that.” It was a common discussion that they had. Cameron had a near-genius IQ and as such, was a little socially awkward. It was hard for him to find common ground with people to talk about when he spent most of his days in a laboratory studying the Universe.
“So what did you talk about?”
He sighed. “After I got the not-so-Reader’s-Digest version of her aspirations to be a model I then explained my job to her.”
Uh-oh, Lily thought. That was normally the kiss of death. “How long did it take for her eyes to glaze over?”
Cam laughed. He had felt horrible about the entire evening but talking to Lily about it, he was able to find humor in it. “Less than two minutes.”
“Wow,” Lily said with mock enthusiasm. “I think that’s a new record.”
“We never even made it to dinner,” Cam said and wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or not.
“What excuse did she give? Headache? Family emergency? She thought she left the gas stove on?”
“Headache.”
“It is a classic.” Now it was Lily’s turn to sigh. “I’m so sorry, Cam. Are you okay?”
“Sure. I didn’t want to go out with her; my parents orchestrated the entire thing and so I did not want to disappoint them – again. I just wish they’d find something else to obsess about and move on. I’m not interested in their trust-fund heiresses that they consider worthy of marrying into the Greene family.”
“They are depending on you to carry on the family name, Cam. This isn’t new information. You know that they hassled your sisters just as much until they each married someone acceptable to them.”
“That was different; both of my sisters never had an issue with the opposite sex. They’re smart and outgoing and enjoy socializing. Why can’t I just be left alone?”
Lily’s heart broke for him a little. Cameron had always been painfully shy and because of his level of intelligence, the things that he found enjoyable, most of the population couldn’t even begin to understand. “It’s not healthy to be alone all the time, Cam. You need to get out once in a while and be around regular people. Go to a movie, eat a hamburger…live like us common folk for a little while,” she teased.
He chuckled. “Do you have any idea how bad ground beef is for you? Even with the stringent safety…”
“It was just a suggestion!” she interrupted. “I don’t need the lecture – again – on how bad most foods are. You’ve all but ruined all of my fast food hangouts for me.”
“I worry about you; is that a crime?”
She smiled. “No, it’s not a crime. I just wish that you could simply relax your standards a little bit and just, I don’t know, have some fun.” Shifting her position again, Lily turned on her tablet and kicked up a game of Solitaire. She knew Cameron well and knew that they could talk all night; sometimes a little distraction was what she needed to keep her going. “So what’s new at the lab?”
“Nice change of subject. Have you already started up a game of Solitaire?”
“Damn,” she muttered. “How do you do that?”
“I know you better than you know yourself, Lil. Is it so painful to talk to me that you have to play a computer card game at the same time?” His tone was only partially teasing.
Immediately Lily put the tablet down and sat up. “What? Why would you even say that?”
“Look, we’re friends and you never lie to me so don’t start now, okay? If you can’t even stand talking to me, what hopes do I have of anyone else wanting to?”
Lily felt ready to cry. “Oh, Cam,” she said, hand to her chest. “I love tal
king to you; you know that. Honestly, you’re the only one who actually talks to me and listens to me without treating me like I’m an idiot.”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“No, I don’t know it. No one in my family takes me seriously. Every time I try to talk to them about what’s going on in my life, I feel like I’m being patted on the head and pacified. It’s beyond insulting.”
“They never did understand your creative side,” he said patiently.
“Neither did Biff,” she said with a dramatic sigh.
Cam was silent for a moment. Surely he hadn’t heard her right. “I’m sorry; Biff, did you say?”
“Oh, did I not mention my wonderful dinner companion this evening?”
This time it wasn’t a chuckle but a full-bodied laugh that escaped before Cam could stop it. “Come on, Lily; no one names their kid Biff. It’s cruel.”
“Well, at least I think that’s what his name was,” she said thinking back over the evening.
“You went to dinner with this guy and you aren’t sure of what his name was?” Cam asked with disbelief. If there was one thing he knew about Lily, it was that she was a people person and for as much of a scatter-brain as people thought she was, she was very good with names.
“Like you, we didn’t make it to dinner. As a matter of fact, we never even made it to the restaurant.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s just say that while we were in the car he asked me about what I did for a living and by the time I got through talking about my pottery classes and dog walking and that short stint I did nude modeling for that art class…”
“Wait. What? When did you take a pottery class?”
Lily burst out laughing. “Out of those three things, you latched on to the pottery class to be outraged about? What about the nude modeling thing? You’d think that would have been a red flag for someone sensible like you!”
“Okay, never mind about the pottery or…the modeling; what happened in the car?”
“He literally turned the car around and brought me home. He claimed that he had a business call that had slipped his mind but I think that my Asian-fusion cooking class was the last straw for him.” She sighed. “Not that I wanted to go out with him much either; just like you, it was parent orchestrated. But still, I was hungry.”
