“Erin!” She turned and saw Anna moving toward her, her former housemate’s sunburned face stretched wide in a smile. Beside her, an equally bronzed Jake held out his hand to Zander.
“Jake Flynn,” he said, and Zander made some reply that was completely muffled by Anna as she smothered Erin in a double-armed embrace.
“Anna, I just saw you three—,” Erin began, only to be cut off by Anna’s searing whisper.
“My God, he is hot, Erin. I swear, we’ll be clearing out in just a couple of days.” She bounced back just as quickly, grinning widely at Zander. “I’m Anna,” she said.
“I figured.” Zander nodded, glancing between Erin and her clearly insane housemate.
“And Erin, I had no idea you could paint like this! It’s really amazing,” Anna enthused. She looked around with sparkling eyes as the gallery door opened again, letting in a rush of cold air along with the newest round of guests. Then her eyes popped wide, her mouth going into an O. She immediately turned around so her face was to them, her back to the gallery door. “Erin!” she squeaked. “Why is R-Four here?”
Even Jake was looking at Anna oddly as Dani strolled up to them, dressed to the nines in a tight, long-sleeved, jet-black leather sheath and spike heels. Her hands were curled around two champagne flutes, which she offered to Zander and Erin as she took in Anna with a concerned glance. “What’s up with her? You spike her drink?”
“R-Four,” Anna said again, sotto voce. “He has more money than God. Why is he here?”
“I don’t have any idea who you’re talking about.” Erin frowned over Anna’s shoulder at the tall, striking businessman in an impeccably tailored suit. The stunning blonde on his arm gazed up at him adoringly, and she could see why. He was no Zander James, but his dark, almost cruelly good looks were arresting, even at thirty feet. “R-Four?”
“Rand Sterling Winston IV,” Anna said slowly, as if they were all remedial learners. “Of the Morris-Winston Winstons. As in, my old company. As in, he sort of owns it.”
“Oh!” Dani seemed to catch on first. “So he’s your old boss? But so what? You quit.”
“That’s completely not the point,” Anna said, shaking her head. “The point is, he’s here, Erin. His patronage means everything.” Her voice was finally returning to normal levels. “Just him being at this gallery tonight, looking at your work, is huge. It’s totally going to cause a stir.”
“You don’t say?” Dani raised her brows, smirking at the man as Erin glanced around the room. Sure enough, the owner of the art gallery was even now elegantly drifting across the floor toward their esteemed new guest, along with her usual entourage of arts reporters. Interesting.
“I do say,” Anna said. “So we’ll just, um, wander over that way and see what we can overhear.” She pulled Jake by the arm, practically dragging him after her as he laughed. Dani, for her part, strolled in the opposite direction, but Erin didn’t miss the gleam in her eye. Before she could comment on it, however, Zander’s voice caught her attention.
“This looks familiar.” Zander was eyeing a canvas that Erin had finished just a few days earlier, a grinning young man leaning against the hood of a car, looking like the cat who knew where all the cream was hidden. “You gonna tell Rey you’ve captured him for all eternity?”
“No one but us will ever be able to identify him from that.” Erin sniffed. “Rey had green eyes, not brown. And he’s shorter.”
“Oh, right. What was I thinking.” Zander’s voice was light, and he eyed Erin over the rim of his glass as if the two of them now shared a secret joke. Erin felt her throat go tight again, but she straightened her shoulders, gripping her champagne glass so hard she was close to breaking it.
“Honey, would you—,” Zander began to say, innocently enough. But his voice…that random term of endearment…it brought everything home for her. The idea that they really were together now. Together and so close, but the one last thing that she wanted just wasn’t quite there. Only it could be, if she was brave enough. It could be, if she tried. And why shouldn’t she try? Why shouldn’t she go for it? So many other things had changed, so why not—
“Move in with me, Zander,” she blurted. Then she froze at his startled gaze. Whoops, she thought. Maybe that was a little fast. But it was too late. She couldn’t take it back.
“What?” Zander asked. He looked too calm, too steady, and Erin rushed ahead.
“Move in with me,” she said again. Her gaze slid away, fixing on the far end of the room, where Dani now stood quite officially consulting a clipboard, right in front of the man Anna had called R-Four, talking to him and his girlfriend as if she were some sort of gallery employee. “I have an extra room,” she continued brightly, as if this all was just a question of logistics. “It’d be a lot closer to the university, and Jackson Security is not all that far away. You could have everything you needed, right at your fingertips.” And I could have you, she thought. Right at mine. As if she’d done anything but think of that for the last four months straight.
Zander scowled and took her drink, setting both their glasses on the tray of a passing waitress before turning back. “Erin.” He sighed, and it wasn’t a good kind of sigh, either. It was a “no” kind of sigh, and Erin felt panic rise inside her, thick and hot. This is why she didn’t ask for anything! This is why! “This seems a little out of the blue, don’t you think?”
“Why does that matter?” she asked, trying to keep the hysteria from her voice even as she felt the moment slip away. “You’re the one who convinced me to finally take some chances. You see this, all around us? You made it possible. You showed me how much life was worth living without hesitation, without keeping my best stuff locked up in my head. You’re the one who showed me how to move past all the worry. Well, I’m doing that now. I’m asking you to move in with me. Tomorrow. Tonight. This weekend. I don’t care. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.” Her words were barely a whisper now. “But I want us to really do this, Zander,” she said. “I want to try.”
He stared at her, a long, impossible moment, his gray eyes holding her gaze so long she thought she might get lost in them and never find her way out. And then he nodded.
“Okay,” he said.
Erin’s breath nearly stopped, her heart swelling in her chest. “Okay?” she repeated. “Just like that?”
Then Zander moved, and her hands were suddenly caught up in his, his fingers twining in hers as his gaze became even sharper, searching her face. Whatever he saw there must have been right, because he nodded, hard. “Yeah, Erin, just like that,” he said, his voice rough. “I want this, too. I think I’ve always wanted it. All those years ago when I was too dumb to breathe and you were too scared to speak up, all those years in between when we both were too stubborn to see our own mistakes. I wanted this. I wanted us. I’ve just been waiting for you to want it, too.”
“I do,” she whispered. “I do.”
He smiled. “Then I think we’ll be just fine.”
Zander leaned forward, then, brushing his lips against hers, and when he released her hands to gather her close, Erin found her arms naturally going around him, the two of them a circle of strength once more, only even stronger now in the broken places. She sighed against him, settling into an embrace she’d been aching for longer than she’d even realized.
“But I do think you should handle the cooking,” she murmured. “Given what I did to my poor stove.” And she smiled as Zander’s laugh floated down around her, his arms holding her tight.
“Works for me,” he said.
BY JENNIFER CHANCE
Rock It
Fake It
Want It
About the Author
JENNIFER CHANCE is the award-winning author of the New Adult Rule Breakers series. A lover of books, romance, and happily-ever-afters, she lives and writes in Ohio.
www.JenniferChance.com
Facebook.com/authorJenniferChance
@Jenn_Chance
The
Editor’s Corner
I don’t know about you, but this is my favorite time of year! Sure, the month is crazy with holiday preparations, but before you know it they’ve come and gone…which always makes me a little sad. Never fear—I’ve some great romances to lift you out of those seasonal doldrums. Loveswept in December—guaranteed to keep you on that holiday high!
New this month is the latest tantalizing Rule Breakers novel, Want It, from Jennifer Chance, in which an irresistible alpha male follows his ex into a deadly standoff—and reignites a heated affair. A warm welcome to Wendy S. Marcus as she makes her Loveswept debut this month with Loving You Is Easy—she’s a survivor of the political front lines and he’s a wounded soldier returning home from the battlefield. Can they place their trust in the power of love? You bet! You’ll be thrilled to know that the conclusion of Ella Patton and Liam Stone’s story is here in Laura Marie Altom’s Possess—more of the contentious love affair that began in Control. Historical romance fans will adore His Saving Grace, by Sharon Cullen, a captivating novel that tells the deeply emotional tale of two devoted lovers facing the ravages of war.
And a little something special for you this month: Play Me, a serialization written by New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff. Five wonderful installments complete a full-size novel, and each section will tantalize you. Listen to this: Aria Winston lives the life of a loner waitressing at a popular Las Vegas casino. Sebastian Caine is the hot son of the owner who manages the business while his father recovers from a life-threatening heart attack. Things heat up fast, and the glimpses of the man behind the façade disturb Aria but also make her want him more (contains BDSM elements).
Wishing you a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season—and just in case Santa doesn’t deliver on the goodies, remember: Loveswept has what you need this month in romance. Until next time…
~Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on for a preview of Jennifer Chance’s
RISK IT
Available in Spring 2015
Prologue
PALM D’OR GALLERY
What was better: A good con, or great sex?
Toss-up.
Dani Michaels straightened her shoulders in her leather sheath dress, giving the question the consideration it deserved as she picked up a clipboard that one of the actual employees of the Palm D’Or Gallery had left on the counter. The clipboard’s pages contained the list of all of the paintings showcased here tonight, in her landlady Erin Connelly’s first ever public display of her work, right along with details about the pieces and their availability.
The list did not, importantly, contain prices.
Those were affixed to small placards on the wall, the numbers insanely inflated according to Erin, since the idea wasn’t so much to sell anything tonight as to position Erin within a certain range of other artists, should buyers wish to hire her for commissioned work. Whatever. These perfectly good paintings were available right here, right now. Why shouldn’t somebody pay for them? Or overpay for them, if he had more money than God?
Dani flipped through a few of the sheets of paper, frowning at them intently before exhaling and glaring at the far wall. As she scanned, she allowed her gaze to brush against the Silver Spoon holding court in the center of the room, carefully ignored by the other browsers as his expensive girlfriend draped herself over his arm.
With one more glance at the wall of paintings, Dani selected the right item for him. It was the smallest of Erin’s pieces, a portrait of two nude bodies intertwined. Erin had hated every part of that painting, mainly because she’d finished it half drunk, thanks to Dani, and hadn’t had time to make it perfect in the days running up to this show. Dani loved it, though. It was all heat and passion and jagged lines, even more powerful because of its flaws.
Dani shifted her gaze back toward the man who was about to buy that painting. She’d never met him before—R4, her housemate Anna Richardson had called him when he’d first walked into the place. Employee shorthand, apparently, for the owner of the company where Anna used to work: Rand Sterling Winston IV. Tycoon. Playboy. Asshat. Whatever. Dani didn’t need to know the guy to get under his skin.
Call it a gift. But all the years she’d spent either behind a bar or in front of a mark definitely paid off when it came to assessing any man’s deepest weakness.
And this guy was a fraud.
From the tousled curls of his jet-black hair and his sculpted lips and cheekbones, to the drape of the One-Percenter suit beneath his gorgeous wool coat, everything about Rand Sterling Winston IV was icy perfection. Even the sidewalk salt on his shoes looked like decorator frosting. Still, Dani would bet serious money that the man’s veneer was as fake as her knock-off Blahniks, meticulously designed to hide his true colors. She didn’t know what danger lurked behind Winston’s chilly facade, but it snagged at her attention, making it almost impossible for her to focus on anything else. The guy was like black ice, she decided. Cold and slick on the surface, dark and dirty underneath. The perfect kind of target for a frigid Boston night.
Glancing up from her papers, Dani looked past Winston once more to the wall of paintings beyond, completely unsurprised to feel the man’s hard gaze narrow on her across the room. Frauds knew when they were being checked out. So did control freaks. She amended her assessment to add that to the tally of his impressive list of qualities.
Still, that stare was her cue. Clutching her clipboard officiously, she stepped out from behind the counter to stride across the gallery floor. Just as she reached Tall, Dark and Loaded, however, she met his gaze for half a second, then veered out of the way.
“Miss.”
He hadn’t expected to have to speak to get her attention, she knew. His beautiful face looked more surprised than it probably had at any point in the past six months. Score one for her side. “I’m sorry, sir,” Dani said. “If you’ll excuse me. I have to remove a painting.”
“Remove one?” He frowned at her, the sheer command in his voice keeping her in place as much as the subtle shift of his body. He was taller than she’d expected, too. At five foot ten without the stilettos, Dani wasn’t used to having anyone look down at her, and she didn’t have to feign the chilliness of her smile as Winston blocked her path, reminding her of her initial assessment of him. Black ice could be deceptive, too, and Silver Spoon seemed a lot more treacherous up close than he had across the room. Her pulse was thrumming now, all senses on alert.
“Yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
Winston’s smile curved the edge of his mouth, his eyes predatory. “But the showing has only just started. Surely you can’t have a buyer so soon.”
Dani’s return smile was all teeth. “I do apologize, but—” She waved her hand over her clipboard. “I’m afraid we do. A bid for twice this piece’s stated price has come in from one of our wealthiest patrons.” She turned and studied the painting dispassionately. “He was quite insistent that it come off the wall immediately.”
“I doubt quite seriously he is your wealthiest patron here tonight.” The cool, condescending voice dripped money, but it wasn’t Winston who spoke this time. Dani glanced over to his lapdog, surprised to see intelligence flicker in the woman’s bored eyes. “Except we only stopped in because of the wind, and now we’re leaving.”
Dani lifted her own eyebrow in perfect counterpoint. “I am so relieved to hear that.”
“Why that piece?”
She turned back to her mark, who wasn’t looking at her anymore, but at the small painting on the wall. “It’s amateurish at best.”
“Raw, I believe were his words, yes.” Dani returned her gaze to the wall with equal gravity. “Dark. Forbidden.” She sensed the moment when Winston’s attention slipped off the painting and rested once more on her face. She met his cold blue eyes without flinching, her manner still polite but firm. “Who’s to say what captures an art lover’s interest though? Now, thank you, but I must—”
>
“Triple the price.” His voice was bored, but Dani froze, just as her own internal script demanded, her mouth opening in a soft “o” before she attempted speech again.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“Rand—” Ice Barbie was tugging at his arm. “We’re already late.”
But Rand ignored her. He pulled a card out of his jacket, which he flourished at Dani. When she didn’t make a move for it, he slid it onto her clipboard. Even his fingers were beautiful, she realized. Long and hard and cruel. “I’m certain I have an account with this establishment,” he said. “If not, I will by morning. I’d like to have the painting marked as sold, to me, immediately. You can keep it on the wall.”
“Ahhh, of course Mr., hmmm—” Dani frowned down at the card, knowing she had already won. Now she was just pushing her luck, pretending not to recognize Rand’s name when surely she would have heard of him, if she was really the employee she said she was. At the last minute, better judgment ruled. “Oh.” She brought her gaze up quickly, letting her eyes go wide.
“Yes, ‘oh.’ ” Rand’s arm candy snorted. “Now, please, Rand, can we go?”
Rand held Dani’s gaze for a long, harrowing moment, and she forced herself not to tense up. The close was by far the hardest part of the entire scam for her, but usually that was because she had a problem with gloating. This time, however, she wasn’t feeling cocky, exactly. Rand’s eyes were dark and challenging, the fire in their mocking depths promising the kind of pleasure Dani hadn’t experienced in a long, long time. The kind of pleasure he craved, she sensed, the way a drowning man craved air.
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