The Black Sheep
Page 21
ALSO BY PATRICIA RYAN
North Moon Bay Romances
The Black Sheep
The Marriage Arrangement
My Best Friend’s Girl
Hot City Nights Romances
A Burning Touch
Deep in the Night
Arm Candy
Contemporary Romantic Suspense
Pure and Simple*
Good to be Bad
Lords of Conquest
Medieval Romantic Suspense
Falcon’s Fire
Heaven’s Fire
Secret Thunder
Wild Wind
Silken Threads
The Sun and the Moon
The Nell Sweeney Mysteries
written as P.B. Ryan*
Still Life with Murder
Murder in a Mill Town
Death on Beacon Hill
Murder on Black Friday
Murder in the North End
A Bucket of Ashes
*Also available as audiobooks
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed The Black Sheep. If you’d like to share your thoughts about this book, I’d love to hear them, so please consider posting a review (links to all the retailers are here).
For a heads-up when I have something new coming out, be sure to sign up for my email newsletter. As a special bonus for my subscribers, most issues feature free and deeply discounted ebooks, print books, and audiobooks by other bestselling romance and mystery authors.
Although this book has been professionally edited and proofread, typos often manage to find a way to slip through the cracks. My aim is to provide you with an error-free reading experience, so if you notice anything that needs correction, please let me know!
Next up in the North Moon Bay series is Book 2, The Marriage Arrangement. Clay Granger, a billionaire extreme sports star, thrives on taking risks and pursuing thrills. When his friend Izzy Fabrioni finds herself pregnant, alone, and broke, Clay proposes an arranged marriage that should solve all her problems while making his own life a bit more bearable. As one of the most eligible bachelors in the world, he's found himself hounded by matchmakers and gold-diggers. A wife—in name only, of course—should be just the ticket to get them off his back.
Wary but desperate, Izzy agrees to the insane plan. It's just another escapade for Clay... until he discovers that sharing his life—and bed—with sweet, sexy Izzy makes the “in name only” part of the deal a whole lot harder than he had anticipated.
I hope you enjoy the following excerpt from The Marriage Arrangement...
NEXT IN THE SERIES
From The Marriage Arrangement
A North Moon Bay Novel
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN you want out of the deal?” Izzy asked. “Maybe you’ll meet someone and fall in love—”
Clay laughed harshly. “I do that two or three times a week. It usually lasts for about half an hour.”
“Seriously.”
“Seriously,” he said. “Ain’t gonna happen. I know myself well enough to state unequivocally that I have no intention of ever settling down with anyone. But if you find someone and want a divorce, no problem. Hell, if you want to file papers the day after the baby’s born, be my guest. I’m just trying to help you out here.”
“I know.” She gripped his shoulder. “And I appreciate it. More than I can tell you.”
From downstairs came the muted blare of noisemakers.
“So you’ll do it?”
She laughed incredulously. “This is crazy.”
“We’ve been all over that. We know it’s crazy. But we’re gonna do it anyway. Right?”
She groaned, but she was smiling that billion-watt smile. “Right.”
“Yes!” He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed.
The door flew open; Harry’s linebacker silhouette filled the doorway. “There you are! You guys, it’s almost midnight and—” His eyes widened as he took in the rumpled coats and the embrace. “This can’t be what it looks like.”
“We’re getting married,” Clay said.
“Clay!” Izzy exclaimed.
“Look,” he said, “everyone’s going to find out sooner or later. That is the point, after all.”
She sighed and slumped against him.
“You and Izzy,” Harry said slowly, as if waiting for the punch line. “Getting married.”
Clay nodded. “Will you be best man?”
Harry stood in silence for a moment, his expression gradually softening from incredulity to sanguine acceptance. He tapped the brim of his Yankees cap. “Can I wear this?”
“I wouldn’t recognize you without it.”
“Then I’m your man, homie.”
Clay caught Izzy’s eye. “‘Homie’?”
Harry cocked his head toward the stairs leading to the first floor, where the sounds of celebration were escalating to a fever pitch. “The countdown’s gonna start soon. If you can disentangle yourselves, you should join us.”
TEN!” THE REVELERS ROARED as they stared at the live broadcast from Times Square on Harry’s gigundo TV. “Nine! Eight!”
I must be nuts, Izzy thought, squeezed up against Clay in the crowd surrounding the television. Did I really agree to marry Clay Granger?
Clay leaned in close to her, his palm over the top of his champagne flute to keep its contents from spilling. When he spoke into her ear, she could only hear about every other word because of the noise, but she thought he said, “This countdown reminds me of getting ready to jump out of an airplane.”
“Six! Five!”
He laughed. “Man, I love that feeling, when you’re just falling through the air, falling and falling. Know what I mean?”
He’s nuts, too.
“Three! Two! One!”
We’re both nuts. What are we doing?
“Happy New Year!” Horns shrieked; voices whooped. Izzy, having sworn off alcohol for the duration of her pregnancy, pretended to take a sip of her champagne; Clay drained his.
As “Auld Lang Syne” played in the background, couples paired up for the traditional kiss at the stroke of midnight. Izzy pointedly avoided looking at Clay. She feigned another sip of champagne. When she lowered her glass, he was staring down at her.
He took her glass out of her hand and set it on a side table, along with his. Then he tilted her chin up, leaned down, and kissed her.
It was a sweet kiss, soft and unassuming. But as he started to pull away, he hesitated, and his mouth grazed hers again.
His lips were warm, and they tickled, making her shiver with heat. He closed his eyes, so she did, too. She felt a firmer pressure as he moved his mouth gently over hers.
This is a real kiss, not just a New Year’s kiss. Clay’s really kissing me! And, God help her, she was kissing him back.
She felt a slow rush of vertigo, as if she were losing her balance...as if she were, in fact, falling through the air, falling and falling... It stopped when his fingers threaded through her hair to cup the back of her head, steadying her. He encircled her waist with his other arm, holding her firmly. She returned the embrace, telling herself, No, it’s really just a New Year’s kiss. Nothing wrong with a little New Year’s kiss.
Clay’s tongue, hot and tasting of champagne, swept lightly over her lips. She inhaled sharply. His arm tightened around her momentarily, and then he pulled back and looked at her. She noticed his chest rising and falling rapidly beneath that fisherman-knit sweater. For the briefest moment his eyes searched hers, and then he seemed to gather himself, and looked away.
So did Izzy. Around them, the other couples had already separated and the party was getting back into full swing.
Harry sauntered up to them, chuckling and shaking his head. “I must say, you two are just full of surprises tonight.”
“Yeah,” Clay said after a moment. He glanced briefly in Izzy’s direction, his dazed expression that of a man who’d just realized the full extent of the deal he’d struck. “I guess we are.”
Th
e Marriage Arrangement
COPYRIGHT
THE BLACK SHEEP
Patricia Ryan
Copyright © 1995, 2016 Patricia Burford Ryan. The Black Sheep is a revised edition of a novel that was published in a 1995 mass market paperback as Return of the Black Sheep and a 2000 ebook as Hale’s Point.
A Hawkley Books ebook. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.
ISBN 9781452472348
Don't miss out!
Click the button below and you can sign up to receive emails whenever Patricia Ryan publishes a new book. There's no charge and no obligation.
https://books2read.com/r/B-A-BMR-ITNK
Connecting independent readers to independent writers.
About the Author
Patricia Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of more than two dozen romances and mysteries, including the #1 national bestseller Still Life with Murder. Her novels have garnered rave reviews and been published in over twenty countries. A RITA® winner (for Silken Threads) and four-time nominee, she is also the recipient of three RT BookReviews Awards and a Mary Higgins Clark Award nomination for Murder in a Mill Town, the second book of her historical mystery series featuring Boston governess Nell Sweeney, written as P.B. Ryan.
Read more at Patricia Ryan’s site.