The Has-Been and the Hot Mess

by Isabel Jordan

  Kendall got in front of him and put her hands on his chest. “Have I told you that you look fuck-hot in that tux?”

  He frowned down at her. “I know you’re trying to distract me. It won’t work.”

  She blinked up at him innocently. “It won’t? What if I was to—”

  She grabbed his lapels, dragged him down to her level, and kissed the crap out of him.

  When she pulled back, he looked a little dazed, but less like he was going to puke. She was going to take that as a victory.

  He glanced down at the front of his pants, which were tented. “You love sending me out in front of people with a hard-on, don’t you?”

  “Better that you have a hard-on than puke onstage.”

  “True enough.” Then he frowned and glanced around. “Hey, where’s Ray? Do you really think it’s a good idea to leave him unattended again?”

  Kendall frowned right back. “I didn’t think it was a good idea to bring him at all, but you invited him, remember?”

  Jackson man-pouted. “He looked like he was going to cry when I said it might not be a good idea to have him here. I couldn’t not invite him.”

  What Jackson didn’t realize was that Ray could fake-cry at the drop of a hat. He was a genius at it, and he’d been using it to his advantage for years to get his way. But regardless, Kendall understood. Saying no to Ray was a Herculean task that few had ever been able to manage.

  She sighed. “Well, it hasn’t been too bad so far. He did kick JJ Abrams in the shins. But he totally played it off like an accident, and I don’t think anyone suspected anything.”

  Jackson winced, but nodded. “He was really angry about The Rise of Skywalker.”

  Kendall didn’t exactly condone kicking directors in the shins…but yeah, she was going to cut Ray some slack on that one.

  Which didn’t mean she could afford to leave him unattended for long. God only knew what he’d do next.

  “I asked Jane Fonda to keep an eye on him while I was gone, but she’s so tiny. I doubt she could stop him if he really wanted to do something.”

  “I don’t know. She seems pretty scrappy,” Jackson said. “Oh, wait, I see him. He’s right there.”

  Kendall glanced in the direction he was pointing, and to her horror, saw him deep in conversation with Adam Driver. “Oh, fuck,” she hissed. “I can’t leave him alone with Adam Driver! That’s going to end in a restraining order. Are you OK if I go collect your brother?”

  Jackson chuckled. “Yeah, I’m fine. You go ahead.”

  She gave him one last peck on the mouth before hiking up the hem of her dress and waddling in Ray’s direction. But before she got there, she glanced over her shoulder at her husband, standing there looking all hot and nervous.

  This glorious, talented, spectacular man was hers. How the hell had that happened?

  “Hey, Jackson.”

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “You’re going to win,” she stage-whispered.

  His answering grin made her heart beat double-time.

  “I already did, Kendall. I already did.”

  I hoped you loved Jackson and Kendall’s story! Keep reading for samples of Semi-Charmed (the paranormal romance that started it all), You Complicate Me, a snarky, sassy, contemporary romantic comedy, and Caped and Dangerous, the first book in my Grumpy Superheroes series. Happy reading!

  Acknowledgments

  This list is pretty repetitive from book to book, but I’ll never get tired of thanking:

  My husband for constantly nudging me out of my comfort zone and encouraging me to take risks. Don’t worry—I hear you. We won’t need a The Bodyguard-esque chat anytime soon.

  My parents for the million things they do for me every day—way more stuff than I could list here.

  My son for inspiring me and making me laugh ALL THE TIME and for insisting that I’m famous and known “far and wide.”

  LE Wilson for all manner of support, including verbally slapping me when I’m overthinking shit, and reminding me that I sometimes need to get over myself.

  Renee Wright for all the help and encouragement over the years. I said it before, I’ll say it again: cancer sucks!

  And most of all, a great big THANK YOU to all the readers out there who keep reading the crazy stuff I type out every day. The fact that you ask me to keep writing and publish more still shocks the crap out of me (in the best possible way)!

  Love and lots of hugs and kisses to all of you!

  A personal note from Isabel:

  If you enjoyed this book, first of all, thanks for reading! It would mean a lot to me if you would take a moment and show your support of indie authors (like me) by leaving a review. Your reviews are a very important part of helping readers discover new books.

  Semi-Charmed

  She's infamous. He's legendary. Together, they'll be epic...or a complete train wreck. It could go either way, really...

  Chapter 1

  Whispering Hope, New York, today

  Harper Hall swatted the fast-fingered hand of yet another horny, middle-aged CPA off her ass, but resisted the urge to dump tequila in this one’s lap. After all, the Prince Valiant haircut and underbite he was saddled with were punishments enough for his crimes.

  “Hey, baby,” Valiant’s friend said as he fondled his shot glass suggestively. “Is that a mirror in your pocket? ‘Cause I can definitely see myself in your pants.”

  Harper rolled her eyes and shot back, “Darlin’, I’m not your type. I’m not inflatable.”

  And with that, she turned on the heel of one of her requisite six-inch platforms and started for the bar as the CPAs chortled and bumped knuckles. They were probably looking at her butt too, but Harper chose not to dwell on that, or on the fact that most of said butt was probably hanging out of her Daisy Dukes. Not her best look, to be sure.

  Lanie Cale, one of the other waitresses, grabbed her arm and leaned in, shouting over the music, “Hey, can you take over for me with the guy at table five? Carlos is letting me dance tonight. I go on in ten.”

  Harper gave her a quick once over. Lanie was five years her junior, ten pounds lighter, and had her beat by a full cup size. If she was Lanie, she’d probably aspire to be a stripper too. But as it stood, she was stuck waiting tables with the other B-cups.

  “Sure,” she answered. “But, Lanie, this guy at table five…he’s not a CPA, is he? I don’t think I have the strength for another CPA.”

  “No way is this guy a CPA. I’d bet Hugh Jackman’s abs on it,” she promised solemnly as she disappeared into the crowd.

  At that moment, the sweaty throng of dancers and customers and waitresses parted, giving Harper her first glimpse of the guy at table five.

  Wow. Hugh Jackman’s abs were in no danger tonight.

  The guy at table five was definitely not an accountant. Serial killer, maybe. CPA…um, no.

  Table five was wedged in the corner, to the extreme right of the stage, which was why no one usually wanted to sit there. But instinct told Harper this guy had refused to sit anywhere else. This was one of those never-let-anyone-sneak-up-behind-you types, maybe with a military or law enforcement background. Paranoid and probably with good reason.

  Everything about him screamed tall, dark, and brooding. From the black hair long overdue for a trim to the black-on-black wardrobe, complete with biker boots and a Highlander-like leather trench, this guy was either a true rebel without a cause, or the best imitation of one she’d ever seen.

  And he was drunk off his ass. Not the kind of happy, silly drunk the CPAs at table ten had going. No, Harper could tell by the way he was ignoring the half-naked dancer on stage that he was drowning his sorrows.

  Ignoring Misty Mountains wasn’t easy, either. Her brand new double D’s were mesmerizing, and the nipples kind of followed you wherever you went like the eyes on the creepy Jesus picture in her mom’s living room.

  As Harper watched, he polished off a bottle of Glenlivet and set it beside two other empties. She sig
hed. He’d probably pass out before he remembered to tip her. God damn drunks would be the death of her.

  Harper squared her shoulders and walked up to the table, then knelt beside him so he could hear her over the bassline of Bon Jovi’s Lay Your Hands On Me.

  “Can I get you anything else, sir? Like coffee?” Hint, hint.

  He didn’t even glance at her as he slid the empty bottles to the edge of the table and said, “Another bottle.”

  His voice sent a shiver down her spine. It was gravelly, raspy, almost like he’d growled the words instead of speaking them. Sexy.

  But sexy voice or not, she wasn’t about to serve him another bottle. He was probably a few inches over six feet and maybe a little over two-hundred pounds, but no one—not even a manly man like this one—could down four bottles of eighteen-year-old Glenlivet and blow a Breathalyzer that wouldn’t get him immediately arrested.

  “I think you’ve probably had enough for tonight.”

  He slowly glanced over at her as if he hadn’t really noticed her presence until just then. When her eyes locked with his, she completely forgot what they’d been talking about. Hell, who was she kidding? She forgot how to breathe.

  This had to be the most gorgeous potential serial killer she’d ever seen.

  He had a dark olive complexion most women would kill for, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, and eyes that were either black or the deepest blue she’d ever seen—it was too dark in the club to tell for sure.

  His perfectly arched black brows—and they had to be naturally perfect, because she was pretty sure this guy wouldn’t be caught dead waxing—raised sardonically as his gaze moved over her.

  Harper fought the urge to suck in her stomach and desperately wished her uniform was a size eight instead of a four. She had dignity in a size eight. Class, even. In a four…not so much.

  He lowered his gaze to her chest, and then slowly lifted it back to her eyes. “I doubt they’re paying you to think, sunshine.” Sliding the empty bottles even closer to her, he repeated, “Another bottle.”

  He’d said it very slowly, deliberately, in a manner most people reserved for slow-witted children and foreigners. The only part of her that wasn’t at all impressed with the guy’s fallen-angel face—which just happened to be her Sicilian temper—kicked in at that point.

  Harper straightened and snagged the bottles off the table, preparing to verbally flay him, but just when she’d figured out exactly how many four-letter words she could hurl at him in one sentence, a premonition hit her hard.

  People often asked her what premonitions felt like. Imagine someone punching a hole through your forehead and making a fist around your brain, she always told them. This premonition was no different.

  Harper staggered forward and planted one palm on the table to steady herself as images assailed her: a young, blonde woman in an alley pinned to a dumpster by a man twice her size.

  A vampire, she knew instinctively. Cold chills always shot down her spine when she saw them.

  Harper sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to concentrate on details other than the victim, just like Sentry taught her so many years ago. Instead, she tried to picture the dumpster, the buildings around it, street signs…anything that might tell her where this girl was so she could call the police and get her some help.

  And then she saw a logo printed on the side of the dumpster as big as life. Kitty Kat Palace.

  Holy shit, the vamp and his victim were here.

  Like it so far? You can read the rest right here

  You Complicate Me

  The road to happily ever after has never been more hilarious...or complicated...

  Chapter 1

  In retrospect, the Valium probably would’ve been enough to soothe Grace Montgomery’s nerves on the flight from Los Angeles to Indianapolis. The wine was most likely overkill.

  As was the tequila.

  It had all started innocently enough. “Take one pill an hour before the flight,” her doctor had told her, “and one an hour into the flight. You’ll be completely relaxed. Valium is magic, I swear.”

  “The kind of magic that keeps planes from falling from the sky in a ball of fiery death?” Grace had asked.

  Her doctor’s answering smirk should’ve been a warning. “The kind of magic that makes you not care on the way down.”

  And she hadn’t. Cared, that is. The magic Valium had done its job.

  Until take-off, at least.

  As soon as the plane started rolling down the runway, as soon as she felt the rumbling of the engine in her belly, she started panicking. The man sitting next to her in seat C2, no doubt having noticed the white-knuckled grip she had on their adjoining armrest, had suggested a glass of wine, which she’d requested from the flight attendant as soon as she’d been allowed. But even though she gulped it down in two swallows, the wine was absolutely no match for her anxiety, because she soon started hyperventilating.

  C2 had pressed an air-sickness bag into one of her hands, and a mini bottle of tequila into the other. After breathing deeply into the bag for a few moments, she’d unscrewed the tequila and downed it, too. One swallow that time.

  Grace was nothing if not a quick learner.

  It was then she’d made what she thought was a tragic error. She’d asked for a second bottle of tequila, which she used to wash down her second Valium. The calm that had quickly washed over her was amazing. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so relaxed.

  And warm. She was suddenly really, really, warm. So it only made sense that she’d strip off her sweater, right?

  Sadly, while she was shedding layers, she elbowed the guy next to her in the eye.

  “Jesus Christ,” he’d muttered, holding a hand over one eye.

  That was when she got her first good look at C2.

  Maybe it was the Valium, or maybe it was the alcohol, but holy hell, he was beautiful.

  His inky hair was long overdue for a trim and fell in messy disarray—the kind of messy disarray that hot men achieved naturally and women paid big bucks to a salon to fake—to just above the collar of his white button-down shirt. With his knife-edged cheekbones, strong jaw, and olive complexion, he looked like he could be Hugh Jackman’s younger brother.

  Grace had watched Wolverine four times, and not because the storyline was stellar (or even remotely plausible, really). Her mouth immediately went dry. Other parts of her…not so much.

  “I’m r-really sorry,” she whispered.

  He lowered his hand and she winced at the elbow-sized welt forming under his eye. “Are you always like this on a plane?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Fucking crazy?”

  She frowned at him. “I’m a nervous flyer, okay? Lots of people are nervous flyers.”

  He shook his head and ran his hand through that amazing hair of his. “This isn’t nervous. I’ve seen nervous. You’re a train wreck, lady.”

  He wasn’t lying. Didn’t make his comment any less insulting. “I’m sorry if my fear of falling from the sky and plummeting to a fiery death is inconveniencing you in any way.”

  One black brow winged upward. “Fear all you want. I couldn’t care less. But when you try to blind me with your fucking elbow while you strip down to your underwear…well, that’s when I start to care.”

  Grace glanced down at her white layering tank top. It wasn’t see-through. Minimal cleavage was on display. Perfectly respectable. “I said I was sorry about elbowing you, okay? And I’m not in my underwear.”

  His gaze dipped down. “I can tell that you’re cold.” He smirked as his eyes met hers again. “Or turned on.”

  She so wasn’t cold.

  “I’m cold,” she said dryly. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  His smirk morphed into a full-fledged grin, and Grace fought the urge to fan herself. Jesus, the grin was nothing short of panty-dropping. A smile like that should be illegal. All those straight white teeth and the dimple that carved into his chee
k…it was gratuitous, really.

  And his eyes? An amazing oceanic mix of blue and pale green. Men shouldn’t be allowed to have eyes that pretty.

  “Let’s start over,” he said. He held out his hand. “I’m Nick. Nick O’Connor.”

  She was so busy staring at his eyes—and being envious of his thick, dark eyelashes, if she was being honest with herself— that it took her a moment to realize he was speaking to her. She took his hand. “Grace. Grace Montgomery.”

  Something akin to recognition lit his eyes for a moment, making her wonder if he knew her. Had they met before? But she immediately dismissed the thought. If she’d met this guy before, she’d remember it.

  His hand was warm and callused, and dwarfed hers. Her gaze traveled from his hand up his thick forearm, exposed by the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. His biceps strained the fabric of that shirt, as well. If the arms were any indication, a muscly chest and flat stomach were a foregone conclusion.

  She considered then that her judgment might be impaired. No one was this good-looking. Or else Nick O’Connor was genetically blessed in a way that was totally unfair to all other men.

  Tequila goggles. She was wearing a set of tequila goggles. There was no other explanation.

  He cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to his face. He let go of her hand and she fought the urge to grab his again. She knew she was an embarrassment to feminists everywhere, but there was something insanely comforting about having a big, strong guy holding her hand. If she’d grabbed him early on, maybe she wouldn’t have needed the Valium. Or wine. Or tequila.

  “So, Grace,” he said, “have you always been a nervous flyer?”

  She laid her head back against the seat, suddenly feeling a little off balance. “Yeah. I don’t like being closed in. Or depending on people I don’t know to fly the plane. And land the plane.”