An Innocent Abroad: A Jazz Age Romance (14 page)
Read An Innocent Abroad: A Jazz Age Romance Online
Authors: Romy Sommer
Prohibited Passion
is available from
all Amazon Kindle stores
.
Read on for an opening sample of
Waking
up in Vegas
, the first in Romy Sommer’s contemporary fairy tale Westerwald
series.
Waking
up in Vegas
I wish I were dead.
Phoenix moaned and pulled the pillow over her head to block out the
blinding light and the clamour of rain. If only her head would just explode and
get it over with.
At least the pillow seemed softer this morning. And it smelled nicer than
normal too. A fresh citrus scent that quickened her blood.
Hang on a minute. Rain? In Vegas?
She peeked out from under the pillow.
Oh my…
Not her room.
This room was at least twice the size of her entire motel apartment, and
way better furnished. Correction: this wasn’t just a room; it was a palatial
hotel suite. Through the double doors she spied a living room.
She sank back on the pillows, which seemed to be dusted in gold glitter.
Perhaps she’d already died and this was heaven. Though she highly doubted
heaven would want Phoenix Montgomery. Not that she’d been a particularly bad
girl, but she’d never made much effort to be particularly good either.
And she’d certainly seen and done a few things a more conventional person
might quail at. This being one of them.
She covered her eyes. Blocking the sunlight streaming in through tall
windows at least helped the ache in her head.
Sunlight? Then that wasn’t rain…
Instantly awake, she turned her head and identified the source of the
sound of running water: not rain, but a shower running.
She wasn’t alone.
Terror clutching her heart, she lifted the crisply starched sheet.
Oh
hell…
Beneath the sheet, she was stark naked, aside from yet more gold glitter.
And not alone, in a room she didn’t recognize.
What the hell had happened last night?
Through the aching blur, she fumbled for memories. She and Khara had got
off work not long before dawn, and they’d gone out for a drink as they often
did at the end of a shift. They’d chosen a pool hall away from The Strip, the
kind of place that wasn’t in any tourist brochure. With the sedatives the
doctor had prescribed to help her sleep, Phoenix hadn’t had that much to drink.
Besides, she could handle alcohol. Unless...
There was only one thing that could get her drunk.
She closed her eyes, grasping for the memories. They’d danced to music
from an old-fashioned juke box and played a couple of games of pool. She’d even
won a little money off a guy with tattooed arms who couldn’t believe he’d been
bested by a girl.
And then there’d been a man who bought her a drink…
The bathroom door opened. Phoenix sucked in a breath and opened her eyes.
Yeah, that man.
God, but he was drool worthy. Especially wearing nothing but a fluffy
white towel wrapped around his hips. He definitely worked out. Until now she’d
believed six packs like that were the results of air brushing in magazine spreads.
This set of abs was one hundred per cent real.
She forced her gaze higher, over the tanned chest, broad shoulders, up to
meet a pair of startling blue eyes in a face framed by overlong fair hair.
“You’re awake. Good. I’ve ordered breakfast.”
She was so not hanging around for breakfast. She cleared her throat.
“Where are my clothes?”
He pointed toward the living room. Clothes lay strewn across the floor
and, yep, there it was, the only thing that could get her truly and
embarrassingly drunk… a bottle of champagne, empty and lying on its side on the
floor.
“How are you feeling?” The demi-god’s voice matched his face; deep,
masculine, with a hint of amusement and a faint Germanic trace.
He perched on the edge of the bed. He smelled as good as he looked, clean
and slightly lemony. Just like the pillow. Her blood all rushed south again.
She could only imagine how much fun he’d been up close and personal. Pity
she had absolutely no memory of it.
“Did we really…?” She waved a hand at the bed, and her naked body beneath
the sheet that she now held clutched to her breasts.
And her heart stopped.
Was that a ring on her finger? On her left hand?
She clutched her head in her hands and groaned. “Please tell me we
didn’t…”
Waking up in Vegas
is available from Amazon in
paperback
and as a
Kindle eBook
.
I owe a
massive debt of gratitude to Rosa Bella of the Bellaventura blog for her
invaluable input on the history of the Positano area. Any errors or omissions
are mine, and are no reflection on her!
http://bellaventura.blogspot.com
I’ve
always written stories for myself, but didn’t even consider becoming an author
until I realized that being over thirty and living in a fantasy world was a
little odd. Writing those same stories for other people makes it a lot more
socially acceptable!
I live
in Johannesburg, the City of Gold, in sunny South Africa. By day I dress in
cargo pants for my not-so-glamorous job of making TV adverts, but at night I
come home to my two little Princesses and write Happy Ever Afters. Since I believe
every girl is a princess, and every princess deserves a happy ending, what
could be more perfect?
1920s
Novellas:
Dear
Julia
An
Innocent Abroad
Prohibited
Passion
Let’s
Misbehave
Contemporary
Romances:
Waking
up in Vegas
The
Trouble with Mojitos
To Catch
a Star
Not a
Fairy Tale
View
Romy’s pages on
Amazon
and
Amazon UK
.
I love to talk to readers. You can find me on Twitter
as
@Romy_S
and on
Facebook here
. Sign up for
my newsletter
for special offers and updates on new releases.
An Innocent Abroad
1
st
Edition © 2012 by Romy Sommer (published by The Wild Rose
Press)
2
nd
Edition © 2015 by Romy Sommer
Cover Art by Sally Clements
All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any form
other than that in which it was purchased and without the written permission of
the author, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or
reviews.
This ebook may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share
this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own
copy. Thank you for respecting the work of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events,
or locales, is entirely coincidental.
