Can't Let Go (8 page)

“One o’clock,” she heard herself say.

Shane extended his hand and she shook it. He excused himself and made his way to the door and Crickitt watched his every long-legged step. Once he’d gone, she studied the card. The top read, “August Industries, Leader in Business Strategies.” No name on the card, just an address and a phone number. She flipped it over. Blank.

Sadie returned as Crickitt hopped off her barstool.

“Where’re you going?” Sadie asked with a breathless smile. Shane’s cousin stood at Sadie’s side, a matching grin on his tanned face. Crickitt regarded his surfer-dude style skeptically. Cute. A departure from Sadie’s usual type, but cute.

“What’s with the card? Did you get a date?” Sadie asked.

“Better,” Crickitt said, snapping up her purse. “A job.”

Shane slowed his steps from run to walk before killing the power on his treadmill. He swiped a towel over his sweat-covered face and neck, replaying the chance run-in with Crickitt at Club Lace tonight. Since he’d returned home, he hadn’t been able to think about much else.

He faced the floor-to-ceiling mirrors while catching his breath and almost didn’t recognize the guy smiling back at him. When was the last time he’d caught himself grinning about anything? He sank onto the weight bench and started unlacing his shoes, wondering at his newfound exhilaration. True, he’d been searching for an assistant, and had subsequently been drowning in paperwork for the last month. Finding Myrna’s replacement would take a load off of his mind as well as his sagging in-box.

Then he thought of Crickitt’s startled expression from earlier and felt the smile spread across his face again. Watching her go from crying to confident had been the best reward of all.

The moment reminded him of landing a new account at work. His clients were entrepreneurs who often came to him fraught with worry. Staffing, selling, accounting, and every moving part of the business was overwhelming when it rested on one person’s shoulders.

Handling the mundane but necessary details that kept businesses humming along without sending their owners in search of a razor blade was what Shane did best. He thought he’d caught a glimpse of that same kind of relief on Crickitt’s face tonight.

Shane stood up and headed for the shower, grateful tomorrow was Sunday. Maybe he’d reward himself by sleeping in for a change. He flipped on the bathroom light, stopping short of going in when he caught sight of his mother’s picture hanging in the hallway.

She smiled back at him, her gold-brown eyes open and inviting. In the photo she’d been the age Shane was now. She’d die later that year, just shy of his fourteenth birthday. The faded image showed her pressing a pie crust into a pan, her red-and-white apron covered in flour. Seeing it made him wish his father hadn’t thrown away everything of hers after she’d passed away.

That sobering thought swept away whatever was left of his buoyant mood. His legs felt suddenly tired, his heart heavy, as he spun the knobs on the large stone-walled shower.

He stepped beneath the spray considering the very real possibility Crickitt hadn’t been grateful for his butting in. She could have been lying about her work experience, or about her intentions of showing up tomorrow. And while he’d like to think her tears were genuine, she could have played up the damsel in distress routine for attention.

As the steaming water pounded against his taut neck muscles, he thought of how being prepared for the worst was wiser than being blindsided.

That was one lesson from his childhood he didn’t have to be taught twice.

Photographer Lili DeLuca spends all her time managing her family’s Italian restaurant, instead of following her dream of getting an MFA. When famous British chef Jack Kilroy unexpectedly challenges her father to a cook-off, Lili decides she’s tired of playing it safe and vows to seduce the tempting Brit. But once a video of her and Jack kissing goes viral and her luscious butt starts trending on Twitter, Lili fears she’s cooked up a recipe for disaster…

Jack Kilroy’s celebrity has left him feeling used and used up. While Lili’s oh-so-sexy moans when she tastes his delicious creations turn him on, he’s even more aroused by how unimpressed this beautiful, funny woman is with his fame. He knows they could be amazing together, if she could only see past his bitch fork-wielding fan base. Now, as he’s about to start a new prime-time TV cooking show, can Jack convince Lili to realize her own ambitions—and turn up the heat in his kitchen?

Avery Price is taking her life back. Fleeing her überrich, overbearing family, and an arranged wedding to a wealthy, cheating fiancé, she trades couture for country and makes her way to Trouble, Wyoming. Going incognito gives her the chance to try things the old Avery wouldn’t dare, like having a sizzling, no-strings affair with her sexy new boss, Noah McDermott—and discovering he's the kind of mistake she can’t resist.

Noah didn’t become a successful business owner by letting people get the best of him. He knows Avery is running from something, and if getting the beautiful blonde into his bed is the only way to find the truth, well, he has no problem with that. Trouble is, Avery is everything he never expected: sassy, smart, and the kind of understanding woman cowboys like him don’t deserve. Can he put his pride aside and convince this city girl to settle down with him once and for all?

The Love in the Balance series

Hard to Handle

Tempting the Billionaire

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Title Page
Welcome
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
About the Author
A Preview of
Hard to Handle
A Preview of
Tempting the Billionaire
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