Ripped
“Wardrobe malfunction” doesn’t begin to cover it.
With a rip louder than the “I dos,” Hayley’s hideous bile-yellow bridesmaid dress explodes. She’s always had enviable curves, but nearly naked wasn’t
quite
the look she’d been going for at her ex’s wedding.
She’s rushed from the altar under the best man’s designer tux jacket. Hayley’s expecting a blast of icy disapproval from sexy, sophisticated Niccolò Rossi—his usual reaction to anything she does. What she gets is a kiss that nearly melts what’s left of her polyester nightmare gown.
It’s impossible on a million levels. Exuberant engineer Hayley and buttoned-up lawyer Nico have never seen eye to eye—but skin to skin?
Oh, mio
…. So when Nico shows up at her flat on Christmas Day to give her a fabulous gift—himself—Hayley’s delighted to do the unwrapping. But it’s just a holiday fling. By New Year’s Day, she’ll come back to her senses…unless Nico’s sensual skills tear away
all
her resolve.
Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women.
Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon
www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo
To Katie, with love. Have fun and be fearless. xxxx
Dear Reader,
I love writing about strong, independent women and I’ve always been a lover of
Cosmopolitan
, so when I was asked to write a Red-Hot Read from Mills & Boon story I knew I was going to enjoy myself.
The heroine of
Ripped
, Hayley, is a real
Cosmo
girl. She’s fun, fearless, independent and busy living life to the fullest. She shares an apartment with her sister Rosie, has a job she loves, a great circle of friends—but her love life is a total disaster. And it’s about to get worse. Rescued from the most embarrassing moment of her life by smoking-hot Italian Nico Rossi, she decides to give up on love and settle for sex. But dark, dangerous Nico has his own ideas about what he wants from Hayley…
I hope you have as much fun reading this story as I had writing it. Look out for Rosie’s sister’s story coming June 2014.
Find out more about my books on my website
www.sarahmorgan.com
, and chat with me on Facebook about books, shoes, life and all things fun and fabulous.
Sarah
xxx
Ripped
Sarah Morgan
Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women.
Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon
www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BESTSELLING author Sarah Morgan writes hot, happy contemporary romance and her trademark humour and sensuality have gained her fans across the globe.
Sarah lives near London with her husband and children, and when she isn’t reading or writing she loves being outdoors, preferably on vacation so she can forget the house needs tidying. You can visit Sarah online at
www.sarahmorgan.com
, on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahMorgan
and on Twitter
@SarahMorgan_
.
Other books by Sarah Morgan
M&B
SLEIGH BELLS IN THE SNOW*
The O’Neil Brothers trilogy
Mills & Boon Modern
LOST TO THE DESERT WARRIOR
These and other titles by Sarah Morgan are available from
www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo
Contents
Chapter One
‘Dearly beloved,’ the priest droned, ‘we are gathered here today to witness—’
A mistake of massive proportions
, I thought gloomily, holding my breath and sitting up straight in a bid to stop my bridesmaid dress splitting at the seams. Any moment now I was going to burst out of this pukey-yellow tube and the wedding would forever be remembered as the one where the bridesmaid exposed herself. Not that I was prudish. Far from it. I’d danced on plenty of tables in my time, but on an ideal day I’d prefer not to find myself revealing
all
Victoria’s secrets to Great-Uncle Henry.
Some girls went through their lives dreaming of being a bridesmaid. You heard people talking about it as if it were a life goal. I had a list of life goals. I wanted to build a robot, visit Peru (I’ve always had a thing about llamas), work for NASA.
Bridesmaid?
That was nowhere on my list.
My parents married when they were both twenty-one. They stood at the front of a church much like this one wearing ridiculous clothes they wouldn’t normally be seen dead in, made all the usual promises—have and hold, death us do part, blah, blah—and then divorced when I was eight. Which taught me one thing—that a wedding is just a party by another name.
Because my neck was the only part of me that could move without straining a seam, I turned my head and glanced sideways. Through a forest of fascinators and absurd hats that made me think of UFOs, I could see the door that led to a pretty private churchyard, now covered in a light dusting of snow. I was glad it was pretty because I was sure I was going to be there soon.
Here lies Hayley
,
who exploded out of her dress at the most inconvenient moment of her short, very unsatisfactory life and promptly died of shame
.
The tiny church was crammed with people and stuffed full of extravagant flower displays, the cloying scent of lilies thickening the air and mingling unpleasantly with the smell of perfume from the elderly aunts. My nose tickled and my head started to throb.
The priest was still droning on in a hypnotic voice that could have been recorded and sold for millions as a cure for insomnia. ‘If anyone knows any reason why these two may not be joined, speak now….’
Any reason?
Was he kidding?
I could have given him at least ten reasons without even revving up a brain cell.
Number one—the groom was a total bastard.
Number two—he’d slept with the bride’s sister and at least two of the bride’s friends.
Number three—it was three days until Christmas and who the hell was dumb enough to get married when they should have been rushing round buying last-minute presents?
Number four—it was far too cold to be wearing a strapless dress and at this rate I was going to be eating my Christmas dinner in hospital with a nasty bout of pneumonia.
Number five—
‘Hayley, are you OK?’ My sister Rosie nudged me in the ribs, increasing the strain on my dress.
Of course I wasn’t OK. We both knew I wasn’t fucking OK. That was why she’d agreed to come with me, but this was hardly the moment for sisterly bonding over margaritas. To be honest, if she’d passed me a margarita I wouldn’t have known whether to drink it or drown myself in it.
I was good at statistics and I could tell you right now there was a 99 percent chance this wedding was going to end in tears. Probably mine.
‘You should have said no when she asked you to be her bridesmaid,’ Rosie hissed. ‘It was a mean thing to do when everyone knows you used to date him.’
And there it was. Right there. Reason number five why the bride and groom shouldn’t get married. Because he’d once said he wanted to marry me.
I’d told him no. I didn’t want to get married. Ever. I’d never had ambitions to be a bridesmaid and I had even fewer to be a bride. I assumed if he loved me, it wouldn’t make a difference. I mean, what was the big deal about a wedding ceremony? It wasn’t as if it stopped people breaking up. All that mattered was being together, wasn’t it?
Apparently not.
Turned out Charles was very traditional. He was climbing the ladder in an investment bank in the city and needed a wife prepared to devote herself to the advancement of his career. I’ve always been crap on ladders. I tried explaining I was as excited about my own career as he was about his and his response had been to dump me. In a very public way, I might add, just so that no one was under any illusions as to who had done the dumping.
Admittedly it hurt to be dumped, but nowhere near as much as it hurt to admit I’d wasted ten months on a guy who wasn’t remotely interested in the real me.
I realized everyone in the church was looking at me accusingly, as if I’d come here on purpose to make things awkward. To somehow punish him for not choosing me.
Look again
, I wanted to yell,
and see which one of us is being punished
.
What girl in her right mind would choose to turn up at her ex’s wedding dressed in the fashion equivalent of a giant condom?
Was it my fault the bride wanted to make a public declaration about which one of us the groom was marrying? And I knew I wasn’t exactly guilt-free in all this. I could have said no. But then everyone would have thought I was moping and broken-hearted and I had my pride.
That was the first thing Mum taught us—never let a man know you’re broken-hearted. Which might be why our dad didn’t stick around for long, but more on that later.
I could feel myself turn pink, which I knew had to look horrible against the pukey yellow. I think the fabric was officially described as ‘misty dawn’ but if I saw a dawn like that I wouldn’t put a foot out of bed.
Worst of all?
He
was looking at me. No, not Charlie—he hadn’t once glanced in my direction, the coward. The best man. Charlie’s friend from school, although they’d grown apart in recent years and the friend was now a super successful lawyer. To be honest I was a bit surprised he’d agreed to be best man, but Charlie had lost a lot of friends since he’d taken a job in the city and started only hanging out with people who were ‘useful’ to him.
The best man’s name was Niccolò Rossi and he was half Italian. And hot. Seriously hot. In the looks department this man had been gifted by the gods.
Unfortunately immediately after the gods had dished out super clever brain, dark good looks and an incredible body, they obviously decided too much of a good thing was a bad thing and withheld humour. Which was a shame because Nico had an amazing mouth. A perfect sensual curve that would probably look good in a smile. Only he never used it to smile. Never. And he wasn’t using it now as he looked at me. He clearly wasn’t amused to see me sitting there. I wasn’t amused either. It was probably the first time we’d felt the same way about anything. He lived in London. We’d met the same night I met Charlie and although we were always bumping into each other on the social circuit, we’d barely spoken. I knew he wasn’t my type. He disapproved of me and I was done with men who disapproved of me. Charlie hated the fact I was an engineer. He always wanted me to wear frilly dresses to compensate. No wonder we came unstuck.
Nico cast me an icy glance at the same moment I looked at him.
Bad timing.
Our eyes clashed. His were a dark, dangerous black and everything inside me turned to liquid.
