The Fixed Trilogy: Fixed on You, Found in You, Forever With You (86 page)

The Sky Launch?
I wrack my brain trying to place the name. “The night club?”

“Yep.”

She can’t possibly be planning to work at a night club after her graduation. She has to have another offer. “Can you tell if anyone else has pulled her information recently?” If she’s got a job waiting, they’ll have checked into her.

I hear muffled movement as if Jordan’s cradling the phone on his shoulder while he looks for the answer. “The system says there was one other pull of her credit history. Yesterday.”

“Dammit.” I wonder which of my competitors was lucky enough to earn her
yes
. “Find out who ordered that.” Then I’ll prepare my counter proposition.

“On it.”

“And call me the minute anything new comes in.”

“Yes, Mr. Pierce.”

I’ve just hung up when Patricia calls me again. I pick up the receiver to answer when my office door is flung open and Celia parades in.

“I’m sorry, sir,” my secretary says in my ear. “I was calling to announce her and she just walked in.”

“It’s okay. I’ll take care of her.” I hang up, cursing under my breath. Celia’s the last person I’m in the mood for, but Patricia isn’t any sort of bouncer.

Celia slinks in and half-sits on the far corner of my desk. “You’ll take care of me, will you?”

I ignore her suggestive tone. “Two days in one week, Celia. To what do I owe the
pleasure
?” I put enough bitterness in my final word that she can’t mistake that there is anything pleasant about her visit at all.

Immediately I feel a pang of guilt. It’s not Celia’s fault that I no longer want to be around her, rather it’s my fault. All of it, my fault.

She doesn’t let my tone ruffle her. “Oh, come on, Hudsy. Don’t be that way. I’m not the enemy.”

No, she’s not. I’m the enemy. She’ll never see it, though, so it’s my job to keep the distance. “Why are you here?”

There’s a gleam in her eye when she smiles. “I have something that I know is going to interest you.”

“Oh?” I sound bored, and I am.

“I’m serious. You’re going to want in on this.”

In on this?
She can only be proposing a game. “Celia, I’ve told you, I don’t play anymore.” I shift my focus toward my computer screen, pretending to go back to whatever I was doing before she arrived.

She doesn’t get that I’m dismissing her—or doesn’t care. “You’ve told me, you’ve told me. Now I’m telling you, you’ll want in on this.”

I should kick her out now, pour out the bottle before I’ve even taken a sip, so to say, but I can’t help myself. Even with my attention turned, my pulse has quickened and the moisture in my mouth has increased. Her eagerness is contagious. And I’m curious. Too curious.

I can’t let her know. “I won’t want in on anything. But since you’re here,” I casually turn back to face her, “what is it you’re planning?”

Her grin kicks up a notch. “Look at you. You’re dying to know. Your eyes blazed the minute you realized what I was offering.”

I don’t try to deny it—I
am
interested and even with schooled features, she can see it. I hate how well I’ve taught her to read people. I hate when she uses her knowledge to read
me
.

It pisses me off enough that I almost send her packing.

But curiosity wins out. She hasn’t tempted me with her games in quite some time. Why now?

“Out with it, Ceeley.” I cringe inwardly at the slip of her childhood nickname. She’ll think I mean something by it that I don’t. It’s why I hate nicknames so much.

She stands and starts rummaging through her bag. “It’s a basic scenario—make the girl fall for you and then deny her, watching her fall to pieces.”

It had been our old favorite. No matter how many times we’d performed the experiment, it never failed to interest me. It was a marvelous study in the emotion called love, but somehow it never gave me any of the answers I was seeking.

I pretend the idea doesn’t pique me in the slightest. “How original. What about that did you think would interest me?”

She smiles with confidence. “The girl.”

I raise a questioning brow, but instead of answering me verbally, she retrieves a file folder from her bag and sets it on the desk in front of me. Then she waits for me to study it.

With a reluctant breath, I flip the cover open and move my eyes from Celia to the top sheet inside the file. Deep brown eyes and a warm smile meet me.

Celia’s right—it is the girl that interests me. And I know before she says anything more that I will hear her out to the end. Because if Celia has the answer to getting closer to Alayna Withers, I am in.

All the way.

End of this sample. You can preorder HUDSON at
Amazon
or
iTunes
. Available on Barnes and Noble and Kobo on release, 7/8/14.

Gwen Anders left her job as a top manager at Eighty-Eighth Floor to come work at The Sky Launch. She left suddenly and without warning. She hasn’t told any of her new coworkers anything about her past or why she left.

Gwen Anders has a story of her own.

FREE ME

COMING SOON

Lights, Camera…

TAKE TWO

Available now at
Amazon
,
Barnes & Noble
, and
iTunes

On the night of her graduation from film school, straight-laced Maddie Bauers fell completely out of character for an oh-my-god make-out session with a perfect stranger. Complete with the big O.

Seven years later, that romantic interlude is still fresh in her mind. That stranger is now a rich and famous actor. And she’s one very distracted camera assistant working on his latest production. She might consider another tryst…if he even remembers her.

Micah Preston does indeed remember Maddie. Too bad he’s sworn off Hollywood relationships. He allows himself as much sex as he likes—and oh, he does like—but anything more is asking for trouble. For the woman, not for him. Yet knowing Maddie could want more than a movie-set fling doesn’t stop him from pursuing her like a moth drawn to hot stage lights.

But as the shoot nears its end, it’s decision time. Is it time to call, “Cut!” on their affair, or is there enough material for a sequel?

Onto every diva’s backside, a little wood must fall.

Lights, Camera…

STAR STRUCK

Available for preorder at
Amazon
,
Barnes & Noble
, and
iTunes

Hollywood actress Heather Wainwright was looking forward to a long, relaxing break before starting her next shoot. Except her assistant volunteered her for L.A.’s annual 24 Hour Plays.

Nervous about doing a good job for such a worthy charity, Heather falls back on “diva” mode, a defense mechanism that always carries her through. Until she encounters something that really gets on her nerves—a lowly carpenter whose Norse god eyes pierce right through her.

Highly sought-after production designer Seth Rafferty has little patience for A-listers with superior attitudes, which is why his attraction to Heather is absurd. Yet, sensing vulnerability beneath her screen-queen act, he lets her assumptions play out.

After the wrap party, Heather awakens with little memory of the night before—except that Seth gave her the best orgasm of her life, then disappeared. When he shows up on the set of her next movie, she winds up to give him a piece of her mind…and Seth shows her just how stinging hot “chemistry” can get.

Warning: Contains an outwardly snobby actress with a good heart, a delicious carpenter with a power drill, some much-deserved spanking, and an appropriately consensual—if tipsy—orgasm, as well as sex at an inappropriate time of the month.

THE AUTHOR

Laurelin Paige is the USA Today Bestselling author of the
Fixed on You
trilogy. She’s a sucker for a good romance and gets giddy anytime there’s kissing, much to the embarrassment of her three daughters. Her husband doesn’t seem to complain, however. When she isn’t reading or writing sexy stories, she’s probably singing, watching Game of Thrones and the Walking Dead, or dreaming of Adam Levine. She is represented by Bob Diforio of D4EO Literary Agency.