Steel Toes & Stilettos (Sweet & Rugged in Montana Book 2)

by Maggie Dallen

  Stepping out of the dark, dingy police station and into the glaring morning sun that was pounding down on the Lower East Side, she took a quick look at the pictures she’d taken.

  Oh man, he looked bad. Really bad. His classically handsome face was marred by a nasty bruise, a five o’clock shadow, and some seriously dark circles under his eyes. His dark hair was matted and sticking out in all different directions. But the best part was the look of horror she’d captured the moment his eyes had focused on her. She shouldn’t find that so satisfying, but….she did. Call her petty but being able to witness Mr. Perfect’s humbling morning-after firsthand made her day.

  A laugh escaped her, startling the couple that passed by with their morning coffee. She fell into step behind them, heading back toward the subway. She should head straight to her home office in Brooklyn but her stepsister was probably already at their breakfast spot waiting for her. And the idea of filling Jenna in on this latest bit of gossip was too tempting to resist.

  As expected, Jenna was already there and waiting, sitting at an outdoor table on the cobblestoned street in the Meatpacking District, taking in the summer sun. Tall, with flawless fair skin and a perfectly coifed black-haired bob, her step-sister was pretty much the walking embodiment of everything Mackenzie was not. That used to be an issue, when they were teenagers rudely thrust into one another’s lives thanks to their parents’ whirlwind romance. But fortunately for all involved the marriage was nearly as short-lived as the courtship, and in the aftermath, when their parents’ relationship had turned caustic and toxic, the two girls, then in college, had found an odd sort of friendship—the kind that could only come from surviving a warzone together.

  Mackenzie fell into the seat opposite Jenna and whipped out her phone. “You’re never going to believe who I got photos of leaving the police station.”

  Jenna groaned and picked up the menu in front of her. “No business over breakfast, Mack. You know the rule.”

  “This isn’t business, this is news—”

  “News is your business,” Jenna reminded her, only half paying attention as she perused the menu.

  “Not news-news,” she said, powering on her camera. “This is more like gossip. East Harbor gossip.”

  Jenna’s head shot up at the mention of the boarding school they’d been shipped off to their junior and senior year—Jenna willingly, Mackenzie? Not so much.

  “Don’t tell me one of our friends is in trouble,” Jenna said with a mix of dread with a dash of eagerness—that particular blend of curiosity that kept tabloids in business.

  “One of your friends. I didn’t have any friends, remember?”

  Jenna’s answer was automatic. “And whose fault was that?”

  Mackenzie clamped her mouth shut. High school was an ancient memory, there was no need to revisit that hellish period of existence. Unless, of course, it was to gawk at the school’s answer to Prince William.

  She turned the camera over to Jenna with a flourish and watched with glee as her stepsister’s eyes widened in recognition. “Oh. My. God. Is that Jacob Hartley?”

  Mackenzie nodded. “The one and only. Your favorite luv-ah,” she drawled.

  Jenna gave a snort of annoyed amusement. “He was not my lover.”

  “But you did have a crush on him.” Mackenzie’s tone had taken on the sing-song tone of a child taunting her sibling. Which was exactly what she was doing.

  “Did not,” Jenna shot back, sounding equally juvenile.

  “You totally did.”

  “Everybody had a crush on Jacob Hartley.”

  Mackenzie leaned forward. “I didn’t.”

  Jenna looked up with her brows arched knowingly. “Everybody normal.”

  Mackenzie shrugged. Fair enough.

  Jenna glanced back down at the image on the camera. “I’d heard he’d gotten his act together. Tabby said he’d really matured last time she saw him.”

  Mackenzie cared about Tabby Bradshaw’s opinion about as much as she cared about the latest episode of The Real Housewives. Which was to say, not at all. But the name still made her cringe. “You still talk to that crowd?” Her nose scrunched up in disgust before she remembered her vow that they would not go there today. Those people no longer had any influence over her life. Sure, Jenna had been in with that group in high school, but even she had outgrown her clicky, arrogant high school friends once she went off to Brown for college.

  Jenna lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I keep in touch with some of them.” She leaned in to study the picture even closer. “I haven’t seen Jacob in ages though. Last I heard he’d gone to work for his father—”

  “Ugh,” Mackenzie let out a rather loud groan of disgust that had the table next to them looking over in surprise. She ignored them.

  One side of Jenna’s mouth curled up in amusement. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The waitress came over and took their order but when she walked away, Mackenzie picked up where they left off. “I’m just saying, of course he went to work for his father. The entitled, spoiled son is probably being groomed to take over the empire.” She grabbed a croissant from the bread basket in the middle of the table and started tearing it apart with a little too much force. She couldn’t help it. It may have been nearly a decade, but seeing Jacob with that smug face and that perfect smile….

  Not so perfect today though.

  Some of the old bitterness faded at that thought. She took the camera back from Jenna so she could revel in the sight one more time.

  “I don’t know what’s so wrong with that,” Jenna was saying. “If my dad owned a company like his, I’d probably go work for him too.”

  Mackenzie set the camera down so she could level her stepsister with a glare. She hated it when she stood up for her old friends—always had and always would. “You could have taken a job at your father’s law practice but you didn’t.”

  Jenna shrugged again, as if striking out on her own was no big whoop—when it fact, Mackenzie knew cutting those apron strings had been one of the hardest things Jenna had ever had to do. Luckily for Mackenzie, controlling, ambitious parents had never been one of her burdens to bear—her real father hadn’t held a stable job for more than three months at a time and her mother seemed perfectly content to live off of her alimony payments.

  But for Jenna and all of her prep school friends, following in the family footsteps was no joke. Mackenzie might dislike the group as a whole—barring Jenna, of course—but she’d always felt a little pity for the pressure they faced.

  But just a little. And in the case of Jacob, at least, he’d made sure that tiny hint of empathy hadn’t stood a chance of survival.

  “So what are you going to do with it?” Jenna gestured toward the camera. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to put that up on your site.”

  Mackenzie wiggled in her seat, grateful when the waitress came over with their drinks—orange juice for Jenna and a giant Bloody Mary for Mackenzie. She prided herself on running a legitimate news site—she and her small staff had won multiple journalism awards for their exposés and hard-hitting news pieces.

  She shoved a piece of roll in her mouth. Unfortunately though, hard-hitting news wasn’t exactly the best way to get readers. During the first year of HeatMap’s creation, she’d figured out her own brand that put a unique spin on the typical news. Using pop culture, entertainment, and yes, gossip, she lured readers in. She’d been told her site was addictive, hypnotic, entertaining—which was icing on the cake as far as she was concerned. Because once they’d been drawn in, the readers tended to stick around and read the real articles. The news that wasn’t super sexy but that had meaning, depth. That was the part she was proud of.

  So no, she didn’t relish the idea of throwing up Jacob’s worse-than-a-mugshot photo. Not out of any sense of loyalty to Jacob but because it treaded on that fine line that separated her from the tabloid paparazzi that made her want to vomit.

  Jenna was watching her, waiting for
an answer.

  “I don’t know yet,” she said in all honesty. “I mean, all I know so far was that he got into a fight of some sort, and judging by the way he reeked of alcohol, I can guess it was a drunken brawl. But no one is pressing charges and I’d have to do some major digging to find out what the fight was about.”

  Jenna nodded, her lips pressed shut. Mackenzie already knew her sister’s opinion would be to take pity of her old friend, but her sister had always had a soft spot for Jacob. She, like all the other girls at East Harbor, saw him as some poor little rich boy in need of saving.

  As if. He was just another spoiled brat, raised to think he was too good for honest work. But somehow his pretty looks and charming dimples had all of the girls fooled. Even her smart-as-hell stepsister.

  Jenna didn’t voice her opinion, though, excusing herself to go to the bathroom instead.

  Mackenzie took the opportunity to do what she always did when she had a moment to herself—she scrolled through all of her rivals’ sites to see what she might be missing or get a heads up about stories that were brewing.

  It wasn’t until she hit Page Six, the gossip page for The Post, that she got that feeling. The tingly electric feeling of a newsworthy morsel. It was a little blurb—just a blip on the radar—but it set Mackenzie’s neurons firing. “Hartley Group Annual Gala This Weekend: The media mogul’s representatives are being tight-lipped about the exclusive party, well known for its celebrity attendees and exclusivity. Our sources tell us a major announcement is expected that will have industry insiders buzzing.”

  Our sources. Oh please. The Post had just as many sources inside Hartley Group as she did—zero. Jacob’s father, Martin Hartley, ran the place like a cold war nuclear facility. Mackenzie snorted as she Googled to see if anyone else had mentioned this potential announcement. Nothing. This could just be rumor, or even completely made up to add a bit of interest to the annual party.

  It was true that the annual gala was a star-studded event, but since the company kept it locked up tight, with no press allowed, the only stories to come out of it were usually after the fact and hearsay.

  But still—Hartley senior had been known to use the gala to drop huge news in the past. The man knew how to use publicity and secrecy to his advantage. The only thing news writers and readers liked more than a huge press release was a super secret reveal.

  “What do you look so serious about?” Jenna asked as she plopped back down into her seat. The waitress followed just behind her and they both waited as she set down their plates before Mackenzie answered. “Just work stuff.”

  Jenna let it drop but Mackenzie couldn’t let it go. The gala reminder and the hint of a possible announcement had her mind racing as she ate her omelet. Jenna seemed equally lost in thought and they ate in rare silence until their meal was disrupted by a ding from Jenna’s phone.

  “Sorry, it might be work,” she mumbled around a mouthful of food.

  Mackenzie watched Jenna read the text, her eyes widening with surprise before she let out a short laugh. “Holy crap, guess who just texted me?”

  Mackenzie flashed back on the look of horror on Jacob’s face when he recognized her. There was no way in hell he would just walk away and let those pictures go without a fight. “I think I can guess.”

  She held out her hand in a mute request to see the text and Jenna handed it over, eyes still sparkling with laughter. “I can’t believe he remembered your old nickname.”

  Hey, Jenna, it’s Jacob. Long time no chat. When you have a sec, could you send me Cinderella’s number? I need to talk to her.

  Cinderella. There it was in print. Of course he remembered her old, much despised nickname. He’d been the one to give it to her. Jenna had been going to East Harbor since she was a freshman and the arrival of her new, and rather unusual, stepsister had caused something of a buzz at the elite school. And when it became known that the new stepsister didn’t come from money—far from it, in fact—and that she despised her new, wealthy, popular stepsister—the nickname really wasn’t a stretch. Jacob, aka Mr. Witty, had called out, “Aw, if it isn’t poor little Cinderella” in front of half the school body in the quad.

  The name had stuck.

  Out of spite, she’d taken to calling him Prince Charming in return. Granted, no one else called him that but it was absurdly fitting and it clearly irritated him.

  Prince Charming. She had called him that at the jail, hadn’t she? Half to herself, she admitted, “I started it. I called him Prince Charming when he walked out of his cell.”

  Jenna raised her brows in a mocking, older sisterly way. “Glad to see you two have matured.”

  Mackenzie raised one shoulder in a shrug and took a long sip of her drink. She couldn’t worry about old battles—not now. It couldn’t just be coincidence that the gala was this weekend and she just so happened to have damning photos of the company’s favorite heir.

  This was fate.

  Her heart rate sped up as excitement kicked in. It was the same adrenaline rush she got whenever she got an exclusive scoop or got wind of a breaking story.

  Jenna had taken her phone back and was rereading the text, probably reveling in the fact that her high school crush had reached out. “I guess no one told him you no longer think of me as the evil stepsister,” she said.

  Mackenzie grinned. It was true. Since Jenna no longer hung out with that crowd, he probably had no clue that they’d gotten over their differences ages ago.

  Jenna had her fingers poised over her phone. “What do you want me to tell him?”

  Mackenzie picked up the camera and pulled up her favorite, most damning photo. “Tell him you don’t have my number—but you can send him my address.”

  Jenna raised one brow but she did as she was told. “Are you going to tell me what you’re up to?”

  Mackenzie studied the picture as her plan came together. The photo alone, without a juicy story, would be a short-lived draw to the site. But if she could use these photos to get insider access to the most exclusive party of the year? The first reporter to get a glimpse of the hallowed halls of Hartley Group….

  “I’ll tell you everything if my plan works,” she said to Jenna. The last thing she needed was to hear her stepsister’s sound and extremely moral logic. “For now, let’s just say I think I may have found a far better use for these pictures.”

  To keep reading, check out Cinderella Blackmail

  About the Author

  MAGGIE DALLEN IS a big city girl living in Montana. She writes romantic comedies in a range of genres including young adult, historical, contemporary, and fantasy. An unapologetic addict of all things romance, she loves to connect with fellow avid readers. Subscribe to her newsletter at http://eepurl.com/bFEVsL

  LINKS & OTHER WORKS

  Facebook: facebook.com/MaggieDallenAuthor

  Twitter: twitter.com/Mag_Dallen

  Website: maggiedallen.com

  Check out Maggie’s other books:

  Sweet Contemporary Romance

  Dancing Queens & Biker Kings

  Steel Toes & Stilettos

  Sweet Tricks

  Sweet Treats

  Barely a Fairy Tale Series

  Cinderella Blackmail

  Snow White Espionage

  Rose Red Rebellion

  Beauty & The Heist

  Starting from Zero Series

  Love Times Two

  Less Than Three

  The Plus One

  Chance Romance Series

  The Accidental Engagement

  The Accidental Boyfriend

  The Accidental Elopement

  Sexy in Spades Seres

  Lust for Life

  Passion for Players

  Desire for Days

  Reel Romance Series

  Her Leading Man

  His Leading Lady

  Her Leading Hero

  What the critics say about Maggie’s books!

  "What an absolutely delightful romantic romp....The Accidenta
l Engagement is such a lighthearted, simply fun read. I could easily picture this as a romantic comedy movie...I would definitely recommend this for anyone who loves to... well, fall in love. Indulge yourself and enjoy."

  —KEEPER BOOKSHELF

  "A fun read, I recommend The Accidental Engagement for any romance reader looking for something sweet."

  —HARLEQUIN JUNKIE

  "I loved every minute of this story and couldn’t put it down until the very last page...I can’t wait to see what Maggie Dallen has in store for her other characters...Maggie Dallen is now on my must-read list."

  —EYE ON ROMANCE