by Noelle Adams
And tonight was New Year’s Eve.
Next year would be even better.
Teaser Excerpt from A Negotiated Marriage
If you enjoyed Holiday Heat, you might enjoy A Negotiated Marriage by the same author.
She liked Luke. They got along. He didn’t expect anything she didn’t want to give. She enjoyed her lifestyle and she enjoyed her work. She hadn’t wanted to date in the last three years, having been burned so badly by Baron, and there was a sense of safety in being so completely off the market.
Despite all of that, seeing the James Coffee shop made her feel kind of depressed. She didn’t like that she’d been so incredibly foolish. So weak.
“You shouldn’t still be thinking about him,” Luke said, his voice breaking into her glum reverie.
She turned toward him and blinked. “Huh?”
“James. He’s not worth still brooding over.”
She studied Luke’s face, trying to figure out why he was bringing it up at all. Obviously, he knew about her former relationship with Baron, but they didn’t often talk about it. “I wasn’t. I’m over him.”
“Are you?”
He sounded so skeptical that she stiffened her back. “Yes. You didn’t think I was still hung up on him after three years, did you? I’m not that pitiful.”
“I don’t think you’re pitiful.” His expression was casual and unrevealing, as usual. “But, because of James, it’s going to be hard for you to trust another man. Isn’t it?”
She made a face, although she knew in some ways he was right. “I trust you, don’t I?”
“Not with your heart.”
She stared at him, completely perplexed by what looked like diffidence in his expression.
“I’m not saying you should,” he continued, barely missing a beat. His hazel eyes rested on her face with a strange sort of caution. “Obviously, that’s not what our marriage has ever been about. I just meant your thing with Baron still has an effect on you—and I don’t think he’s worth it.”
She shrugged and glanced out the window, since Luke’s steady gaze was too unsettling. “It’s not really about whether someone is worth it.”
When Luke didn’t respond, she turned to look at him again. Still couldn’t read his expression. “I don’t think I’m bitter because of him.”
“Not bitter. Just wary.”
“What about you?” she demanded, feeling vulnerable in the face of his perception. “You’re too much of a workaholic to even date someone for real. When was the last time you trusted someone with your heart?”
His lips tightened.
“Well?” she prompted, when he didn’t answer.
“Wasn’t that a rhetorical question?”
“No. I want to know. If you think I’m so damaged—”
“I never said you were damaged—”
“Whatever. If you think I’m so burned by Baron that I can’t jump into love again, what about you? What exactly burned you?”
She knew Luke well—maybe better than anyone else—but even she didn’t really know the answer to that question. Luke was a great listener and a very engaging conversationalist, but everything personal about him she had to learn indirectly. Never from his willingly sharing it with her.
“Nothing burned me.”
She arched her eyebrows.
“That’s the truth. I haven’t had any tragic love affairs.” He cut his eyes away from her briefly. “I just prefer to do what I’m good at.”
“What do you mean? You’re good at almost everything.”
“I’m good at business. I’m not good at relationships.”
She thought about that for a long time, the admission ringing true with her somehow. She enjoyed a rising sense of emotional closeness with him, since his opening up in any way wasn’t an everyday occurrence. Finally, she concluded, “I’m not good at relationships either.”
“Sure you are. You’ve got more friends than you could talk to in a year.”
“I meant I’m not good at romantic relationships.”
He smiled at her—the warm, full smile she rarely saw, the one that always took her breath away. “That’s because you always pick the wrong man.”
She couldn’t help but laugh, overwhelmed with a wave of familiarity and affection for him. He might be a workaholic businessman who tried to compartmentalize his life to the point of absurdity, but he was still a really good guy.
She responded to the feeling, leaning over to give him a friendly hug. “Well, I picked you to marry, so what does that say about you?”
For just a moment, he hugged her back. “I’m just lucky, I guess.”
Her breath hitched at the slight thickness of his voice, and she pulled back. Her eyes searched his face, trying to figure out whether he was being ironic or not.
“Do you want Thai?” Luke asked, shifting slightly in his seat.
“What?”
“Thai?” he repeated. “You said you were hungry.”
“Oh. Yeah. I am.” She shook away her momentary distraction. “Only I don’t really want to go out.”
“We can pick it up and take it home.”
Molly perked up at the prospect of Thai food and decided she must have imagined any strangeness just now.
***
A half-hour later, she sat on the floor watching a cable news channel. She hadn’t wanted to change clothes before she ate, so she’d just slipped off her shoes and spread a napkin in her lap.
Her dress wasn’t really made for sitting on the floor, but she made do, tugging down the hem of her skirt when it got hiked up too much.
Luke was going through emails on his tablet as he ate, so he sat in a chair. The only gesture toward relaxing was taking off his suit jacket and sliding off his shoes.
She wasn’t finished eating when Luke stood up. Instead of leaving the room, as she expected, he just looked at her.
She stared up at him. Since her mouth was full, she gave him a questioning look.
He lowered his lean body to the floor beside her. “I want to renegotiate terms.
Molly groaned. “Come on, Luke. We just did that three months ago, and it took ages to reach an agreement.”
“Even so.” His expression didn’t change. He looked matter-of-fact and business-like, as he always did. His brief vulnerability in the car had disappeared.
“Fine. But I’ve already bumped it up to six social events a month. If you want me to go to even more, then you’re going to have to give me something big.” When he opened his mouth to reply, she spoke over him. “I mean, really big. Like I do one fewer job for you a year. No more client referrals. I’ve already got more business than I can handle, so that’s not going to do it for me.”
“It isn’t about more social events. Six is adequate.”
“Oh. Then what is it?”
Luke glanced away from her momentarily. Then he met her gaze, his eyes bland and steady. “We agreed that, in terms of sexual activity, the only acceptable outlet for either of us is discreet professionals.”
Molly blinked, taken by surprise. “That was your idea, since dating outside of our marriage would have gotten in the way of the stable reputation you were trying to build.”
Luke, of course, hadn’t wanted to stop having sex altogether when they got married. So they’d agreed that either one of them could use the services of a high-priced, very discreet escort service. Molly, early on, had tried it. She’d been bitter enough to think it might be the best, easiest way to have sex. It hadn’t been exciting or satisfying, though. It had felt weird and unnatural. So, for almost three years, she’d taken care of her sexual urges with a small collection of mechanical devices.
Luke, she assumed, made use of call girls regularly. They’d agreed never to have such encounters in the apartment, so he probably went to hotel rooms. She didn’t think about it much.
“Yes, it was my idea, but I would like it to change,” Luke responded. “I’m finding that unsatisfying.”
Molly
frowned, feeling a little sick as she processed his words. “Well, I’m sorry. I don’t want to be unreasonable, but you can’t have a girlfriend. It would be…it would be humiliating. Everyone would think you were cheating on me.”
She wondered if he had met someone. Perhaps that was what had prompted this. Irrationally, she didn’t like the idea at all.
He was a classic workaholic—often at his office eighteen hours a day when he wasn’t traveling. She bleakly wondered when he’d even have time to hook up with someone regularly.
“I don’t want a girlfriend. If I wanted a girlfriend, we could simply end our marriage. I don’t want to do that. In fact, I don’t want anything significant about our agreement to change. I simply want to adjust this one item.” He glanced away again, his eyes resting on the large, flat screen of the television.
“Then I don’t understand. If you want to have sex with someone other than a call girl but you don’t want a girlfriend, then what exactly do you want?”
Luke cleared his throat and cut his eyes back to her. “I want to have sex with you.”
***
You can find more information about A Negotiated Marriage here.
About the Author
Noelle handwrote her first romance novel in a spiral-bound notebook when she was twelve, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. She has lived in eight different states and currently resides in Virginia, where she teaches English, reads any book she can get her hands on, and offers tribute to a very spoiled cocker spaniel.
She loves travel, art, history, and ice cream. After spending far too many years of her life in graduate school, she has decided to reorient her priorities and focus on writing contemporary romances. For more information, please check out her website: noelle-adams.com.
Other Books by Noelle Adams
One Hot Night: Three Contemporary Romance Novellas
A Negotiated Marriage
Listed
Bittersweet
Missing
Revival
Seducing the Enemy
Playing the Playboy
Married for Christmas
Salvation
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Epilogue
Teaser Excerpt from A Negotiated Marriage
About the Author