Twenty Times Tempted: A Sexy Contemporary Romance Collection

by Petrova, Em

  Poking at the flop of hair falling into my eyes, I was half afraid to even touch the ‘do. Two hundred bucks to make it look pretty much like I always wore it. Charles, the owner of the shop, had tittered and swooned so I guess it was worth it.

  Don’t shave dearest, it makes you look sexy.

  To my knowledge there weren’t going to be any cheerleaders at the ceremony so me looking sexy didn’t seem like it was worth the effort. But when Cordie asked so nicely, I usually gave in. Besides, I had an ulterior motive for looking hot…

  ***

  Jackson gave me a man hug and a pat on the back, Jarvi and I shook hands, and the downstairs group high-fived and strutted their stuff. They were on a roll with two wins in a row, both centered around the illegal gambling story. We’d taken the nerd angle and put names and faces and menace to the operation, pulling in both the crime junkies and sports freaks as our readership exploded and online circulation went through the roof.

  For once the Feds had given credit where credit was due, up to a point, but it was enough to have the corporate suits smiling and considering one percent raises, those wild and crazy guys.

  Jackson slid into the seat next to me and we both fingered our watered down scotches while waiting for the opening remarks.

  “You all set then, son?” The boss had taken to calling me ‘son’ on a regular basis. I gave that another week, tops, before he’d be back to his usual ‘what the fuck were you thinking, van Horn!’ Then he asked the question that had been giving him heartburn for a couple of weeks. “Are you ready to share the details about the offer, boy?”

  That would be the offer that no one was supposed to know about.

  I gave him a non-committal shrug; I wasn’t prepared to dish on specifics with him just yet. I still had two other things to clear off my plate before making one of those life-altering decisions. Besides, I expected a counteroffer to come in and there was no point in jumping the gun until I had all those career ducks in a row.

  The room was hot, stuffy, crowded and awash in a boozy haze of bonhomie. When I started weaving to the men’s room, it seemed like a good time to take my leave. I had family and friends waiting to treat me to a celebratory dinner. And the walk would do me good.

  Just maybe not with the Italian boots…

  ***

  By the time I found my way to Che Snoot, my callouses had callouses, and instead of a swagger, I sported a pronounced limp as I approached the maître d drawing slashes through a grid pattern with a yellow marker.

  He looked up and sneered, “Do you have a reservation for your party?” Pause, slash, slash. “Sir.”

  “I’m, uh, meeting my party here.” I glanced at my watch. I was twenty minutes early.

  “And the name.” The yellow marker hovered over the next victim.

  Again with the name.

  Supposedly Cordie had made the reservation so I said with confidence, “Finklestein,” and gave him my take that sucker grin.

  He scowled. Shit. The highlighter wavered under the strain and my face melted into its usual mask of why me, God.

  “There’s no reservation by that name.” No ‘sir’, not even a hint of one.

  “Richardson?”

  “No.”

  Running out of options, I grappled with the only other possibility: Sam, the cousin, and Marie, the wife of the cousin. Last name, what was their last name? Obviously it wasn’t Richardson. I mumbled, “Sam and Marie something something,” but he was already turning toward the group pressing behind me.

  “Van Horn?” That came out as a squeak.

  “Ah, yes. Very good. Please follow me.”

  The cleanup crew was busy clearing the tables and readying the dining room for the after theatre wave, so instead of a line of freshly pressed and oiled up wait staff, it was soiled aprons, large bins filled with dinnerware and the buzz of discontent over the night’s tips.

  The thought of tips had me considering what I’d put everybody through the last few months, and thinking I should be the one treating, but no … the Fink was dipping into his 401k once again. I sincerely hoped the entertainment portion of the meal would offset that hit to his wallet.

  “Arturo will be your server tonight,” and he handed me off like a three dollar bill.

  I smiled and gave my old admirer my hello again look, and he did the critical up and down once over. When the synapses fired, his face lit up like a Roman candle, no pun intended, and I felt the heavy weight of the disappointment I was going to level his way soon enough.

  The bottle of red appeared, breathing happily on the far side of the round table and I had a scotch on the rocks, this one full bodied and probably worth the ten bucks for the two fingers worth. The walk had leached the buzz away, but not the nerves, so I chugged it and blinked as another reappeared almost instantaneously.

  As a courtesy, and also to keep me from casting too critical an eye at the less than pristine state of the dining room, Arturo presented the menu in an artful binder with a tasseled bookmarker thing. They’d expanded the menu and veal was still the headliner.

  But I was not that same man who had caved to the whims of others. I was having the lobster ravioli and if anyone came near me with an anchovy … well, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  Cordie and the Fink were the first to arrive. I stood and shook hands as the Fink said, “Congratulations, well done,” and my sister dabbed at her mascara with a tissue.

  “Oh hon, you look absolutely gorgeous.” Arturo stood behind my sister, prepared to ease her generous hips into the seat, all the while staring at me with a gleam in his eye.

  When I turned, my lady was threading her way through the congestion, and my heart stopped beating and I knew exactly how it felt to be thrust into the vacuum of space, the air evacuating my lungs in a rush. I had no idea how I was going to manage to get through the evening, not with the blood pounding in my ears and my hands shaking in a weird delirium tremens of the hopelessly smitten.

  I waited until her cousin and wife had joined us and the men did the hand shake thing, then I helped the ladies into their seats. Arturo hung back in deference to this gesture.

  As usual, Cordie took charge of the creative portion of the menu but this time, because there were six of us, she’d called ahead and discussed some options with the chef. At her nod, Arturo poured the wine while one of his cronies distributed white plates and carafes of Sicilian olive oil infused with herbs. Another one laid out baskets of freshly baked Italian bread.

  My stomach grumbled but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to eat. My nerves had been on high alert all day and the excitement of the awards ceremony had done little to quell the dragons waging war in my esophagus.

  I finished the scotch and started on the red wine.

  Taylor whispered, “Do you trust me?”

  Uh-oh.

  I asked, “Does that mean I don’t get the beef tenderloin?” I hadn’t been keen on the hearts of palm and arugula but the meat had been bloody fork tender, just the way I liked it.

  “Cordie wanted the Tartare di Tonno,” and I grimaced, but she ignored me and went on, “with cucumber and wasabi tobikko and a soy-mango vinaigrette.”

  Looking to compromise, I said, “Wasabi, I like that.”

  For someone with aspirations of a career change, I had to rethink my stodgy preferences and open myself up to new experiences. I like what I like wasn’t going to cut it.

  She also reminded me that I had promised to try at least one new dish. Grumbling at my capitulation, I brightened considerably when Arturo set the insalata d’aragosta between me and the Fink. The lobster was chilled and resting on a bed of mixed greens. It looked like arugula, radicchio and romaine with a light, drool-worthy shallot vinaigrette.

  I nodded happily when the Fink edged the dish in my direction. Apparently seafood wasn’t on his preference list.

  Although this was my celebration dinner, by unspoken consent we managed to talk about everything but that, mostly because of what had happened to
Taylor and all the other heart-stopping events before and after the trials. I saw no point in opening old wounds. Fortunately everyone else agreed.

  Taylor ‘ummed’ her way through the lobster ravioli while I ignored the variations on veal plated in several creative ways. I had to admit it looked good. I just couldn’t justify eating it given that I’d seen firsthand how the animals were treated when covering a story for the Cooking/Cuisine section of the Gazette, back when I was a cub reporter.

  I had my standards.

  We were on bottle number four, this time a white dessert type wine and Arturo was whispering with Cordie while the rest of us stretched and digested. I had taken liberties with Taylor’s little black dress, inching it high enough under the cover of linen to make her blush prettily and clutch those thighs tight around my exploring fingers, her skin hot enough that another inch or so and it was going to set itself to flambé.

  We were all stuffed to the gills and looking for cappuccinos with a dash of Irish Crème.

  Arturo oozed his way between Tay and I and suggested, “Per la signorina, potrei suggerire Cioccolatissimo Fondente Con Gelato Alla Vaniglia?”

  She groaned and I said, “Two forks, please,” knowing full well chocolate cake with a soft gooey center of melted fudge topped with vanilla ice cream was going to push a few of her decadence buttons. I planned on doing the rest of them later once I had her alone.

  I glanced at the Fink and he nodded so I turned to Arturo and said, “Just bring us the cappuccinos for now. I’ll let you know when we’re ready for the dessert.”

  “Sì signore.”

  While they cleared the table, the Fink reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew a long, thick envelope. He handed it to me and I passed it to Taylor. Sam and Marie glanced at each other and us, then stared at the envelope bridging Taylor’s dessert fork and a spoon.

  She inched closer to me, my hand now petting her thigh, the anticipation like static charge, skin-to-skin. She croaked, “What’s this?” and put on her game face, the one that said she couldn’t possibly accept any more charity, no matter how well meaning.

  Cordie said what we were all thinking, “Open it, dear.”

  Arturo appeared at Taylor’s right, a knife held gingerly between thumb and forefinger. He placed it on the table and withdrew to hover within earshot. A bubble of silence settled over the table.

  My lady ‘ummed’ and tried to flick the mystery bit in my direction but I squeezed her leg and shook my head no, not that she’d seen me do it. Her head was down, eyes watching the offending object as if it was a snake in her arugula. The cornrows of tightly woven dark and light strands strained and went rigid, stretching the thin skin over her temple to transparency.

  With trembling hands she sliced the envelop open and pulled a sheath of papers out, unfolded them slowly and smoothed the trifolds flat on the linen tablecloth. The Fink and I knew the contents by heart, having gone over it with a fine-tooth comb, with his brother’s wife’s help and the aid of a translator.

  Taylor read the letter first, line by line, sometimes stopping to mouth an unfamiliar word or phrase. Arturo edged closer, translating softly in her ear. I didn’t mind the intimacy.

  After paging through the rest of the documents, she stared blankly at the back wall, fighting back tears. Or maybe that was Arturo.

  The Fink said, “Becky will come down to meet with you next week to go over all the details, my dear. There will be things to sign, matters to work out. But otherwise…” He didn’t finish, he didn’t need to.

  Her left hand clasped mine, fingers twining in a death grip. She hadn’t fully assimilated the meaning of the documents.

  “Does this mean what I think it does?”

  That was a yes although she still faced a ninety day waiting period for all the legal crap to take effect, but her period of incarceration ended tonight.

  And that little fact was what had my guts in an uproar. I looked over her head at Arturo giving me a small smile of approval and a questioning look.

  Was I or wasn’t I?

  Cordie had her head tilted in that odd way she does when she’s tuned into the same wavelengths of indecision that now gripped me full force. She looked at her husband and back to me and that’s what made up my mind.

  “Arturo, more coffees. And the dessert if you will.”

  The restaurant had filled to capacity with a line forming out the door, the chatter loud with laughter and the trill of Italian tenors filling the air with festive normalcy.

  I felt anything but festive … or normal.

  What I felt was scared to death.

  The phalanx of white coats once more distributed coffees and Arturo floated in with the big tah-dah, the chocolate confection with the ice cream already melting over the lipid core of fudge. I released Taylor’s hand so she could take the first sinful taste, her fork piercing the light-as-air cake to slip-slide over molten fudge and glacial cream.

  Closing her eyes, she groaned deep in her throat and savored the orgasm of flavors exploding on her tongue. At least that’s what I imagined as I eased off my chair onto my right knee.

  Arturo inhaled sharply. Taylor snapped her head toward him and then turned more slowly to her left, every eye at the table—and most of the restaurant—now pinned on me and the box I held in my left hand.

  “Taylor Amelia Richardson, before all these people, will you consent to be my wife?”

  There was no way I could look her in the face, afraid she’d say no, or worse than that … maybe. Instead I watched her left hand wobble toward the ring I held out, my heart filling with hope. I think she whispered “yes” as I nested our futures onto her slender finger.

  Amidst the raucous congratulations and applause, I called out, “Arturo, could we have that to go?”

  I had plans for that fudge.

  THE END

  Crossing boundaries, taking no prisoners. Write what’s in your soul.

  It’s the bass beat, the heartbeat, the lyrics rude and true.

  Nya Rawlyns cut her teeth on sports-themed romantic comedies and historical romances before finding her true calling in the wilderness areas she has visited but calls “home” in that place that counts the most: the heart.

  She has lived in the country and on a sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay, earned more than 1000 miles in competitive trail and endurance racing, taught Political Science to unwilling freshmen, and found an avocation in materials science.

  When she isn’t tending to her garden or the horses, the cats, or three pervert parakeets, she can be found day dreaming and listening to the voices in her head.

  Find Nya on her websites:

  Romancing Words: http://www.romancingwords.com

  Love’s Last Refuge: http://loveslastrefuge.com/

  Also by Nya Rawlyns:

  Roman (Saints and Sinners)

  STOCKHOLM DIARIES, CAROLINE

  Rebecca Hunter

  STOCKHOLM DIARIES

  CAROLINE

  REBECCA HUNTER

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  STOCKHOLM DIARIES, CAROLINE

  Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Hunter

  ISBN: 978-0-9964556-1-9

  Cover Design: The Killion Group

  Photography: Laura Turbow Photography

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission.

  Acknowledgments

  There are many people who have helped make this book possible. First, I’d like to thank my list of Beta readers/editors/problem-finders, who tolerated this book in its less-than-finished state: Julia Victorine, Laura Burtness, Micki Gray and Wendi Wakefield. Your insights have helped shape the story on all levels. In this category, I’d lik
e to especially thank my sister, Leah, Beta-reader extraordinaire and general cheerleader for all my writing projects. Thanks for happily reading everything I’ve ever written, including the pieces that should never have left my computer.

  I’d also like to thank my writing partner, K.D. Hazzard, for her support and humor and for walking me through everything from plot crisis to momentum crisis. And to all the members of the San Francisco Area chapter of Romance Writers of American who have shared their expertise, tips and insights, I thank you for making this project as a whole possible.

  And last, I’d like to thank my husband, sometimes hockey player and always at the heart of my own Stockholm Diaries adventure. Thank you for your support as I’ve worked to turn a hobby into something more.

  Chapter One

  Everyone knows that a woman shouldn’t be out walking alone in the middle of the night. Especially if she’s from Detroit, which Caroline was.

  And yet where did she find herself? Alone, in the middle of Stockholm somewhere around 4:00 am, and not for the first time this week. But it’s light out, Caroline had reasoned as she stuffed her pepper spray into her pocket before closing the apartment door behind her.

  It wasn’t just the canopy of trees overhead or the muted sound that pulled her out this early, onto the winding paths of Vasaparken. Everything about the light in Stockholm was different. A gentle mist had settled low along the steep hills of the city park, veiling the tops of the impossibly tall pine trees that lined the sidewalk.

  She took the lens cap off her camera and pointed it up at the trees, looking through the viewfinder. For the last few years now, Caroline had developed a preference for the starkness of black and white, the depth and texture that it could capture, but a week in Stockholm had changed that. It was the fullness, the clear, deep blue sky and the endless layers of greens in the trees that she looked for at all hours of the day. And she truly studied them at all hours—since she had arrived, the sun seemed to never completely disappear, only fading into a slow twilight and then inching back up again, just barely having sunk below the horizon. It was as if she were entering some sort of mystical world, one she had been given all to herself.