Down with Love

by Kate Meader

  And there he is. Max Henderson, The Cynic™ himself. God, he’s a handsome devil.

  We don’t agree on everything, my Max and I, but we’re in sync on the important stuff. Opening up your soul to another person requires bravery but if you stay closed off in your bubble, life will remain dull and gray. I thought a monochrome relationship would keep me safe, but I’m a Technicolor kind of girl, always have been. I have a mouth as big as my heart and my mate has to recognize that. My mate has to love that.

  Endorphins fuel me through the ceremony until that special moment comes when we commit to each other body and soul.

  As I say “I do,” and watch the wicked smile crease his handsome face, I realize I have that last word for now.

  It won’t last long, but damn, it would be boring any other way.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to everyone at Loveswept for making my first book with them such an awesome experience, especially Sue, Madeleine, and Gina. And while I have a law degree from Ireland, you guys do things differently in the States—thanks to Robin Covington for filling me in on the nitty-gritty of divorce law. All mistakes are mine, of course.

  BY KATE MEADER

  Down with Love

  Illegally Yours (coming soon)

  PHOTO: ZOE MCKENZIE PHOTOGRAPHY

  Originally from Ireland, USA Today bestselling author KATE MEADER cut her romance reader teeth on Maeve Binchy and Jilly Cooper novels, with some Harlequins thrown in for variety. Give her tales about brooding mill owners, oversexed equestrians, and men who can rock an apron, a fire hose, or a hockey stick, and she’s there. Now based in Chicago, she writes sexy contemporary romance with alpha heroes and strong heroines who can match their men quip for quip.

  katemeader.com

  Twitter: @kittymeader

  Facebook: authorkatemeader

  Instagram: @katemeader

  Newsletter: http://katemeader.com/​newsletter/

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Illegally Yours

  A Love Wars Novel

  By Kate Meader

  Coming soon from Loveswept

  Chapter 1

  Lucas

  There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to face up to an uncomfortable truth.

  Getting older? Not that you’d notice. I’m in my prime, a couple of years shy of thirty and still wearing my twenties well. Better than well.

  Stalled career? No chance. According to Chicago magazine, I’m a “Chi-Town Hottie on the Rise”—it wasn’t called that, but it may as well have been—aka, one of the city’s best and brightest divorce attorneys. (And still single, ladies!)

  No, my friends, it’s something much, much worse.

  The stench of marriage is upon us.

  You might think me dramatic—a lot of people do. Maybe it’s my (sexy) British accent or my gorgeous cheekbones or my outsize personality. I tend to get pegged on sight as the cheeky upstart. The good-time lad. I find it useful to let people make a call and then, boom! I crush those assumptions with a quote from Rilke or the like. No flies on me.

  Where was I? Oh, right. Mawage!

  Everyone’s doing it, you know, and while I’m not the final holdout in my circle of bros, I see the writing on the wall.

  Remember that song by Queen with the banging bass riff? Didin-din-din, another one bites the dust…this is my life right now. I’m at The Library, a tasty little spot in the basement of the Gilt Bar, giving one of the crew a send-off. James Henderson is a friend, and the brother of Max, a partner in our family law firm, Wright, Lincoln, and Henderson. He’s getting married in a couple of weeks, and to say it’s been a whirlwind is an understatement. I suspect she’s knocked up but Jimbo’s keeping mum.

  I don’t doubt their love—or at least I don’t doubt it publicly. I leave that to his brother, Max, who is what I like to charitably call “change-averse.” But lately Maxie’s had his life upended by the introduction of a cute dog (I might have had something to do with this) and a woman who’s driving him insane. The poor guy was hit by the coup de foudre a couple of months ago—that’s the thunderbolt of love for you heathens in the audience—one floor above us, and now he’s trying to resist the horrific changes that love wants to inflict on him. Laugh out fucking loud, right?

  I don’t see love as an affliction, per se, but you won’t catch me settling down anytime soon. Not because I’m one of those man-ho players with a different woman warming my bed every night. Sure, I do okay, but that’s not the issue here. The problem is that most women can’t handle my energy. I’m pretty high on life most of the time, which is great for short-term but scares the crap out of most potential mates. As much as it pains me to admit it, I’m like my mother in this respect—but where she channeled it into crazy shite like dragging us all over the UK to hippie music festivals or to Spain to pick grapes, I’ve funneled my energy into becoming a Renaissance man.

  Max has set up a whiskey-tasting for the stag party. I’m more of an ale drinker, but I like to know all there is to know about well, everything, so I’m up for learning how to tell the difference between this glass of yellow shit and that glass of yellow shit.

  We’ve just been seated in a cozy corner of the bar when a woman approaches. Though that’s not right. It’s more like she glides over on ball bearings. The servers upstairs are usually dressed in handkerchiefs for skirts so I’d expect the same down here, but no.

  This woman is wearing a bloody catsuit.

  It clings to every curve—and she’s got a lot of ’em—and covers up all the body parts I’d usually be assessing. This cover-up is sexier than if she were naked.

  The only parts I can see are:

  Feet in strappy sandals that show a tease of skin and purple painted toes. This bodes well because purple denotes royalty (think the late, great Prince) as well as wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic.

  Arms that look toned and strong, one with a tattoo of some Asian symbol

  Her face. Duh. Did you think she was wearing a mask like Catwoman? The suit is zipped up to her chin, but above her jawline is the best part.

  A face that launched a thousand ships.

  Or hard-ons.

  Okay, my hard-on.

  It’s more striking than pretty, this face. Almond-shaped eyes with melted chocolate-drops for irises. Cheekbones that almost—almost—rival mine. Warm, brown skin with golden undertones. A sparkling stud in her nose that tells me she likes to go against the grain. I could go on but she’s passing out sheets of paper and speaking, so I have to lift my tongue off the floor.

  “Hi, guys, I’m Trinity. Welcome to The Library and to your whiskey tasting.”

  Everyone returns her greeting and I hate them all for daring to talk to her. Her voice has a natural rasp, sexy as fuck. I try to catch her attention with one of my dazzling smiles, but she’s already slinked off to get the first round of drinks in.

  I track her every move, jealous of every interaction she has with other members of the rotten human race. People respond well to her energy. A quick smile and pat on the shoulder for a customer in her path, a wave at someone who has just walked in, a familiar shoulder nudge to one of her (male) co-workers behind the bar.

  Yep, I’ll bury that guy first thing.

  Realizing I may be coming off as a weirdo, I turn to Max with a very important query: “So, what time do the strippers get here, mate?”

  Max flashes his perfect American teeth. “Get a couple of drinks in you and the stage is yours, Wright.”

  Up on my feet, I give a booty shake. “I’ll fucking do it, too!”

  This makes the rest of them laugh, but turning to sit, I find Trinity staring at me like I’m an idiot. Hey, I’m just the guy who likes to play the goof until I blinds
ide you with my humungous brain, remember?

  Trinity places a tray of glasses with a finger of whiskey in each down on the table.

  “The first thing you want to do is check the color,” she says. “Turn your tasting chart over to the blank side and hold the whiskey against it. You could be looking at pale gold, straw, amber—”

  “Piss,” I interject because apparently, I have verbal diarrhea. Everyone glares at me, so I class it up with its scientific term, “Sorry, ur-ine.”

  Trinity’s lovely dark eyes narrow ever so slightly, and she announces, “That’s not a standardized color.”

  “Sorry, we can’t take him anywhere.” So says James, the groom-to-be, though he’s barely containing his laughter.

  “How’d you get to be a whiskey expert, Trinity?” I ask her, needing to establish a connection.

  “Years of training. Next, you’ll want to assess its clarity and viscosity…“

  Summarily dismissed, I follow the instructions. Of course, I have an opinion on everything. My so-called friends should tell me to shut up but it’s like a fire hydrant of chatter has been wrenched open and I’m incapable of closing it.

  Here’s how I fill out the sheet, accompanying verbal commentary for free.

  Appearance: still going with urine, because I started off so well.

  Nose: Engine oil with hints of vanilla and cabbage. Sure, why not?

  Palate: Umami. I don’t know if this is correct but I like saying the word. Say it with me, kids. Umami.

  I suspect this is all rubbish because one of the flavor profiles is “Band-Aids.” I mean, that can’t be right.

  “What the hell are we doing drinking booze that tastes like Band-Aids?” Not that this particular whiskey does—I think—but now that I try again, I’m getting a medicinal flavor I didn’t notice before. “How is that supposed to be appealing? No one says wine tastes like sticking plasters—”

  “Sticking plasters?” Max asks with a raised eyebrow.

  “Sticking plasters, Elastoplast…” I wave my glass, sloshing the remaining spoonful. “What we call Band-Aids in the old country, Maxie. Try to keep up. If someone said, ‘try this twenty-seven-year-old aged malt, it’s got a lovely Band-Aid flavor,’ any normal bloke would be backing out the door tout de suite. And don’t get me started on ‘forest fucking floor.’ ”

  My tirade against the tyranny of whiskey tasting profiles has silenced the entire group. I peek up to find Trinity glaring at me in a way that makes my dick go “schwing!”

  “Tell the truth, love, it’s all a load of cobblers, innit?”

  She weighs me for a moment and clearly finds me wanting in every way. “Actually, no, it’s science. Scotch, you know, from Scotland is made with malted barley, which is barley soaked in water and dried with peat fires. Peat has a chemical compound called cresols which are a subcategory of phenols, or carbolic acid, which is found in products like Lysol and Sharpies and—”

  “Band-Aids,” I say.

  “Band-Aids,” she affirms, clearly not pleased with how I needed to get the last word in there. I’m being sort of an arsehole but I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for competence porn and this, along with her self-assured beauty, makes me nervous. This is rather ridiculous because nothing makes me nervous.

  “I’ll get the next round in, gentlemen,” she says, with emphasis on “gentlemen” to indicate I’m most definitely excluded. “Drink plenty of water.”

  With Trinity out of earshot, Max turns to me with palms up.

  “If you’re trying to impress her, you are fucking up royally.”

  “You think?” My gaze follows her at the bar. She’s doing a fine impression of ignoring me, the little minx. “I thought I was winning her over.”

  “Tell her the color of your last dump,” Grant mutters. “I’m sure she’d love it.”

  That cracks the crowd up, especially coming from the usually taciturn Grant. He’s my other partner in the firm, though he and Max are closer because they went to law school together. Grant’s from Georgia, looks like a Bratva enforcer, and is of a slow and methodical bent, the perfect foil to my hyper personality.

  I glance over at Trinity, who’s still not paying me any heed, and consider my options. I’ve never met a woman I can’t crack with my charm, wit, and all-around smarty-smarts.

  Trinity, sweetheart, you are going down.

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