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Love You Again
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: A white puff of air filled the space between him and the steering wheel, and he realized he’d sighed. How long had he been sitting here, mind and memory in the past? Shoving his hands into gloves, he opened the rear door, grabbed the white plastic bag, and made his way to the front of the bin. Determined, focused, and grim: That was Luke Luview these days. A bad match for a town that existed to make people feel good about love. Living in Love You, Maine–heck, being a Luview–was never harder than when you had a broken heart. Time to let go of some of the pain. “AAAAAAooooooooo,” called out a band of coyotes in the distance, making Luke jolt. His personal weapon was at home. He didn’t carry it in the glove compartment or on his body when he was off duty, but as the coyote population grew in the area, maybe he should. A few feet from the donation bin’s front, he looked at the lever to pull down, squeezing the bag slightly. A whiff of Amber’s perfume caught his nose, so faint he almost imagined it. Colleen had washed all the clothes a few weeks ago, so he knew he imagined Amber’s scent. Didn’t matter. He’d take the illusion. That was how much he hurt. A skitter inside the box made him frown. Damn animals. They got in those bins all the time. He felt sorry for the poor sap who emptied these metal boxes, carting all the goods to the warehouse in Manchester where they cleaned and sorted, getting it all ready for the second-hand retail stores. Just do this, he thought, swallowing hard as the coyotes mated in the distance. The sound was violent and creepy, but for whatever reason, it felt fitting. Throwing the tangible reminders of that terrible day into the donation box felt dangerous, too. “I love you, Amber,” he murmured. “But I have to let you go. Have to let that day go. Harriet needs a daddy who isn’t tied down by grief. Just because I’m doing this doesn’t mean I love you any less, though.” Tears pricked his eyes. “Why is this so hard? Because it’s hard,” he said with a huff. “That’s what you would say if you were here. You’d hug me and comfort me and tell me feelings are meant to be felt or they’d be called something else. You’d have all the right words. I don’t have any. I just have a big hole in my life, Amber. And you’re never going to fill it. Colleen says I can’t feel guilty for moving on. I don’t. But I sure do feel weird.” And then he reached for the handle, pulled it down, and threw the bag in while calling out loudly, “I love you.” To his utter shock, she replied from the darkness of the box, “I’m in here!”
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Keeping My Girl
-- EXCERPT: SELINA I WAKE UP slowly, my vision blurry as I rapidly blink away the moisture in my eyes. Once my vision begins to clear, I study the room I’m in. It’s lavish, luxuriously decorated in muted grays and purples. And the first thing that comes to mind is that I’m back in Constantine’s clutches. I try to remember the last thing that happened, and my heart begins to pound rapidly in my chest like an angry war drum when the memories come flooding back in a rush. Gino was assaulting me. There was a stranger in the room. The knife. Gino’s neck being sliced open. Me being covered in blood…and other gross stuff that I can’t even think about right now. Me struggling to breathe. And then…nothing. Now I am here, and I have no idea exactly where here is. Did the man in the room work for Constantine? No, he couldn’t have. Constantine wouldn’t have sent a hitman after his only son. And if I’m not with Constantine but with the man who drugged and kidnapped me…then I might be in bigger trouble than if I was with my original captor. Sitting up, I stare down at my right arm, which has an IV needle sticking out of it. Wincing, I pull the needle out and quickly climb out of bed. My heart beats in a weird staccato as I grab onto things to help with my balance and make my way over to one of the large windows on the other side of the room. It’s getting dark outside, so I can’t see much. My eyes dart around, fixating on the high fence surrounding the property. Have I been here before? I search for anything that looks familiar. Constantine has many homes scattered all over the US and in other countries, and I think I have been to all of them. Perhaps I’ve been here before with him. I try to think harder, but my brain is fuzzy and I’m having trouble focusing. My pills. I need my pills. I stare down at my wrists. The fact that I’m not chained or handcuffed in some way and the fact that I am dressed, albeit in a hospital gown, is all new to me. I was Constantine’s property, and he liked to remind me of that often. The door to the room swings open suddenly, and I jump back from the window, alarmed. A young woman dressed in dark blue scrubs enters the room, and her eyes widen when she sees me. “You’re awake,” she says, clearly surprised. Her bright blue eyes immediately shift to my arm, and I follow her gaze there. “And you pulled your IV out.” She frowns when she sees the blood dripping down my arm. “Please get back in bed. I’m going to go get some bandages and disinfectant. I’ll be right back.” She leaves the room, and the door is left open. When she disappears into another room down the hallway, I decide now is my chance to try to escape.
Hosted by:
One Kind Hero
-- EXCERPT: Reid I have a place to stay and a job to go to. I need to quit whining and suck it up. That’s hard to do, however, when the treasured motorcycle I owned and rebuilt myself as a teenager is staring at me right now. Straddling it, I love feeling it beneath me. The seat contours to my body. The paint finish is still glossy because Uncle Karl kept a cover over it. The chrome parts glint in the overhead lights. My left hand wraps around the left handlebar, the grip molding to my palm, as I lean forward a bit. I tighten my hold and imagine zipping down the open road. I reach for the right handlebar with my right hand. The grip hits my palm, but my fingers won’t close all the way around it. My entire right arm shakes at being stretched out. There’s absolutely no way I can steer this motorcycle ever again. I slam my left hand into the handlebar and get off the bike. The urge to kick the thing onto its side is overwhelming, but I get rational at the last second and refrain from doing so. Instead, I drape the cover back over the motorcycle. Out of sight, out of mind. If only I could drape a cover over myself, but all I have is a green Brenton Sawmill baseball hat and a matching sawmill T-shirt. Smoothing the wrinkles out of the shirt, I stomp out of the barn. The morning sunlight is too harsh, too cheerful. I should have picked a rainier, gloomier place to restart my entire life. 
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Strut
-- EXCERPT: Halfway down the block I came upon a small queue outside a tidy brick establishment which proved to be Color. The distant thrum of Ariana Grande leaking through the double wooden doors onto the sidewalk reminded me I was close to a generation older than most of the guys ahead of me waiting to get in. I joined the line, ignoring a low whistle of interest from one of the guys as I passed. I took his appreciation as reassurance that my skinny black jeans paired with one of Rhys’s new season tight black-and-white-checked T-shirts passed muster. I checked my phone as I waited and fired off a text to my younger sister knowing it was afternoon in New Zealand. A few seconds later the phone rang in my hand, and I smiled and swiped it open. “Hey, sis.” “Hey, you. I’m heading to the supermarket. What’s up?” The line shrank by a couple of guys, and everyone shuffled forward. “Not much. I’m waiting to get into a bar and thought I might catch you.” Silence. “Hunter Donovan is in a queue?” She chuckled. “You don’t do queues, bro. I thought you rarefied fashionista types skipped those pesky things.” “It’s not that level of club,” I explained. “Think popular, off-the-beaten-track gay bar. I doubt I’ll see anyone I know and certainly no one who knows me.” “A gay bar? Ohhhhh, are you on a date?” “No, I am not on a date. You know me. Besides, I’ve only been here two days.” “You’re right. I do know you. Which means you’re cruising for some pretty arse. You after a bit of downtown rough, big brother?” “Jesus, Patty, you sound like a low-budget movie, and we are not having that conversation. Ever. If you must know, I met a guy I worked with in Auckland and he happens to tend bar here. I said I’d drop by.” Kind of, almost. “Riiiight.” She sounded sceptical. “Do I know them? You’ve always said the best thing about your trips to New York was all the great clubs. I’ve never known you to waste your time on suburban bars.” My sister was way too perceptive. “True, but this is that model from fashion week last year? The guy Rhys discovered—” “Oh my god,” she blurted. “That gorgeous hunk of drool you shot for Flare. Alec someone, right?” “Alec Williamson. He got signed by Cage Talent after the show and has been in New York since. I ran into him quite by chance.” Patty was quiet for a few seconds as the cogs in her brain ticked over. “But you liked him, right?” What the fuck? I said nothing . “You can’t lie to me, Hunter. I know you. He’s the one hanging in your office on your wall of fame, aka my personal wall of hotness. He’s wearing Rhys’s design. Holy shit, Hunter. Do you have a thing? Are you—” I needed to shut this down fast. “He’s hanging there because it was my best friend’s signature shoot for his new label,” I argued. “Not because it’s Alec.” “Mm-hmm.” There was an irritating smile in her voice. “Pull the other one. I called into Flare that day, remember? You couldn’t take your eyes off him. Neither could I, to be honest, but you were a little smitten kitten.” I so was. “I so wasn’t. You’re dreaming. Alec is a great model, that’s all. If I was smitten, it was on a purely professional level.” “And yet you’re queuing to have a drink at the place he works?” Well, when you put it like that. “Maybe.” It was all she was getting. “It’s the friendly thing to do, right?” “Aha. Yep. Very neighbourly of you. Oh, here’s a thought. If you like him, how about you keep it in your pants for once, at least for more than a day? Get to know him.” Too fucking late. “Oh, look at that, the bouncer’s waving me in. Gotta go, sis. Nice talking to you.” I stabbed the End Call button, stared at the double doors for a second, took a deep breath, and then pushed through. The immediate assault to my eardrums almost rattled my brain from my skull. Add that to the heaving crowd and multicoloured light display circling the room and dripping down the walls, and I needed a minute to orient myself. I passed the coat check desk and slid against the closest wall to take a look around. The place was humming, the music pulsing loudly above the thrum of a hundred different conversations, while the surprisingly spacious dancefloor writhed with every possible combination of couples, throuples, and dogpiles of slick bodies. Like the queue outside, it was a younger crowd, mostly early twenties, but with enough around my age to drop the creep factor to acceptable. I watched the dancers for a bit, appreciating all the hot skin and tight muscle on display before scouting the bar. “You wanna dance?” A warm body leaned close, and I turned to find an attractive dark-haired man just inches from my face. He had the greenest eyes I’d ever seen and a pouty mouth made for sucking cock. He licked his lips and ran his hand up my arm. “You’re fucking gorgeous.” On any other night I would’ve had him down the back and on his knees with my dick down his throat in about five minutes flat, but I wasn’t even tempted—a disturbing fact that was worth an alarm bell or two. Instead, I simply smiled and covered his hand with mine. “Thanks. You’re pretty hot yourself, but I’m meeting someone.” 
GIVEAWAY! Hosted by: From the blurb: #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black makes her stunning adult debut with Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of betrayals, secret societies, and a dissolute thief of shadows, in the vein of Neil Gaiman and Erin Morgenstern.Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make. She's spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie Hall. Now, she’s trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but getting out isn’t easy. Bartending at a dive, she’s still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. Not to mention that her sister Posey is desperate for magic, and that Charlie's shadowless, and possibly soulless, boyfriend has been hiding things from her. When a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends into a maelstrom of murder and lies. Determined to survive, she’s up against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world—all trying to steal a secret that will give them vast and terrible power.  My thoughts: I think I'm going to be an outlier in my favourable opinion of this adult debut book by a much loved YA fantasy author. Rightly or wrongly, readers have and will be comparing Book of Night to The Folk of Air trilogy and many will find this dark and gloomy adult world lacking the sweet excitement and irresistible pull of the Cruel Prince. I still think this one is as good: the worldbuilding is excellent, the writing is beautifully compelling, and the main character Charlie...well, Jude wasn't flawless, but we all loved that second generation immigrant for her drive, determination, and dedication to loving Carden... Charlie is streetwise, impulsive (an adrenaline junkie), would do anything for her sister Posey and is in love with a 'broken', shadowless boy/man Vince with a heart of gold. Sounds familiar? The tone and the themes are different, of course. Instead of fighting for acceptance, here we have the very adult, very boring topic of taking responsibility for our past decisions and mistakes and owning them. For some people Past is their foundation, something to look back and smile in satisfaction and pride, for others it's something to run away from, suppress, forget, 'erase, rewind' and Charlie like most of us is somewhere in between. She is a notorious thief of magic paraphernalia (mostly books) who at the beginning of the book has been on a straight and narrow for a few years. It wasn't just somebody almost causing her death, it was her own emotional and ethical epiphany that made her say 'enough is enough'. The problem is that being a con artist and stealing was something she was brilliant at and it isn't easy to give up 'the capable' part of your identity when you're struggling with the rest. The world-building is as complex and brilliant as we've come to expect from Holly Black. The magic system is based on people's shadows and there are various categories of gloamists/shadow magicians. Since we follow the events mostly from Charlie's point of view and she is well-versed in this arcane world (given her professional expertise), there's no easy and natural way to explain things to the reader. We learn on the go through meeting various characters and seeing them in action (there are quite a few, so it isn't easy to keep track of them). There are also two timelines- Present is interspersed with Past chapters that slowly and gradually allow us to get to know and understand Charlie better. Romance...There's less of it, I'm glad that Holly Black didn't go the way other authors switching from YA to Adult went by including too many graphic scenes. I'm still in favour of closed door, off the page intimacy, but just a bit more tension, more emotional depth would have made it better and would have made me believe the last words in the book. What we're lacking in romance, we're getting in mystery and suspense. Starting from the Liber Noctem itself, Blights and Blight Hunters, staged murders, gloamists, Charlie's heists and the twists...including the major one...which you won't have any trouble seeing coming. Despite all this action, something was missing and the pace felt too steady. I loved the climax and the ending. While the first one had all the drama we had been missing up to that point, the ending was quiet, sweet and almost too simple. It also followed the logic of the narrative and character development, hopefully taking the story to the next level of adventure ...in the sequel. Can't wait to read it!
Damaged Doll
-- EXCERPT: She felt like she was underwater. Floating in emptiness, with no ground to stretch her toes out for, and no air to swim toward. It was endless… but not in a peaceful way. Someone had told her once that drowning was peaceful, that the brain gave a sense of euphoria as the lungs filled up with water, but Beth had never felt anything like that. No calm. No peace. Just a flickering memory of panic, and an absolute fear of the surface. Survival was supposed to be an instinct, and she knew she should want to reach the surface. To breathe air again, to stop suffocating in the dark… but all she ever did was dive deeper. The deeper she went, the easier it was to block out the flickering glimpses of the things happening above. All the sounds, the textures, the sensations. The things that were so much worse than drowning. But it got exhausting to stay down when her body wanted to be buoyant, wanted air, wanted freedom. A constant fight, a battle for depth whenever the water got rough and the waves turned the distant surface into chaos. It was happening again. That steady rise to the surface that brought back the panic, heart pounding in her ears as she became aware of the world outside the water. She wanted to dive down, to hide from the pull, but she was so fucking tired — and then there were the voices. Muffled, blurred by the water for a while… until she got closer. As the light grew brighter, and she started to feel, she could hear them. Too many. And him. His voice always stood out the strongest, even though it was always calm. Cold and calm. Just like the water farther down, where she was safer… but she wasn’t safe up here. Surfacing was always bad. Always. If she reacted, if she made a sound, then they’d know she could. Then the storm on the surface would just get worse, it would be harder to swim down with the water too rough. Harder to hide. Despite her best efforts to avoid it, the light got stronger, the world coming toward her, and she clenched her teeth tight to stay silent, to avoid the urge to scream or fight. And then she broke the surface, instinctively pulling at the cable around her wrist, tethering her to the bed — but it was better to be connected to the bed. Out of the bed was always worse. Out of the bed meant there might be someone new, somewhere new, which always meant pain. Although the surface was always painful, and she did her best to brace for it as her mind joined her body, as her eyes focused on the light and she felt the texture of sheets against her back and thick plastic around her wrist and – Curtains. Pale purple. A poster of a boy band. She was home. She kept forgetting that she was home, that she didn’t have to stay under anymore, didn’t have to fight the surface or feel the panic. Of course, knowing it didn’t keep her heart from racing, or her nails from digging into her palms as she pulled at the zip-tie around her wrist.
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The Crash
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: It’s a sunny day. Fluffy white clouds in a blue sky. No turbulence jostles us again. We couldn’t have asked for a better day to fly. It’s perfect, except for the sense of foreboding. The engine stutters. It’s not precisely wrong, but it’s not precisely right. “Carter? What’s happening?” “Nothing.” It’s not unprecedented. Engines make noise. They’re mechanical. It happens. I check the gauges. Nothing. It’s a small plane, but top-of-the-line. Well-maintained. I checked it over, tip to tail, when I arrived at Heathrow. Nothing was out of order then. Nothing should be broken now. Another stutter. This one’s bigger. Fuck. The fuel gauge swings down toward empty, ticking by line after line. My entire spine chills. That’s a malfunction. That’s a fucking problem. We’re dumping fuel on a delay, out over the ocean, almost like… Someone planned for this to happen. Fuck. Is that what my handler was calling about? How would she know something is wrong on the plane, thousands of miles away? I reach for the landing gear controls. They try to engage. They fail. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What’s happening is that the landing gear are stuck halfway open. Worse, I don’t trust the navigation equipment. The paper map in the panel above my head resists coming out, but I force it. Open it. Check my bearings one last time. Trust them one last time. Angle the plane in a slightly different direction. Off the flight plan, but toward the only land within range on the map. What the hell is going on? I’ve logged over half a million nautical miles. This has never happened before. The plane drops. A few hundred feet before I can steady it. June gasps, clapping a hand over her mouth. And then the engines cut out. It’s silent in the sky. Wind skims over the fuselage. My heart pounds in my ears. I ignore all of it. Because we’re going down. There’s nothing to keep this plane in the air. Not a prayer in the world could keep us flying without engines. “We’re going to land.” It’s the truth and nothing but the truth. There are no other choices. It’s land the plane or die. “Brace yourself.” “No,” she breathes. It’s only a whisper of breath, but I hear it. I feel it, brushing over my skin. I’m tuned in to her. Into the plane. Adrenaline floods my veins, making me tuned into the fucking universe. And every single signal is telling me that we’re fucked. A patch of green in the ocean comes into view. It looks impossibly small. Too small to land on, much less reach, but as we hurtle forward, it gets larger. Becomes an island. The island I saw on the map. That’s it. Our only chance at survival.
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Committed
-- EXCERPT: Laz had just started up the stairs when Journey came from the living room area. Just as she reached him, Kenton and Angelo strolled into the house. “Guys, thanks so much for everything you’ve done for us today,” Journey said. “I know you’re probably tired and ready to head home. We can take it from here.” “They’re not going anywhere,” Laz said with more bite behind his words than intended. This was why he had to get the hell out of there before he made the tension between him and Journey even worse. “You’re going to have a security detail until further notice. At least two guys at all times.” “Laz,” she started. “This is not up for negotiation.” He didn’t care how pissed she made him at times. Her safety was at the top of his list of priorities, and until he knew who or what they were dealing with, he wanted her protected. “I especially want someone around since I won’t be here.” Journey’s perfectly arched brows scrunched together, and she jammed her hands onto her hips. “What are you talking about?” “I’ll be staying in one of the crash rooms at work for a few days.” When his boss, Mason Bennett, had purchased an old warehouse to house Supreme Security, he had converted it into a state-of-the-arts facility. In addition to tech-smart meeting rooms, a cook’s kitchen, a gym and weight room, he’d had the foresight to include several rooms that were like studio apartments. Some of the security specialists, especially those who lived outside of Atlanta, used the spaces to grab a nap in between assignments instead of going home. “Whenever you’re at work or too busy for our daughter during that time,” Laz continued, knowing he was being an ass, “one of the guys will bring Arielle to me.” “First of all, how are you making these decisions without discussing them with me? Secondly, Arielle is going to Florida with my parents as planned.” “Like hell she is,” he roared. “Plans have changed.” Journey moved closer to him, and her I’m-not-taking-your-shit-tonight demeanor was fully in place. He loved this woman like crazy, and she was sexy as hell when she was angry. Any other time, he could appreciate the can of verbal whoop-ass she was about to unleash, but he wasn’t in the mood. “I know you’ve been through hell today,” she said with controlled fury, “but what you’re not going to do is come in here and start telling me how things are going to be.” From his peripheral, Laz saw the moment when Kenton and Angelo eased into the living room, which was probably for the best. He had a feeling this argument was going to blow up at any minute. “I’m done talking to you.” Laz started up the stairs to their bedroom. “Good, then you can do the listening,” Journey said and stomped up the stairs and shoved passed him. “I’ll meet you in the bedroom.” A smart man would do a one-eighty and head back down the stairs, but Laz never claimed to be smart. He wasn’t in the mood for a drag-down, blow out with Journey, but it was safe to say that’s exactly what was about to happen.
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Accidentally Working Class
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo -- EXCERPT: ‘The company has always been the heart of this family—for generations. The Appletons were synonymous with the products we made, that’s what made it special—we had wholesome, family values. But now the only way anyone hears anything about the Appletons is in the gossip magazines.’ Gran nodded at ever-faithful Lionel, who stepped forward on cue, turning to gather a stack of magazines from the sideboard to spread out on the table. Her brother was on some of them; his arm draped across the shoulders of a topless woman on a beach somewhere exotic on one, and standing naked in the doorway of a luxury villa on another, a huge yellow star hiding his groin (which, personally, Quinn thought was probably twice the size of whatever it was supposed to be covering). On the other covers, Greta was captured at various parties, kissing multiple men and women on different occasions; on another, she was holding up a bottle of Scotch with one hand and flipping the bird to a photographer with the other. Then there were the ones which featured her. Quinn grimaced slightly at the cover closest to her, having been taken after a heavy night of drinking. Of all the photos Gran could have used. She was sitting in the gutter out the front of a prominent nightclub, her top sliding off one shoulder, her skirt hitched up to an indecent level and her makeup smudged and hideous. It was unfair that even in drunken debauchery, Greta had never been caught on camera looking that horrific. Cow. Quinn had been featured in way more magazines than that, and had actually looked fricking amazing. Typical that it would be that cover they used to highlight her wayward behaviour. ‘This is what a once respectable family name has become,’ Gran said as her gaze moved around the table. ‘Mother, I hardly—’ her father started before he was cut off by a glacial glare. ‘I blame all of you for raising such delinquent children.’ ‘Just pointing out that I have no children,’ Tobias said, with a doleful glance towards his mother, ‘and can honestly say, looking at this, that I’m bitterly disappointed in my siblings and their offspring.’ He shook his head sadly at the offending magazines. ‘Oh, shut up, Tobias,’ Gran snapped, and without even needing to look at Lionel, the man dropped another three magazines on the pile, featuring her uncle in varying displays of undress at some questionable-looking parties. ‘Oh. Yes,’ Tobias murmured with a devilish grin, reaching over to snag the top one. ‘I remember that night.’ The self-satisfied smile vanished from his face when Gran reached over and snatched the magazine from his hands. ‘I will not have this family’s name dragged through any more mud. All of this nonsense stops right now. Until I’m confident that we’ve rebuilt our reputation back up to a standard we can be proud of, none of you will be getting a single cent out of this company.’ ‘Mother, I think you’re blowing this all out of proportion,’ her father tried once more, but bit back a frustrated sigh when she waved off his protest. ‘You’ll be noticing several changes that will start immediately,’ she continued, just as a rumble sounded outside. ‘What on earth is that?’ Quinn’s mother asked, frowning, or what would be frowning if her recently administered Botox had allowed her forehead to crease. Tobias dropped his linen serviette onto the table as he rose from his seat and went to the window, curiosity getting too much for him. ‘Mother, you wouldn’t,’ Tobias gasped, turning a disbelieving stare on Gran. ‘Yes, son. I would and I have.’ 
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Mermaid of St. Moritz
-- EXCERPT: They call it the “Top of the World.” The glitterati come to St. Moritz for its famous ski slopes, but they stayed for the champagne climate. Home to mineral springs and abundant forests, the chic village also draws a summer crowd. Late spring brings heavy rain and wildflowers as far as the eye can see. Today, though, the sun awoke and claimed the day. Gia rose from her slumber to find Florent making her an espresso. They had their coffee on the deck, soaking in all that Alpine glory. She finally felt relaxed again, knowing that she had taken care of Yiannis for good. “The scenery reminds me of the Sound of Music,” Florent mused. “Oh?” Gia asked. “Will you run to the top of the mountain and serenade me like Julie Andrews?” Florent chuckled. “You would like that, wouldn’t you? Seeing me turn round and round in circles?” “I am sure we can find you an apron somewhere. I would like the full experience, please.” He slid out of his chair and approached her, nuzzling her face with his prickly, unshaven skin. She put both hands on his cheeks and kissed him. “Mmm!” Florent smiled with a devilish grin. “I almost forgot, Gia! I have a surprise for you.” She grunted. “You know I hate surprises.” “Oh, but you will love this. I have organized a private yoga session… with baby goats!” “Florent, stop. Do not tease me.” “I am quite serious, Gia! I thought you could bring the au pair… and Serena could pet those smelly little goats. My daughter loves all animals. Serena is probably the same.” Gia realized for the first time that Serena had never been around any animal. The baby didn’t exactly have a normal start to her life. “All right,” Gia accepted, feeling amused by this new development on the itinerary. “I will shower and then… baby goats.” 
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