Write It Up!: Rapid Transit / The Ex Factor / Brewing Up Trouble

ELIZABETH BEVARLY

“The very best in love and laughter.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

“Exceptionally engaging!”

—Publishers Weekly

TRACY KELLEHER

On The Truth About Harry

“Effectively mixes stirring sensuality with sophisticated humor and light suspense.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

On It’s All About Eve…

“Well-rounded characters, sizzling love scenes and witty dialogue.”

—Romantic Times BOOKclub

MARY LEO

“Warmth, humor, quirky characters—

Mary Leo always writes a winner!”

—Maureen Child, USA TODAY bestselling author

“Mary Leo’s stories are sort of like wearing Prada with your circa-70s striped toe socks…classy but fun!”

—Holly Jacobs, 2004 Romantic Times BOOKclub Career Achievement Award Winner

Dear Reader,

It’s hard to believe that the Signature Select program is one year old—with seventy-two books already published by top Harlequin and Silhouette authors.

What an exciting and varied lineup we have in the year ahead! In the first quarter of the year, the Signature Spotlight program offers three very different reading experiences. Popular author Marie Ferrarella, well-known for her warm family-centered romances, has gone in quite a different direction to write a story that has been “haunting her” for years. Please check out Sundays Are for Murder in January. Hop aboard a Caribbean cruise with Joanne Rock in The Pleasure Trip in February, and don’t miss a trademark romantic suspense from Debra Webb, Vows of Silence, in March.

Our collections in the first quarter of the year explore a variety of contemporary themes. Our Valentine’s collection—Write It Up!—homes in on the trend of alternative dating in three stories by Elizabeth Bevarly, Tracy Kelleher and Mary Leo. February is awards season, and Barbara Bretton, Isabel Sharpe and Emilie Rose join the fun and glamour in And the Envelope, Please….And in March, Leslie Kelly, Heather MacAllister and Cindi Myers have penned novellas about women desperate enough to go to Bootcamp to learn how not to scare men away!

Three original sagas also come your way in the first quarter of this year. Silhouette author Gina Wilkins spins off her popular FAMILY FOUND miniseries in Wealth Beyond Riches. Janice Kay Johnson has written a powerful story of a tortured past in Dead Wrong, which is connected to her PATTON’S DAUGHTERS Superromance miniseries, and Kathleen O’Brien gives a haunting story of mysterious murder in Quiet as the Grave.

And don’t forget there is original bonus material in every single Signature Select book to give you the inside scoop on the creative process of your favorite authors! We hope you enjoy all our new offerings!

Marsha Zinberg

Executive Editor

The Signature Select Program

For David,

who made a rapid transit into my life and thankfully never left it.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Sweetie

CONTENTS

Rapid Transit Elizabeth Bevarly

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Ex Factor Tracy Kelleher

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

EPILOGUE

Brewing Up Trouble Mary Leo

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Preface

TESS TRUESDALE, FOUNDER and editor in chief of the ultra-glam, ultra-bad-girl magazine Tess, basked in the glow of diffused lighting. She presided from behind her stainless-steel desk while the two other people in her office squirmed in vintage Arne Jacobsen chairs. Danish modern had never been so industrial, so sleek and so uncomfortable.

Tess smiled, content.

No one else did. Or had been. Both states being morphologically impossible for underpaid and overly cynical magazine writers.

“It was one of those karmic things, really.” Tess waved the tip of an onyx cigarette holder in a large loop. The mint-green cigarette at its tip burned slowly, a testament to her disregard for the no-smoking regulations in the building and her belief in the mantra she preached monthly to her devoted readers: “Go where no mother has been before, and where no father wants to know about.”

“I was enjoying a blissful moment on the deck off the master bedroom of Olympia.” Olympia was the “shack” in Southampton owned by Tess and husband number three, oil tanker billionaire Spiros Andreapolis. “Spiros was giving me a foot massage with the new Kiehl’s lotion that we wrote about last month, while I was sipping the perfect cosmopolitan. The sun was setting over the dunes, and there was silence, absolute silence—except for the occasional beep from the security system, of course. And that’s when the idea came to me.”

“That the social season had switched back to the city one week after Labor Day?” Abby Lewis ventured. One of the three senior writers on the magazine, Abby had just returned from a stint at Tess’s sister publication in Milan, Italy. Jet lag, not a heavy application of Bobbi Brown eye shadow, darkened her eyes.

“That salt air can be ruinous for a girl’s complexion?” suggested Samantha Porter, another of the senior writers. Draped in a chair next to Abby, she wore a golden Versace ensemble, the tight pants hugging her pencil-slim hips and the top negligently open to a bejeweled clasp just above her belly button.

Tess flicked the burning end of the cigarette into the Venetian glass ashtray. “Ooh, I just love it when you girls talk nasty. It means I’ve been the proper mentor after all. Still—” she paused “—I have my moments of inner reflection, and not just after having a colonic irrigation.

“You see,” she went on, “it occurred to me how lucky I was with my marvelous good fortune, and that there must be something I could do—we could do as an organization—to help others achieve some of this kind of serenity.”

“We’re going to sponsor a Fresh Air Fund kid to stay at Casa Olympia next summer?” Abby asked. As if.

“Of course not. I have white rugs. I couldn’t possibly have children. No, I realized that what we needed to do was to help other women obtain my lifestyle.”

Tess sat up straight, all business. “What I’m talking about, darlings, is opportunity. We’re going to show women the quickest, hippest ways to find the right rich mate.”

“You think if we knew the quickest, hippest ways to find the right mate, the right rich mate, we’d be sitting here?” Samantha asked.

Tess placed her buffed elbows on the desk and positioned her chin on entwined fingers. “No one ever really leaves Tess and all it stands for.” She let that pronouncement hang in the air. Then she zeroed in on Abby. “You will delve into the world of ex-dating.”

Abby coughed into her hand. “Do you mean extreme dating, as in tandem hang gliding on the first date or making out on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro?”

“No, Abby darling, that’s ‘ex’ as in former. From what I’ve gathered, it seems there are women out there who go to great lengths to help hook up their former beaux on this Web site, a kind of online matchmaking service that provides dating recommendations stamped with a type of Good Ex-Housekeeping Seal of Approval. I’m sure you’ll find out all about the particulars.”

Abby nearly gagged. She clutched her thighs tightly, the imprints of her fingers making deep grooves in the gabardine trousers.

Samantha smirked and didn’t bother to hide it.

Tess narrowed her eyes momentarily at Samantha before turning the full power of her LASIK-corrected eyes on Abby. “Now, Abby darling, I don’t want to let that little contretemps with your ex-boyfriend interfere with your ability to do this assignment.”

“Little contretemps?” Abby practically screeched. “The louse dumped me minutes after I’d won the internship to spend six months in Milan.”

“Really, there’s no need to be dramatic,” Tess replied dismissively. “Besides, the only real tragedy in the whole affair ending as far as I can fathom is that you need to find a new place to live now that you’re back in New York.”

Abby turned to Samantha. “And who blabbed all the details of my personal life around the office, huh?” It was an open secret that Samantha viewed Abby as a professional rival. When she’d found out Abby had gotten the Milan internship and not she, Samantha had launched her designer-suited-self at Abby’s throat. The fashion department had buzzed about it for weeks, totally eclipsing the disappointing London shows.

“Abby, there’s no need to point fingers,” Tess scolded. “Everyone knows I take a genuine interest in my staff’s personal and professional welfare.” True, though in Tess’s case, everyone also knew she exploited this information for Machiavellian purposes—lavishing an overabundance of care and attention to instill sufficient guilt so that employees wouldn’t complain about their measly salary and long hours.

Abby stewed for a moment before accepting the inevitable. “So if I’m ex-dating, what do you have in store for Samantha?” Ah, yes, the other shoe had yet to drop.

“Coffeehouse dating.” Tess picked up her cigarette holder and inhaled deeply before taking another breath.

Samantha immediately clutched her nicotine patch. “All those testosterone-impaired, Sartre-spouting losers who are too cheap to spring for their own wi-fi connections?”

“I’m sure some of them read James Patterson,” Tess countered. “Anyway, apparently coffeehouse dating works this way. Patrons provide biographical information and photos to the barista, who makes up these matchmaking binders. Then as you sip your skinny double lattes, you can peruse the offerings. Isn’t that marvelous?”

Samantha answered by grinding her teeth.

Abby frowned. “You mentioned three writers?”

“Yes.” Tess puffed in dramatic Auntie Mame fashion. “I thought Julia would do a wonderful job with speed-dating.”

Samantha’s jaw stilled. “Julia Miles, the magazine’s sweetheart, everybody’s sweetheart, doing a piece on speed-dating? The woman who told me she baked a lattice-topped pie for Geraldine in Accounting after her emergency appendectomy. I didn’t even know there was a Geraldine in Accounting. Did you?” She looked at Abby, who shook her head.

Tess took no notice. “Unfortunately, she’s not in the office right now, otherwise she’d be at the meeting.” Tess seemed put out. Her intercom buzzed and she held up her hand. “Yes?”

“Collette can fit you in now,” her assistant Ling Ling relayed. Tess went through assistants about as often as a dog marked fresh territory. Ling Ling, the daughter of Hong Kong’s leading action-film director, appeared to be able to deflect Tess’s jabs better than most.

Tess removed her cigarette from the holder and stubbed it out. “Darlings, I must be off. You will bring Julia up to speed for me, won’t you? The usual four-week deadline, of course, seeing as this will run in the February issue—in time for Valentine’s Day. Remember—first-person point of view. We want our readers to know just how juicy this kind of dating can be, don’t we?” She waved them out of her office, a miasma of Creed perfume floating along the length of her well-toned arm.

Abby and Samantha made it partway down the hall before Abby stopped. “So, tell me. What was that all about?”

“You mean the story assignments from hell? To think that the aroma of artificial hazelnut is going to penetrate my pores, not to mention the fact that some black turtle-necked pseudo-intellectual will be drooling over my photo.” Samantha shuddered.

Abby shook her head. “No, that’s just Tess’s usual manipulative behavior to keep the minions on edge. I’m talking about this Collette thing. What was so urgent?”

“Collette?” Samantha waved her hand. “She’s the current ‘It’ girl for giving chemical peels to the stars. Didn’t you see the way Tess reacted when I said salt-water wasn’t good for the skin?”

“Yoo-hoo, Abby. I’ve been looking for you.” The voice came from the elevators. Julia was racing down the hall toward them. She wore a baby-doll Betsey Johnson dress and ballet flats. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz never looked more wholesome. “Oh, hello, Samantha. Only you can carry off Versace in the middle of the morning.” From Julia, that was a compliment.

“So what happened at the story meeting I missed?” Julia asked.

“Trust me—” Samantha imitated Tess lording over everyone with her cigarette holder “—you didn’t miss anything, darling.” She looked at Abby dismissively. “In fact, I’ll leave you to fill in Betty Crocker on the details. I want to catch Ned before he finishes his cover shoot so that he can take my photo. I have to look my most ravishing for the biscotti and café au lait crowd.”

“So Ned’s still around?” Abby asked Julia after Samantha had sauntered off in her Jimmy Choos.

“According to circulation, there’s always a bulge in newsstand sales when his covers appear. Though Tess is complaining that he’s too expensive.”

“Tess complains that everyone is too expensive. What else is new?” She started walking toward her desk in a cubicle around the corner.

“Actually—” Julia took a series of deep breaths.

“Are you all right?” Abby looked concerned.

“It’s nothing. Just trying to put in practice some of the stress-busting breathing techniques I just learned about from this tantric sex therapist.”

“Yes, well, I can see how Tantric sex and stress might go together.” Abby paused. “We’re talking about an article for the magazine, right?”

“Of course we’re talking about the magazine. What did you think? Oh, never mind. What I really wanted to talk to you about was if you might have some leads on potential apartments? You see, I was planning on having my book group over on Wednesday, and with you camped out in the couch, with all your stuff…Not that you’re at all in the way…”

“No, problem. Hey, I’ve imposed on you long enough. Besides, once I tell you about the latest assignment, you’ll probably need to recuperate in a prone position on said couch—just to get over the shock.”

“It’s that bad?”

“You might want to start those breathing exercises now.”

PROLOGUE

JULIA MILES STOOD OUTSIDE the big, ominous door that opened onto her employer’s big, ominous office and did her best not to hyperventilate. She told herself that there was no reason to be afraid of Tess Truesdale, that she herself had been a senior writer for Tess magazine for a long time now, and Tess had never once made good on her threat to have one of her writers’ spleens for dinner. Tess was all bluster and brass and big-shouldered bitching…and Givenchy and Grey Goose and Chanel No. 5. Oh, sure, there was that rumor about the guy from the mail room who’d disappeared and then been discovered months later—in pieces—after misplacing some galleys for the fall fashion issue, but that was different. That had been a guy from the mail room. Julia had never heard of Tess hacking one of her writers to bits.

Yet.

Of course, there was a first time for everything, and the admonitions of Julia’s co-workers, Abby and Samantha, still buzzed in her ears. Julia had missed a meeting yesterday about a new assignment for the three of them, and now she would have to suffer Tess’s exasperation at having to go over it a second time. Tess hated doing things a second time. If something wasn’t done perfectly the first time…Well, that was where the spleen-for-dinner thing usually came in.

Smoothing a hand over her flowered, crinkle chiffon Betsey Johnson dress, Julia lifted a hand to the big, ominous door and knocked.

“Entrez-vous” came her employer’s voice from the other side.

Dutifully, Julia entered, closing the door behind her. Tess was dressed in basic black today—in spite of the warm September outside—a mock turtleneck and straight skirt that made her look very much like an older Kim Novak from Bell, Book and Candle, one of Julia’s favorite movies. Would that Tess would be as sweet as Kim—or would that Julia could perform a little witchcraft like Kim—this meeting might be easier to get through.

“You missed a meeting yesterday,” Tess said without preamble before Julia had even completed the dozen steps that brought her to stand before her employer’s big, ominous desk.

The comment didn’t invite a reply, but Julia did her best to excuse her absence by telling her employer, “I’m sorry, Tess. I was out of the office working on another story.” What she didn’t add was that it had been a story Tess herself had assigned to her, so if Julia hadn’t been around for the meeting, it wasn’t exactly her own fault.

Instead of complaining, though, Tess only waved her bejeweled cigarette holder through a haze of smoke in front of her face and said, “I have a new assignment for you and Abby and Samantha. It’s for our February issue. Valentine’s Day, darling.”

Uh-oh, Julia thought. Valentine’s Day meant love. Couples stuff. Romantic stuff. It wasn’t exactly her area of expertise.

“Valentine’s Day?” she echoed with obvious trepidation.

Tess moved the cigarette holder to her mouth and inhaled deeply, holding the smoke inside for several moments while Julia watched fascinated. The woman’s lungs must be as black as her attire. Then again, Tess was a stickler for making sure her clothing and accessories matched. She’d doubtless insist on doing the same for her organs.

Finally, Tess exhaled, saying at the same time, “I want you to go out and meet men. Lots of men. And I want you to date them. Then I want you to write about your experiences in great detail for the magazine.”

Julia’s eyebrows shot up behind her long, medium-brown bangs. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

Tess expelled a sound of impatience. “Darling, you really should have been at the meeting yesterday. It’s going to be so tedious having to go through all this again.”

Oh, fine, Julia thought. Her editor wanted her to put herself on the block for a virtual gang bang and was calling it tedious? Julia could think of a few other things to call it. Luckily for her boss, she was way too polite to say any of them. And lucky for Julia, too, since saying them would land her on the street without a job like that.

“It’s called speed-dating,” her editor told her. “Have you heard of it?”

“A little,” Julia said. What she didn’t add was Enough to know I don’t want any part of it. Because she had a feeling she would have to eat those words if she said them aloud.

“It’s the latest thing for meeting people,” Tess added.

It was also the lamest thing, Julia thought.

“It’s something we’re long overdue for covering,” her editor said.

It was something that should be covered up completely, Julia thought.

“And I can’t think of a better person to write it up than you.”

Except maybe someone who actually wanted to write it up.

Julia sighed inwardly and mentally cleared her calendar. She was going to need a lot of free time if she was going to be a sacrificial lamb.

Tess tapped the ashes of her cigarette into a millifiore ashtray on her desk and smiled. A predatory, scheming, spleen-eating smile. A smile that told Julia she was about to be coated in a nice mint jelly.

“Darling,” Tess said as she lifted the cigarette to her mouth again. “Here’s what I want you to do.”

CHAPTER ONE

WHEN SHE HEARD THE BELL RING, Julia’s first instinct was to come out of her corner swinging. Which was a perfectly appropriate response. Because seated as she was in a bar full of people, wearing her favorite dress fashioned of black lace over pink charmeuse, armed with an appletini (and not afraid to use it), she was here to meet men. And lots of them.

Speed-dating. The words echoed in her head—though it was Tess’s voice saying them—as Julia awaited the arrival of her first victim…ah, date, she meant, of course. Who had come up with such a concept, anyway? Maybe she should explore the genesis and history of the phenomenon, too, as she researched her article for Tess magazine. See if she could find out just where the whole idea of dating en masse for four-minute increments had originated.

Then again, speed-dating was a good description for Julia’s own alleged love life. In the five years since she’d graduated from college, she hadn’t dated anyone for more than a few months. Usually, the guys she went out with disappeared after a few dates. And there had been one or two she wished hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes.

Even her college boyfriend, whom she’d dated for more than a year, had been surprisingly easy to get over after he’d dumped her for the captain of the gymnastics team, telling Julia that the whole double-jointed thing was going to be such a boon to his sex life. The joke had been on him, though. It had been sweater-weather at the time, so it had taken a couple of weeks for him to discover that gymnasts have no breasts, and by that point, Julia was so over him.

Since then, however, even her breasts hadn’t been enough to keep guys around. Or maybe the scarcity of a long-term relationship had been more due to her demand that she be treated with respect and dignity. Hard to tell. Men never seemed able to distinguish between honoring the breasts and honoring the woman.

She shoved a handful of shoulder-length, medium brown hair over one spaghetti-strapped shoulder—thankfully, the September evening had cooperated with her wardrobe by being balmy and dry—fluffed up her overly long bangs, and hoped she hadn’t applied her glittery eye shadow and lip gloss too heavily. She wasn’t normally one to wear a lot of makeup, but something about tonight’s event had made her drop into a Sephora store on the way home from work last night and spend more than she should have on stuff she’d probably never use again.

Or maybe she’d just wanted to adopt a disguise of sorts. The prospect of meeting so many men in one sitting had generated a desire in her to never be recognized on the street. It didn’t matter that eight million other people lived in New York, or that one rarely even saw one’s next door neighbors in this city. With her luck, every man she met tonight would be standing in line in front of her at Starbucks in the morning. Treating this like a masquerade had seemed like a good idea.

The first man on her list, Julia saw as she glanced down at her roster of prospective mates for the evening, was Randy 6. Well, now. That sounded promising. It had been a while since Julia had had any six…uh, sex. The way she was starting to feel, the randier Randy 6 was, the better.