Simona Taylor - Meet Me in Paris

“Starving, but I really have to be going,” he yelled back.

Sure you do . Against her better judgment, she hovered outside the bathroom door. She couldn’t resist the urge to go in and talk to him—but he was in the bathroom. He deserved his privacy. And he’d be naked. But what the heck, it was her clear shower stall and it wasn’t like they’d been playing tiddlywinks all night. She’d seen him as naked as he could get.

She stepped in.

He was wet and golden and amazing, skin glowing as he scrubbed it down under the steaming flow. She was sidetracked for a moment, watching him. Back turned to her, he bent over to soap his feet…oh, my. Whoever said that men were more easily aroused by visual stimuli didn’t know what they were talking about. Could any woman ever get tired of such a sight? Then she remembered her purpose for entering. “You’re sure I can’t offer you anything? Coffee?”

He turned to her, water dripping off his eyelashes and down his lips. “I’d love to, honey, but time’s against me.”

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

SIMONA TAYLOR

lives on her native Caribbean island of Trinidad—a fertile place for dreaming up scorching, sun-drenched romance novels. She balances a career in public relations with a family of two small children and one very patient man, while feeding her obsession with writing.

She has also published three works of women’s literary fiction under her real name, Roslyn Carrington, but it is her passion for romance that most consumes her. When not dreaming up drool-worthy heroes, she updates her Web site, www.scribble-scribble.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Once again, for Rawle and our two little funny-bunnies.

Thank you for the beautiful life we’ve built together.

Hey folks,

Those of you who read my blog, The Scribble Pad, know I’m a scatterbrain. I’m always carrying on about something or other that I forgot to do or said when I shouldn’t have. Well, what with my freelance work, my kids, my books, my blog, my passionate love affair with my kitchen, my reconciliation with my herb garden after a bitter breakup, my pets and the hunky love of my life, who wouldn’t be a flake?

But you want to know how forgetful I was this time? I came this close to shipping off the manuscript for Meet Me in Paris without my “Dear Reader” letter. I must be nuts! This letter is one of the rewards for finishing the book. Why? Because I get to talk to you live and direct. One of the other rewards? When you talk back.

Over the past four years or so, I’ve worked at turning my Web site and blog (at www.scribble-scribble.com) into a fun community. You really ought to pass by and say hi.

I’m also reaching out to readers’ groups from all over the world, just to find out what they’ve been reading and to let them know what I’m working on next. If you want to be on my mailing list, drop me a line. You can e-mail me (come on, tell me what you thought about Meet Me in Paris! ) at roslyn@scribble-scribble.com.

You can also snail-mail the love to me at:

Roslyn Carrington

(or Simona Taylor, I can live with either one)

P.O. Bag #528

Maloney Post Office

Maloney

Trinidad and Tobago

and I’ll bounce some right back.

Till then, take care.

Simona

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Gonna Be One of Those Days

F irst, there was the pantyhose. The last pair of pantyhose in the drawer, and silk ones at that. The last pair in the whole apartment, and considering the current state of Kendra’s finances, the last one she’d be wearing until payday rolled around—and they had a run. Not a dinky, fix-it-with-a-dab-of-nail-polish sort of run, either. It was the kind of run that should be more truthfully described as a ladder, and a four-alarm fire engine ladder to boot.

Then there was the scorch mark on her silk blouse, a Japanese designer original, put there by Kendra herself when, in her irritation over the pantyhose, she’d accidentally set the iron to Wool rather than Silk. The mark snuggled in her left armpit, almost indiscernible, but it was a crime to ruin anything that gorgeous.

Naturally, when Kendra arrived at the towering Farrar-Chase building on Blackburn Boulevard, the elevator was down again. The cab sat forlornly in the lobby, its doors dismantled and its guts exposed, like the victim of a woeful accident. Workmen in blue coveralls stood around drinking coffee and solemnly contemplating the problem.

Kendra’s workplace, the head office of the Wanderlust chain—renamed from Salomon’s Travel and Tours a few months ago, when the new owner blew into town like a tornado—was on the sixteenth floor. Universe 3-Kendra nil. She sighed and began to climb the stairs.

By the time she reached her floor, it was nine-fourteen. Near the swinging glass doors, Mrs. Mertz was lurking, like a ferret who’d heard a rumor that there were nice fat mice on the loose. Lurking and smiling. No, not smiling, smirking. Her lipstick was a scary, bloodied scarlet, the same shade she had been wearing for years. Kendra was sure it was the only color she owned. “Nine-fifteen,” Mrs. Mertz said. She tapped her watch, in case Kendra hadn’t cottoned to the fact that she was talking about the time.

“Fourteen,” Kendra corrected, and pointed to the wall clock. Childish, she knew, but the woman always made her feel like a kid.

“Whatever. You’re still late.” Her too-long eye teeth were tipped with red.

Kendra suppressed a shudder and hurried to her desk, ripping off her favorite Hermès scarf and, more reluctantly, her gorgeous Balenciaga coat, as it bared her laddered stocking for all to see.

Then Iris walked in, and Kendra felt a thumping at her temple, like the band striking up moments before the Titanic hit the iceberg. She hadn’t even had her coffee yet. Iris’s homing device led her unerringly toward Kendra’s cluttered desk. “Busy?” she asked, and sat without waiting for an answer.

Kendra liked Iris well enough. The older woman was as cheerful as they came, although her voice rose half an octave or so above the threshold of human tolerance. But, as many women did when they were flushed with the newfound joys of wifedom and motherhood, she waxed lyrical about the most unsettling things…and did so at great length.

“Uh…” Kendra hit the power button on her computer, knowing even as she did so that the old heap would take forever to get going. “A little,” she hedged, all the while silently yelling, “Hurry, hurry! Boot up!”

Iris smelled of lavender bath salts and Cheez Whiz spread. She was wearing a necklace of spray-painted pasta elbows strung together with odd-shaped lumps of clay by her four-year-old. She wore it as reverently as if it were a string of pearls. On her right shoulder was the grubby handprint of her eighteen-month-old. It was Monday, and that inevitably meant Kendra would be treated to an expansive rundown of the weekend’s antics by the tireless duo. She braced herself.