Isabel Sharpe - No Holding Back

ISABEL SHARPEwas not born pen in hand like so many of her fellow writers. After she quit work in 1994 to stay home with her first-born son and nearly went out of her mind, she started writing. After more than twenty novels—along with another son—Isabel is more than happy with her choice these days. She loves hearing from readers. Write to her at www. IsabelSharpe.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Lori H, for being there every day to whine to

Cover

About the Author About the Author ISABEL SHARPE was not born pen in hand like so many of her fellow writers. After she quit work in 1994 to stay home with her first-born son and nearly went out of her mind, she started writing. After more than twenty novels—along with another son—Isabel is more than happy with her choice these days. She loves hearing from readers. Write to her at www. IsabelSharpe.com.

Title Page No Holding Back Isabel Sharpe www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dedication To Lori H, for being there every day to whine to

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Copyright

“SO THERE I WAS IN PARIS at one of the greatest restaurants in the world, and stomach flu picks that night to turn on me, between the pigeon aux olives and the baba au rhum.”

“Oh, no. Imagine that.” Hannah O’Reilly swallowed another mouthful of tepid champagne and glanced desperately behind the large pallid lump named Frank who’d inflicted himself on this portion of her evening. At a New Year’s Eve party in an ostentatious mansion outside of her home city of Philadelphia, wearing one of those dresses saved all year for parties like this, she should be dancing wildly with a hot stranger. If she wanted boredom, she could have stayed home.

A waiter wafted by with a tray of tidbits. Hannah grabbed one, not sure what was in it, but assuming it cost more than her daily food allowance. Gerard Banks, owner of both this house and the newspaper that employed her, The Philadelphia Sentinel, threw a fancy New Year’s Eve party every year for his staff, friends and family. Hannah didn’t know which category this guy Frank belonged in, staff, friend or family, but she wished he’d bludgeon someone else with his stories. She was here for a healthy serving of hedonism.

“Another time, in London, I ate an oyster and felt movement between my teeth.” He mimicked checking in his large mouth and pretended to hold something up. “Turned out to be a worm. Never ate oysters after that.”

“I don’t blame you.” She laid her hand on his jacket sleeve to cushion the rejection. “You know…I think I’d like a refill on my champagne. It was great talking to you.”

“Sure.” He sighed and lifted his soda in a resigned toast. “Happy New Year.”

“Same to you, Frank.” She escaped, breathing a guilty sigh of relief, maneuvered between a chatting couple and a chartreuse settee, set her glass on a table full of similar empties next to the stone hearth and went searching for a champagne-bearing waiter. Then she was going to find some wild single hottie and flirt her head off. Because she was determined that this new year would launch a fabulous new chapter of her life. Careerwise, familywise and manwise. Out of the rut, into the rutting.

Bingo. Tuxedoed waiter ten paces ahead, carrying a tray of fizzing delight. She dodged between a ficus and a ceramic statue of a leopard. With any luck she could cut him off on the other side of the orange suede couch, and—

“Hannah, how’s the year winding down for you?” Tragically, her boss, Lester Wanefield, neither wild nor single nor with an extra glass of champagne, stepped into the few remaining feet between her and her next dose of bubbly. “Hey, now don’t you do good things for red sequins.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She loved how she looked in this dress, but enticing her boss made her wish she’d worn sackcloth.

“Great party, huh?”

“Mmm, yeah.” If she could keep herself from thinking the money should be used for something more worthy. Like charity or education or disease research or Hannah’s bank account.

She kept her eye on the waiter. This could still work. If he moved a few feet to his right and glanced her way…

“I’ve been thinking about your next assignment. Not for your Lowbrow column, but a feature story. Maybe start it on the front page.”

Lester had her full attention then—all rotund, gray-bearded, bespectacled, five-foot-six-inches of him. Now that she’d been at the paper over a year, she’d been pestering him—well, hinting first, suggesting second, pestering third—for more substantial assignments than the powder-puff stories he’d been tossing at her and burying in the back sections. “That would be fabulous, Lester. You know, I’ve actually been researching a story. There’s a little-known side effect of the drug Penz—”

“A story about boobs.”

If she punched him in his large stomach, would he squeal like the pig he was? “Boobs.”

“Women who’ve had boob jobs, to be precise. How does having a bigger rack alter their dating habits, their sex lives, their ability to attract men and does it change the type of men they score with?”

“How…interesting.” He had to be kidding. “But I was actually hoping to do—”

“We’ll call it ‘Rack of Glam.’ And I want lots of pictures.” He leered at a well-endowed woman strutting past. “Lots of pictures.”

“I’d rather—”

“I know you would, O’Reilly. But you don’t get your ‘rathers’ in this business until you’ve been around a lot longer than you have.”

“So you’ve said.” Ad nauseam. “But I—”

“No butts.” He gave her bare shoulder a condescending squeeze and winked. “Just boobs.”

Ew.

She approximated a smile, knowing further argument would only cement his opposition. But grrrrrr. How much girly news could a nongirly woman stand? Girly dress tonight aside.

She needed to find a story on her own, something bigger and sexier than the drug side effects, something so compelling that even Pig Lester couldn’t turn it down. A huge scoop with enough popular appeal to hook him, but enough substance to further her career and get her on such sound financial footing that if her parents’ lives imploded again she could be the one they could depend on.

Like…

Like…

Yeah. Like that.

She blew out a breath and spotted another waiter, wished her boss a Happy New Year that she barely managed to keep from sounding like Damn You and Your Family to Hell, and followed, determined to score more alcohol, this time to numb the frustration. A story about boobs. Whoopee. The year ended in approximately fifteen minutes and as far as she was concerned, good riddance. Landing what she thought would be her dream job hadn’t worked out. Again. Her last boyfriend hadn’t worked out. Again. Her determination to lose ten pounds hadn’t worked out. Again. Twenty-nine years old and she thought she’d be set for life by thirty.