Nic Tatano - Cover Girl

NIC TATANO

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Harper Impulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2015

Copyright © Nic Tatano 2015

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover design by HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd

Nic Tatano asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © July 2015 ISBN: 9780008147051

Version 2015-09-01

‘One of the top 20 books of 2013’

I Heart…Chick Lit

‘E-book novel of the year’

Chick Lit Chloe

‘I truly adored this novel…One of my favourite books this year, for sure.’

Chick Lit Reviews

‘The heroine is sassy, the dialogue is razor-sharp and the romance is sweet. Well worth a read.’

Chick Lit Club

'Fast and funny'

Wondrous Reads

For Myra, the best thing that ever happened to me

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Nic Tatano's debut Wing Girl

Dedication

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

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Also by Nic Tatano …

Also by Nic Tatano …

Nic Tatano

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

“Men can’t write romance. Their sex scenes only last one paragraph.”

Keira Madison’s answer to the question as to why there were no men in the standing-room-only romance-writing seminar got a huge laugh from the crowd of over two hundred women. The tall, skinny redhead, a/k/a Cover Girl, was the most powerful editor in the romance genre. She smiled as she waited for the laughter in the auditorium to die down.

But it was all she could do to avoid adding one more sentence. “And this is why I never meet any guys in my job and I’m on my way to being a cat lady at thirty-five, even though I don’t have a friggin’ cat.”

The group settled down and Keira nodded at a young blonde in the second row who had her hand raised. “I’m curious if your own personal romantic experiences have an effect on the books you buy. You know, if you prefer fictional male characters who are like the ones in your life. Do you look for your type when you read a romance novel?”

Well, so much for holding back.

Keira pushed her mound of red tangles back from her face then grabbed the side of the wooden podium and leaned forward, her turquoise eyes getting wide. “Let me tell you something, girls. I love my job and wouldn’t trade it for the world. But look around this room. Do you see one guy in here? No. This genre repels men like a Star Trek force field. Drop by the romance division where I work. All women. The highlight of my week is when a man shows up to stock the soda machine and I drop by to get a Dr. Pepper just so I can talk to someone with a Y chromosome. And I don’t even drink soda. While my life revolves around romance and I’ve edited some of the steamiest books of all time with some of the hottest men on the covers, it is unfortunately all fiction. And since I don’t go to bars I rarely meet guys. So the answer to your question is no, since the best men I’ve met only exist on paper. I have a great job, but if you want a career that will let you meet guys, this ain’t it. If you think you’ll run into Prince Charming at your book-signing, fuhgeddaboudit. While I’m in the business of selling the Mister Right fantasy, for me it is, unfortunately, still a fantasy.”

Keira smiled as the crowd chuckled a bit. The clock on the wall told her she needed to wrap things up since the military thriller seminar had the place booked next. She looked at the back of the room and saw an attractive dark-haired thirty-something man peeking around the open door and pointed at him. “Hey, look, a cute guy! C’mon in, join the romance revolution!”

The crowd turned around and the man smiled. “Thank you, but I’m waiting for the next seminar.”

“C’mon, we won’t bite. You’ll never have better odds… two hundred girls to one guy. If you’ve got some sort of harem fantasy, indulge!”

The guy waved. “That’s okay, I’m not into a ménage à horde . ” He smiled, then disappeared to a lot of laughs.

“Figures. The one guy who drops by is a smart ass. See, romance is scary to them.” The group turned back to face her. “Now, watch, in five minutes this room will be filled entirely with men for the military thriller talk. So if you wanna meet a guy who likes to blow things up and dream of sharing a futon in his mother’s basement, stick around.” She looked at the back of the room to see if the guy reappeared, then raised her voice. “Hey, youse guys out in the hallway, if male writers were a little smarter, they’d realize the market for military thrillers is stone- cold dead and the easiest genre to crack is romance. C’mon in!” She paused a moment to see if there was any reaction. “Bueller? Bueller?” Still no one. “Oh, whatever. I gave it a shot.” Keira had time for one more question and pointed at a brunette in the back.

“Keira, do you think a guy could write a romance? I know you were joking around… but seriously, could a man do it?”

“Hey, good writing is good writing. A good writer is a good writer, regardless of gender. Every male author out there has female characters in his books, so it’s not like they can’t write women. And every one of you has a hero in your work, but no one ever says a female romance author can’t write men. There are a few guys out there who do write romantic novels, but a manuscript from one has never crossed my desk. But sure, a man could do it. He’d have to be a special kind of guy, though. I don’t think a man could write a romance unless he was a romantic soul at heart: the kind of guy who respects you as an equal but holds doors for you, who brings you gifts without occasion, who is kind enough to take in a stray kitten out of a rainstorm, who leaves little love notes on the pillow if he has to go to work early, who knows when a woman needs to be left alone and when she needs to be held, who is so damn hot every woman in the room is jealous of you, who will look at you in the same way twenty years after your wedding day and make your heart flutter. Who—”