Stephanie Doyle - The Way Back

Starting over sounds good…in theory!

The reality? Well, Gabriella Haines isn’t enjoying that so much. Once a top-rated TV host, suddenly becoming the junior editor at a publishing house isn’t playing to her strengths. She does have one chance to fast-forward a few career steps, however. If she can manage the impossible—convincing former American hero Jamison Hunter to finish the autobiography he owes them.

Too bad he’s resistant to all her tactics. Worse, that little star crush Gabby had on him before his downfall? She isn’t quite as over it as she thought. In fact, the more she knows the real him, the more she wants to uncover the truth about what happened. Because restoring him in the public eye may be the best chance they have at a future together.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

Jamison was smiling like he’d won a small victory, but the muscle in his cheek was twitching as though he was trying to hold himself back. “Tell me you don’t want me to move closer. That you don’t want me to reach my hand around your neck and pull you into me so I can kiss you.”

Jamison Hunter wanted to kiss her.

She wanted to kiss Jamison Hunter.

And the problem was…?

“What if I’m not big enough for you?” It shouldn’t have been a question, she thought. It should have been a statement, because it was true. Gabriella Haines was not big enough for Jamison Hunter. Not even close.

He scooted closer along the bench seat until their thighs were touching. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tugged her more tightly against him. Then he leaned back and looked out the windshield into the blackness. His relaxation made her relax by default. Not all of the tension dissipated, there was still the sexual kind, but the awkwardness of the date was finally behind them. Like they were starting again at a drive-in theater, watching a movie and it was the moment when the screen went blank right before all the action began.

Dear Reader,

People who know me, know I’m a huge golf fan. In particular, I’m a Tiger Woods fan. So on that fateful Thanksgiving day when his car crashed…or his wife took him out with his own golf club…I, like everyone else, was shocked and not a little heartbroken that my golf hero proved to be not very heroic.

In the years since, I’ve watched the greatest player in the game fall from the very top to the very bottom, and watching that fall of course made me consider all the ramifications of it.

Now, I’m certainly not justifying Tiger’s actions, yet I couldn’t help but imagine what a person would go through after such a collapse. More importantly, how a person might find it in himself to make his way back. This story is my spin on how sometimes the best thing that can happen to a person is to lose everything and try to earn it back. Including love.

I love to hear from readers! I can always be reached at www.stephaniedoyle.net.

Enjoy!

Stephanie Doyle

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephanie Doyle, a dedicated romance reader, began to pen her own romantic adventures at age sixteen. She began submitting to Harlequin Books at age eighteen and by twenty-six, her first book was published. Fifteen years later, she still loves what she does as each book is a new adventure. She lives in South Jersey with two kittens who have taken over everything. When she isn’t thinking about escaping to the beach, she’s working on her next story idea.

To Kevin, Trevor and Ryan

No matter where life takes you as you get older…

we’ll always have the beach

Contents

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

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

“GABBY, I THINK you should do it. What do you say?” Melissa Smith, senior editor at McKay Publishing, sat at the head of the table wearing an expectant expression.

Gabby Haines looked at her boss. Oh, no. Melissa was talking to her. She expected her to say something in return. The proper response would have required listening. Probably not the best time to admit she’d been thinking about what she would have been doing at her old job at this time of day. Not when she was only two days into her new job.

“Well?”

Let’s see, Gabby thought. She was a junior editor in her first editors’ meeting and her boss was calling her out to do something. She was probably being asked to do a low and vaguely demeaning task such as fetch coffee. Best to simply go with it.

“Absolutely. I’m on board. Tell me what you need.”

Melissa clapped her hands. “Excellent. Go bring back Jamison Hunters’ tell-all biography with a nice pink bow on it.”

Gabby blinked. Okay, she had not imagined hearing Jamison Hunter’s name. No way would a conversation containing those two names, Jamison and Hunter, occur that her ears didn’t perk up and her brain immediately focus. Not to mention other parts of her body.

“I’m sorry? Who…?”

Melissa smiled. “That’s right. The elusive author we want you to track down is none other than Jamison Hunter.”

“Jamison Hunter? The astronaut. The legend. The…cheating pig bastard?”

“That’s the one.” Melissa nodded as the other editors surrounding the massive conference table chuckled.

Apparently everyone was in on the joke except Gabby.

“You’re the new kid on the block and we always send the new kid on the block.”

“I went three years ago,” Mary Jane, an editor who focused on cozy mysteries and self-help titles, chimed in. “Disaster. The man had me in tears in mach two seconds.”

“I don’t get it,” Gabby said, trying to catch up with what she’d missed. “You want me to bring back his story? The autobiography of Jamison Hunter? He’s one of the most reclusive people on the planet. He hasn’t been heard from in years. I’m talking J.D. Salinger level hermit. You’ve got better chance of getting President Clinton to give us a tell-all about his days with Monica Lewinski than you do of getting this guy to talk.”

“Yes, I know,” Melissa agreed. “But here’s the thing we have with Hunter, which we don’t have with President Clinton—a binding contract. Hunter—in a major deal, I might add—agreed to give us his story. Granted, that was a few weeks before the scandal hit. Afterward, he tried to return the advance, but we refused it. We thought he might change his mind, might want the world to know his side of the story. And when that time came, he’d already be committed to us. Given the sizeable advance we paid him, we’ve got a lot at stake. So every few years we send an eager new face to meet him and personally give him a nudge.”

Eager and new were not two words Gabby would necessarily associate with herself. Washed up and worn down were more accurate.

Get a grip, Gabby. You got fired, not murdered.

It was her inner therapist at work. Just because she lost the hottest job on morning television in Philadelphia to a younger, thinner, hipper version of herself did not mean her life as she knew it was over. Her ego had taken a punch was all. And her self-esteem. And her self-confidence.

And her wallet.

The truth was, she’d been lucky to land this job—even if it was an entry-level position. Even if at thirty-three she felt more like sixty-three working with so many young twentysomethings. Twentysomethings who were all ahead of her on the corporate ladder. Twentysomethings to whom she would have been teaching the ropes at her old job.