Page 1 of Scandalous Secrets

Chapter 1

Monica

Ihad to get out of here.

I looked around the restaurant at other women acting coy with their first dates or sitting on the same side of the booth during probably their thirtieth date. I sucked in a defeated breath and reached for my wine glass, taking a long sip of chilled sauvignon blanc. The citrus flavor danced on my tongue, and I looked anywhere but at the man who was droning on in front of me.

He was cute. Not my type, but cute enough. His hair was a mousy brown and kind of lay like a floppy hat on his head. It seemed like the kind of cut he got in college, but just never grew out of. And at forty, that was something you should probably grow out of. His brown eyes were puppy dog-like. That’s what he was. A puppy dog. A forty-year-old puppy dog named Dean.

“So, that’s why I lost my last job…” he said with a sigh.

I had no idea why he lost his job because I hadn’t been listening since he told me about how he lied on his résuméabout charity work in Uganda. He might look like a puppy, but he was not innocent.

I wondered why my editor had set me up with this idiot, or why I had agreed. I said I had given up on dating, yet here I was, at a corner restaurant in Midtown Manhattan wearing too much makeup and plotting how to get out of here. We hadn’t even ordered food yet.

“So, what do you do?” asked Dean, leaning in as he shook his hair out of his face.

Wow. He was asking something about me. It only took twenty minutes.

“I’m a writer,” I said, my fingers sliding up the stem of my wine glass.

“Oh? Like a blogger?”

“No, like a writer. Novels.”

“Wow. Anything I would know?” he asked, leaning back in his chair and studying me as if he didn’t quite believe me.

“Do you read romance novels?”

He snorted and shook his head, his mousy, long hair shaking with him.

“Then probably not.”

I tried to ignore his insult, especially since my last book had been a total flop. I had no leg to stand on. I normally didn’t read reviews. My agent did. Typically, she shared the ones that really mattered. The good and a sprinkle of bad to save my pride. But this time there was hardly more than a dash of praise and it came from my die-hard fans who would defend me until the end. But even some of them had turned on me.

I couldn’t blame them. I had been in a complete rut since the book prior, which had made it to the Amazon Best Seller list in the romance category. That one I had been inspired for. My best friend had found herself in a sticky spot in life, but in the end, it landed her a beautiful baby girl and a loving husband. A wealthy, loving husband. Like billionaire status.

It was such an unexpected story. That’s what people craved. The fantasy in life. The excitement of meeting someone new and the messiness that came with falling in love. It was the typical romance trope of opposites attracting. People ate that up.

I knew they expected me to follow it up with a book just as good, but I had nothing to draw inspiration from.

I had been seeing someone for a while. His name was Josh. He was a writer like me, but in the sci-fi genre. It was nice to have someone to talk to who understood this life of writing in coffee shops, word counts, and deadlines. My editor had set me up with him (I should really stop trusting her with my love life.) She thought it would be a good match because we had so much in common.

And it was a good match, until it wasn’t.

Our first date was one for the books. Literally. I didn’t think we stopped talking or kissing or coming up for air the entire time. I was completely consumed by him. His intellect. Voice. Passion for writing. His hand on my knee. It was nothing like this date, where the only thing I wanted to do was find an exit.

Maybe I had been lonely for so long that I got lost in Josh. We became practically inseparable after that. He came to work out of my favorite coffee shop, and I went with him to his. We enjoyed too many lattes as we typed away on our laptops, sharing kisses and a few edits we went.

It went on for six months until he found someone else. Someone ten years younger who he had met at a book signing in upstate New York. She was a pretty little thing. Blonde, big boobs, blue eyes. Of course, I had Googled her. I needed to see. Needed to torture myself. Inspire myself.

Which was probably why my last book had been a flop. It had been angsty and there had been no happy ending. You can’t not have a happy ending. At least not in romance.

Plus, there was the stalker. I had a book-obsessed fan who lurked outside my apartment and followed me almost everywhere. The police did nothing until it really got bad and he broke into my apartment. Thankfully, I wasn’t home, but it was enough to finally make an arrest.

So yeah. It had been a year. Writing wasn’t exactly at the top of my list of priorities.

“I’m more of a graphic novel guy,” said Dean with a shrug. “Less words.”

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