Page 58 of Honk if You Love Real Men (Tempting SEALs 1)

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sp; “You there?” the woman asked.

“I’m here,” Bree said softly, her lids tightly closed as words repeated themselves over and over in her head.

Finally. Finally he was going to pay.

“You happy?”

Was she? Bree didn’t know. Relieved, yes. Thrilled he was going to jail, yes. But she’d long since moved on with her life. It had taken nearly two years to bring John to trial, and in that time she’d done a lot of healing—both emotionally and mentally.

“I’m happy,” she answered at last, but she referred to her new life, not John’s conviction.

They hung up, a gentle hand landing on her shoulder. Bree turned into Trent’s arms, his big hands resting flat against her back as she laid her head against his heart.

“Well?” he asked.

“Ten years,” she said.

He tightened his grip. “He should have gotten twenty.”

“He didn’t have a record.”

“And the electric chair.”

Which made Bree smile. She’d long since gotten over her rage. She couldn’t be angry when what had happened had ultimately brought her and Trent together.

“I’m just happy he’ll never be able to do that to someone again.”

“You want to go out and celebrate?” Trent asked.

Bree leaned back. “Actually, I was thinking of another kind of celebration.”

He smiled, tipped down his head and kissed her, and as Bree felt his lips gently nudge apart her own, she marveled at how lucky she’d been. Things could have turned out so differently. Instead she was whole again.

“I love you,” she said, pulling back to stare up at him.

“I love you too,” he answered, grabbing her hand and kissing the engagement ring he’d placed there a few months back. “And I’ll love you even more when we’re finally married.”

“Oh?” she teased. “Does that mean I don’t have all your love now?”

He scooped her up in his arms. “I’ll give you all my love, baby.”

Which made her laugh, the teasing glint in his eyes causing her spirit to soar. And a few minutes later he did give her all his love, that and so much more, because while sex with Trent was always great, it was what he gave her emotionally that most mattered. He gave her love and hope and a joy she’d never had before. He gave of himself—and Bree would go on taking that for the rest of her life.

Have Mercy

Susan Donovan

Chapter One

Winifred Mackland’s kidskin pumps made quick work of Fifth Avenue, but the brisk pace and straight back were all bluff. The truth was, the screenplay tucked inside her Gucci briefcase was fifty percent written and one hundred percent crap, and this was not her usual triumphant stroll to her agent’s office, guaranteed hit in hand. This was a march of defeat. This was a trudge. This was bad news, and possibly the end of her career.

Win knew what happened to screenwriters who couldn’t write. They became Hollywood pariahs. Shopping-cart ladies. They went home to live with their mothers in Dothan, Alabama, where they could sleep in their middle-school-era beds adorned with matching pink quilt and pillow sham. These has-beens eventually came to be tried in literary court, where a judge could sentence them to death by frustration, death by ignominy, death by failure, death by—

“Good morning, Miss Mackland.” The security guard smiled politely as she signed in as one of Artie Jacobs’s clients. She tried to smile back, making an effort to shake off all the negative thinking. Win hated how her brain could find certain doom in a run of writer’s block. She knew she should be pouring that creative lava into the mold of her latest screenplay, the final installment of the Lethal Mercy trilogy. It was supposed to be the hottest, the best, the sexiest adventure yet for big screen bad-ass Maximillion Mercy. But for many weeks now, her thoughts had spun night and day, fuzzy, random, spiraling into nothing discernible.

With a shock, Win caught her reflection in the slick marble walls by the elevators, and realized her hair could be described in those exact terms. She hated August in Manhattan. She hated her curls. She hated that her perfectionism had sent yet another fairly serviceable boyfriend packing.

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