Page 87 of Degrees of Control

Twitter

Goodreads

Other books she hath written

Locked Box

Something Borrowed

Something Else

Taunt

Open Hearts

Act Your Age

Acknowledgements

Original:

Thank you to Shaun who edited this whole damn book for a bottle of wine. Thanks to Liquid Silver Books for taking a chance on me and publishing my novel. Massive thanks to Deanna and Christine for wading through my many Australianisms and oddly conjoined words. Without you this manuscript would never have become what it is.

Updated:

Thank you first and foremost to Kole. DOC was the book that brought us together and am so, so grateful for that wonderful happenstance. You’re a diamond editor, a true gem, but still, fuck commas. Thanks to Letitia from RBA Designs. Your cover is fuckin’ fire and a half and I couldn’t be more proud of it. Massive thanks also go to Skye Warren who put DOC on her readers list and got the novel so much more exposure than I could have predicted/possibly achieved on my own. And Claire of course, she took time out of her vaycay to review my many grammatical errors. She’s golden and I love her.

Finally, humongous thanks to you, cool person who bought this book. You’re literally the wind beneath my wings. Unless you stole it, in which case eat a hundred dicks. Whenever something of yours is stolen I will be there in spirit, laughing and saying“that’s what you get noooooooob.”

But if you didn’t steal part of my life’s work, I maintain my original point about you being the bomb. Your readership makes me happier than I can say and if you wrote a review for DOC you’re basically a goddess (or a god, men read these books too probably. Maybe.).

So, in conclusion, at the end of the day, in summation, when all’s said and done, I guess I just want to say thank you to the many people who’ve helped and continue to help me on my journey, and, uh, go Tigers.

James and the Giant Dilemma

A Degrees of Control Novella

by Eve Dangerfield

Chapter 1

James Hunter clicked the ring box open and stared down at the contents—one ethically sourced three carat diamond set in a platinum band. He frowned, closed the box and shoved it into his backpack. Three months. This morning marked three months he’d been carrying the damn ring around without proposing. A quarter of a fuckin’ year and he couldn’t hand the thing over. He had no idea why, though he knew he wouldn’t be giving it to Charlotte this morning. Not this morning and not tomorrow either—whenever the hell that was. After three years in Australia, he still wasn’t sure what the time difference between Melbourne and the US was. He knew he had to call his sister Kelsey at ten on Sundays.

A hyperactive toddler ran past him, shrieking her irritation at the world. James rubbed a hand over his aching face. If they weren’t at the airport he could be sleeping in, making bacon and eggs or playing with his new toy—Charlotte, in the frilly leotard he’d bought her. Instead, he was here on the day after Christmas, preparing to fly back to the US.

He would have been more than happy to prolong a trip to America for another holiday season. Aside from missing Kelsey’s kids, the past three Christmases, Thanksgivings and Easters had been the most relaxed of his life. It had been Charlotte who arranged this visit to Minneapolis because she missed the friends she’d made in her brief time living in the city more than he missed his family. What the fuck did that say about him?

Nothing you didn’t already know, asshole.

A valid point. James glanced around Tullamarine airport. It was packed. Baggage carts rattled, backpackers collided with businessmen and mothers of all nationalities hustled their pajama-clad kids toward bathrooms and snack vendors. It was chaos, but that was life, James supposed, a big fucking airport where everyone rushed around like headless chickens, yelling to be heard over one another. Everyone except his girlfriend.

Charlotte Bell was waiting in line at the coffee stand, not fidgeting, not tapping her toes, not looking at her phone, she was justthere. Present in some indefinable but obvious way. Probably counting her breaths or reminding herself that the anticipation would make her almond chai latte taste better. She alone looked at peace amidst the disorder, as though she were standing in the eye of a storm.

Charlie, as she was affectionately known to everyone but him, was a teetotaler who neither wore suede boots nor ate chicken wings. She meditated every morning, volunteered for three different charities and her shoes were made of vegan leather. Her favourite food was baby spinach.Thatwas his girlfriend. Him. A piece of trash ex-model from Texas whose prime achievement before meeting her had been drinking a whole bottle of Jägermeister and still getting it up for a three-way. Not that he wasn’t still a little proud of that, butJesus H Christ.

He watched Charlotte with the eyes of a stranger, noticing how thick her long, dark hair was, how pink her pouty lips were. She licked them and he absently licked his own. She was twenty-seven but she looked younger, maybe because she operated on an entirely different frequency than the people rushing around her.

He wondered, as he often did at moments like this, if he’d have noticed her if they met for the first time today. Charlotte was pretty, but she dressed for comfort and was completely at ease in the background, not someone a guy like him used to notice, and if he did notice, approach—too much work when there were always easier conquests around. The thought that he might have passed her over for someone flashier in another time and place made his chest ache.

---