Tempted by Mr. Write (What Happens in Vegas) by Sara Hantz

Chapter One
    “What the hell?”
    Eyes bugged, Sheridan Farlow gripped her cell phone and stared at the email detailing the week’s assignments. The job destined to elevate her career to the next level had been taken from her at the last minute and replaced with the worst gig on the planet.
    She marched to her editor’s office, gave a single knock on the glass window, and walked in without waiting for a response. The room was small and bare of anything personal, with a light wooden desk in the middle. On every wall were shelves heaving with files. Jane was sitting behind an open laptop, her head lowered and her metallic red glasses perched precariously on the end of her nose. She glanced up from under her dark bangs.
    “Let me get this straight,” Sheridan said, glaring at her editor. To hell with pleasantries. “You’ve decided you don’t want me to cover the president’s visit on Monday, and instead you’re sending me to the”—she glanced at the email again—“The Romance Lovers Convention in Las Vegas. You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
    She drew in a long breath and released it slowly, which eased the tension in her muscles and injected an element of much needed control into her demeanor.
    “Someone’s got to do it, and that someone’s you.”
    Sheridan’s stomach plummeted to the floor. How could her editor sit there so complacent, as though this was no big deal?
    “Who’s got the president’s visit?”
    She’d thought all her birthdays had come at once when they asked her to cover the opening of the Minneapolis Summit by the president. She’d worked her butt off the last three years, even postponing her European travel plans, to follow in her brother’s footsteps and finally impress her father. And it was just about to pay off. Until now.
    “Peter.”
    Her stomach clenched. Peter had only been on staff for twelve months. Granted he’d been reporting in the UK before he joined The Chronicle , but surely that alone didn’t make him a better choice.
    “My father’s not going to be happy about this.” Sheridan hated pulling the father card. Most people she worked with weren’t even aware they were related, since she used her mother’s maiden name as her by-line. A wise move because she’d bet her last dollar that she’d lose much of her cred if her colleagues found out.
    Some of those who knew the truth thought she was crazy to remain anonymous. Having a father who owned the media group that owned the newspaper seemed to them like a gift from heaven. But they didn’t know her father.
    “He knows.”
    But didn’t do anything about it. She wasn’t surprised, though. He probably thought she wasn’t up to it. He might have insisted that she joined The Chronicle , but he never missed an opportunity to compare her with Drake, her brother, a top political journalist who had died several years ago while reporting from a war zone in Africa.
    “Since when do you consult him on the allocation of work?”
    It didn’t make sense. Her father wasn’t involved in day-to-day operations. He often said when he appointed a new Managing Editor that they would stand or fall on their own merits. And they did. Not that it mattered. She certainly wasn’t going to confront him about it and be subjected to his successful-journalists-don’t-cherry-pick lecture.
    “I don’t. It came down the line that management didn’t think you were ready to cover the president’s visit. They want to feed it to the rest of the group, so they decided Peter would be a better person to do it. You have to take his assignment.”
    “And do I have any say in this?”
    The thought of covering any convention hardly filled her with excitement, especially one that focused on romance. She was the least romantic person she knew and for good reason. It was a load of fantasy crap that bore no relation to real life. She knew from firsthand experience with men, and from witnessing her parents’ chaotic marriage, that romance was a