Chapter One
“Please tell me you’re not serious?”
Jaw slack, and hands planted on the small round table, Rebecca Andrews stared at her three best friends, hardly able to believe what they were suggesting.
Lilliana James closed her palm over Rebecca’s hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. Even though the lights had been dimmed in their favorite New York piano bar, a place where they all convened after a challenging day in the courtroom, Rebecca didn’t miss the sympathy in her friend’s big brown eyes when she said, “Come on, Becs, you know as well as I do that you need a vacation.”
“It’s not a vacation she needs,” Melanie Collins piped in, running her fingers up and down the crystal stemware in a highly suggestive manner that had Rebecca’s thoughts careening in an erotic direction. She smirked and added, “What she needs is to get laid. Plain and simple.”
“Good God,” Rebecca murmured under her breath, hoping like hell no one in the near vicinity could hear her tell-it-like-it-is friend.
“Don’t even try to deny it,” Melanie challenged playfully, her eyes gleaming with mischief.
As their conversation headed south—literally—Rebecca fished her olive out of the martini glass and gestured the bartender for another, having decided then and there that this was the perfect occasion to overturn her two two-drink rule. Hell, who could blame her for wanting to consume copious amounts of alcohol after discovering her well-meaning friends wanted to send her to some sort of sex club on a private island off the coast of Nova Scotia?
She chewed on her olive as her glance went to the tickets on the table—one for a resort called Freedom, the other for the private charter that was scheduled to fly her there first thing tomorrow.
Groaning, she took in the other patrons seated around them, many of whom were colleagues, their identities masked by the lounge’s dark lighting and intimate seating. She leaned forward, desperate to keep this embarrassing conversation private, and arched an accusing brow. “How long have you three been scheming this up, anyway?”
“Just a few weeks now,” Melanie answered.
Rebecca did the mental math, her thoughts rewinding to three weeks ago, then shook her head, suddenly understanding what this was really all about. “Look, Jon didn’t break up with me. I broke up with him.” When her rebuttal was met with silence, she desperately searched for an alliance in the group. Her glance met Sophie’s and she cast her a pleading look.
But Sophie simply shrugged and said, “Just like you broke up with Justin, Matthew, Phillip...”
“And we know, we know,” Melanie said, rolling her eyes. “You just weren’t compatible.”
Rebecca held her hands up, palms out. “Okay, fine. I get it. You’re saying I’m too picky.” She frowned, and added, “It’s just that...well, we weren’t...they weren’t,” she paused, unable to put in to words what she truly felt. How could she explain what was missing from those relationships, when she couldn’t identify it herself?
She took a moment to consider the men from her past. Not only were they successful, kind and generous, they were also deeply considerate lovers. Any woman in her right mind would jump at the chance to date any one of those men. She sighed inwardly. Okay, perhaps the problem really did lie with her, and she was the one who wasn’t in her right mind. But she just couldn’t seem to find a man that suited her.
If only she could figure out what it was that was lacking...
Oddly enough her thoughts drifted back to last year’s trial against Montgomery Charters, specifically to Quinn Montgomery, owner of the airline, and one of the world’s youngest, self-made millionaires. Rebecca always prided herself on being calm, cool and collected, inside the courtroom and out, but there was just something about that man’s steely command that threw her off her game.
Whenever she met those intense black eyes
“Please tell me you’re not serious?”
Jaw slack, and hands planted on the small round table, Rebecca Andrews stared at her three best friends, hardly able to believe what they were suggesting.
Lilliana James closed her palm over Rebecca’s hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. Even though the lights had been dimmed in their favorite New York piano bar, a place where they all convened after a challenging day in the courtroom, Rebecca didn’t miss the sympathy in her friend’s big brown eyes when she said, “Come on, Becs, you know as well as I do that you need a vacation.”
“It’s not a vacation she needs,” Melanie Collins piped in, running her fingers up and down the crystal stemware in a highly suggestive manner that had Rebecca’s thoughts careening in an erotic direction. She smirked and added, “What she needs is to get laid. Plain and simple.”
“Good God,” Rebecca murmured under her breath, hoping like hell no one in the near vicinity could hear her tell-it-like-it-is friend.
“Don’t even try to deny it,” Melanie challenged playfully, her eyes gleaming with mischief.
As their conversation headed south—literally—Rebecca fished her olive out of the martini glass and gestured the bartender for another, having decided then and there that this was the perfect occasion to overturn her two two-drink rule. Hell, who could blame her for wanting to consume copious amounts of alcohol after discovering her well-meaning friends wanted to send her to some sort of sex club on a private island off the coast of Nova Scotia?
She chewed on her olive as her glance went to the tickets on the table—one for a resort called Freedom, the other for the private charter that was scheduled to fly her there first thing tomorrow.
Groaning, she took in the other patrons seated around them, many of whom were colleagues, their identities masked by the lounge’s dark lighting and intimate seating. She leaned forward, desperate to keep this embarrassing conversation private, and arched an accusing brow. “How long have you three been scheming this up, anyway?”
“Just a few weeks now,” Melanie answered.
Rebecca did the mental math, her thoughts rewinding to three weeks ago, then shook her head, suddenly understanding what this was really all about. “Look, Jon didn’t break up with me. I broke up with him.” When her rebuttal was met with silence, she desperately searched for an alliance in the group. Her glance met Sophie’s and she cast her a pleading look.
But Sophie simply shrugged and said, “Just like you broke up with Justin, Matthew, Phillip...”
“And we know, we know,” Melanie said, rolling her eyes. “You just weren’t compatible.”
Rebecca held her hands up, palms out. “Okay, fine. I get it. You’re saying I’m too picky.” She frowned, and added, “It’s just that...well, we weren’t...they weren’t,” she paused, unable to put in to words what she truly felt. How could she explain what was missing from those relationships, when she couldn’t identify it herself?
She took a moment to consider the men from her past. Not only were they successful, kind and generous, they were also deeply considerate lovers. Any woman in her right mind would jump at the chance to date any one of those men. She sighed inwardly. Okay, perhaps the problem really did lie with her, and she was the one who wasn’t in her right mind. But she just couldn’t seem to find a man that suited her.
If only she could figure out what it was that was lacking...
Oddly enough her thoughts drifted back to last year’s trial against Montgomery Charters, specifically to Quinn Montgomery, owner of the airline, and one of the world’s youngest, self-made millionaires. Rebecca always prided herself on being calm, cool and collected, inside the courtroom and out, but there was just something about that man’s steely command that threw her off her game.
Whenever she met those intense black eyes
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