Not the Marrying Kind ||| Pillow Talk ||| Dear Love Doctor

Love: Undercover |||Opposites Attract ||| Tangled Up In Love

Not the Marrying Kind
by
Hailey North
November 2007 * Avon

Chapter One

West Village, Manhattan

Some things in life are better left alone.

Harriet P. Smith fingered the black and white surveillance photograph of Jake Porter emerging from a Sunset Strip club eight days—or to be more precise, nights—earlier. She studied the flash of a smile, the dark eyes she could paint in her sleep, the quirk in his nose caused by a basketball injury, the protective way he held his arm around the shoulders of the pint-size blonde who walked beside him. Not that the woman mattered one way or the other. For better or worse, it was Jake Porter who held her attention.

And darn it, that had always been true.

And that despite the almost sixteen years that had passed since the last time she had been within arm’s reach of Jake Porter.

It was funny how she always thought of him with both his first and last names. Harriet crammed the photo into the thick envelope supplied by Gotham Investigations, wishing she could discard her dilemma over the man as easily. To be honest, she’d shoved the situation into the recesses of her brain for more years than she cared to count. It was time to quit hiding. She flipped the envelope over and stared at the logo of the firm she’d hired to find Jake Porter.

We Specialize in Discretion proclaimed the script beneath the company name. Well, she sure as heck hoped so. She’d paid a premium for their services and the last thing she wanted was either Jake Porter or the press finding out what Harriet P. Smith was up to until she had readied herself to come clean.

Harriet eyed the fat envelope. She’d pulled only the one photograph out so far. Shifting from foot to foot, she considered what she might find if she tugged the rest of the items out. The investigator had filled her in over the phone on the highlights. Jake Porter hadn’t let any grass grow under his feet. Good college. Better graduate school. He’d turned his MBA to advantage, establishing himself as a rising star in managing creative clients. And he’d founded his own record company. Way back when, at Doolittle High, Jake had been named Most Likely to Succeed and had tied with Harriet for Most Creative. Funny how none of her classmates had credited her with the potential to succeed. But if fame and fortune equaled success, at 33 going on 34 avant-garde artist Harriet P. Smith of the West Village had outstripped every kid in high school who’d made fun of her geeky looks and her penchant for spending more time painting than worrying about boys and clothes. She’d also shed the pounds she’d packed on courtesy of the dreary years she’d spent hating her life in a small town in Arkansas.

Harriet shoved the envelope away from her. It bumped into her cold coffee cup and liquid splashed onto the packet. She tugged one of her paint rags from the waistband of her yoga pants and daubed at the spill. Staring at the pattern the moisture made spreading into the paper, she envisioned the shapes in a profusion of color and almost, almost forgot all about Jake Porter.

She needed to work. She needed to retreat into the sanctuary of her studio and commune with her canvas. At some point she would know what to do with the information she’d gathered on Jake Porter. The way she knew when one of her massive creations was just right, the way she knew when the color had come to life the way she saw it within her soul, that’s the way she’d know when she was meant to contact Jake Porter.

Until that moment came, she’d keep on keeping on. She had to trust she’d know when the time was right to tell Jake Porter he had a son.

© 2007 Hailey North

Not the Marrying Kind * November 2007 * Avon Books * ISBN: 0-060-58247-2 * Order a copy!

Dear Love Doctor
by
Hailey North
June 2001 * Avon

For what had to be at least the twentieth time in the past half-hour, Hunter opened and shut the blue velvet ring case.

He'd known the ring he wanted for Daffy as soon as he saw it perched regally in a case by itself. Three stones commanded attention, the center a dark blue sapphire that reminded him of the color of Daffy's eyes when they were flamed with passion. On either side of the sapphire lay perfect pear shaped diamonds in a weight and size worthy of a pharaoh's queen.

A solitaire hadn't seemed like enough, not for Daffy.

And not enough to express the depth of his feelings for her...

Pausing on the porch, the sun slanting in his eyes, Hunter studied the address and when he did, he knew the fates were with him. The night's event was at the Opera Guild House, the house next door to where the Orphan Club fundraiser had taken place-the first time he had spotted Daffy across the proverbial crowded room.

She'd disappeared that evening, a little bit like Cinderella with the clock striking midnight.

But now he was on his way to claim her.

He was doubly lucky in the location, as the house next door was Aloysius' aunt's house where he kept his rooms in the city-and where his evening gear was stashed. A quick change and he'd charm his way into whatever event was taking place.

And Daffy would be his.

The first sign of trouble Hunter encountered were the pink balloons riding in thick clusters over the entrance to the house. Everywhere he looked, he saw pink.

He made his way manfully forward, trying not to countenance the stares of several groups of women gathered on the porch of the historic house. They wore evening dresses in shades of pink.

Perhaps, Hunter thought, as the door swung open and a maid in a pink uniform gazed at him, he'd made a mistake in not assessing the situation more carefully.

The maid gaped at him, then tiptoed forward and said, "Thank goodness you are here at last! But go around to the back door. Don't you know your place?"

Hunter stared at her, wondering what rabbit hole he'd fallen down.

"I'm here for the fundraiser," he said.

"Yes, and it's about time," the maid whispered. "These ladies get really bitchy when they have to wait for their drinks."

"Drinks?"

"Oh, well, you're not too bright, but you're here, so come on in." The maid tugged on the sleeve of his thousand-dollar dinner jacket and said, "I'll show you the way."

Moved along by an inexorable force, Hunter swam through a sea of high-pitched voices issuing from every imaginable female form-all clothed in cotton candy pink. So much for mingling with the hoi polloi and finding Daffy. He'd have to make the best of it, avoid a scene, and slip out as soon as possible. Given the hold the maid had on his sleeve, he thought it prudent to follow her course of action.

And that's how Hunter James found himself behind a bar decked in pink ribbons.

Daffy had to be there. He was a lot less conspicuous behind the bar than adrift in the sea of pink, so he popped champagne corks and poured bubbly for the next half hour, all the while scanning the crowd in search of her. He found it hard to believe she'd be dressed in pink to cover the event for the paper, but as he'd yet to spot any woman, no matter her age or girth, garbed in any other color, he took to checking every face he saw.

When he'd begun to despair, and was about to conclude that the helpful housekeeper had misinformed him, he spotted her.

Across a crowded room, exactly the way he'd first seen her.

Only this time she wasn't standing next to an identical blonde, a blonde he now knew to be her twin sister. And she wasn't wearing black. Her pink sheath was a deeper hue than the softer tones filling the room, and Daffy wore the dress with her unmistakable air of distinction. Rather than the inviting look she'd had in her eyes that first night, she appeared ready to do battle.

This time she was talking to... Hunter overfilled a champagne flute and apologized to the matron glaring at him. But surely that wasn't Tiffany with Daffy?

Preening.

Telling Daffy goodness only knew what.

Hunter threw down the bar towel he'd tucked into the cummerbund of his tux.

A silver haired woman, glass extended, said in a schoolmarm's voice, "And just where do you think you're going, young man?"

"To save my life," Hunter said.

© 2001 Hailey North

Dear Love Doctor * June 2001 * Avon Books * ISBN: 038-081308-4

Pillow Talk
by
Hailey North
July 1999 * Avon

Parker Ponthier thrust his Porsche into fourth gear and glared at the cell phone he'd tossed onto the passenger seat soon after roaring off from the Hotel Maurepas. What had possessed him to tell that meddling quack Prejean Jules had a wife stashed at the hotel?

If her existence remained his secret, he might have reasoned with her. Even though he'd promised to return in an hour's time, he might have thought of some way to worm the truth of her marriage from her. He could have paid her off, if necessary, to save the family any further embarrassment.

His business instincts, naturally savvy and sharpened over the years he'd run Ponthier Enterprises, told him she was up to no good. Or maybe it was the combination of this unknown woman thrust upon them by Jules, who had always been up to no good one way or the other.

His survival instincts shouted the same thing.

What a woman, though.

When he'd entered Jules suite, he'd stopped short at the sight of her. She'd looked almost childlike, sitting crosslegged on that massive bed. Her hair tumbled down over her shoulders, dark and slightly curly and tousled in the way beautiful women looked after making love for hour after passionate hour.

His gut had tightened at that thought.

This beauty in a bathrobe had to be up to no good.

"So you tossed her a couple of hundreds, insulted her thoroughly, and only then paused to get the facts." He heard the derision in his voice as he spoke aloud. But how was he to know? Jules used to brag that he kept his suite year around for entertaining whores and mistresses.

Great way to get to know his sister-in-law.

Sister-in-law.

Parker had to repeat that title to himself. Here he was thinking of the woman in Jules's suite as room service for a starving man's appetite.

© 2002 Hailey North

Pillow Talk * July 1999 * Avon Books * ISBN: 038-081308-4

More Excerpts:

Opposites Attract ||| Tangled Up In Love || Love: Undercover