Lords of the City, #2
by Alice
Ward
Publication
date: September 2016
Genres:
Adult, Contemporary, Romance
BLURB
Life is good in Chicago for
Blaire Daniels, thanks to the arrival of spring and her new job volunteering at
a local orphanage… And thanks to the new man in her life, Cristiano Leventis.
With his dark and mysterious good
looks, Cristiano and Blaire connect in a way she never thought possible. As
their whirlwind romance takes off the Mediterranean god brings new pleasures to
behold both in the outside world and between the sheets.
Blair can’t shake a growing
feeling though. Someone is following her, tracking her every move. Sure that it
has something to do with Cristiano, she sets out to uncover the truth about her
new boyfriend’s past.
What she discovers shocks her and
puts her in danger—not just with outside forces, but also with the one man
she’s ever really loved.
Although this novel is
part of the Lords of the City series, it is a full-sized STANDALONE novel with
an HEA and NO CLIFFHANGERS.
*** Taming the Billionaire
– The Complete Series is also included in this book as a FREE BONUS plus some
other EXCLUSIVE FREE BONUSES! ***
Buy Links: Amazon
A breeze wafted in through my
bedroom window, lifting the lace curtains. Down on the street two floors below,
a car honked and someone shouted in Spanish. Women chattered and birds chirped.
Spring. It had arrived just as gloriously as it always did.
I took a deep breath and gazed at
myself in the floor-length mirror leaning against the wall. I meant to hang it
weeks ago, but like so much else in the apartment, I just hadn’t gotten around
to it. Nearly six months into the lease and I still wasn’t sure how I felt
about living alone. It was weird, waking up in the middle of the night and
being able to do whatever I wanted. I knew it was good… well, hopefully I would
one day see it as good. Besides, it was past time to cross living alone off the
bucket list. But it was still odd, just like almost everything else that had
happened in my life this past year.
I brushed some of my blonde hair
from my eyes and twisted my lips, making a funny face at myself.
“Don’t be nervous,” I said out
loud. “You got this.”
I scrunched up my nose, Mirror
Me not believing Right Side Me.
“Really,” I stressed to my
reflection, giving myself an encouraging fist pump. “Really.”
The one seriously fantastic bonus
about living alone that I had discovered? You could talk to yourself twenty-four-seven,
and no one else was around to look at you funny.
With a confident nod at myself, I
turned from the mirror to rifle through one of my jewelry boxes. My recent
visit to the Swap-O-Rama flea market had turned into something akin to hitting
a gold mine. Brightly colored chunky bracelets now filled one side of my blue
velvet jewelry box. I selected a coral one and an orange one, slipping them
both on my left wrist, the blend the perfect complement to my reddish-orange
and white romper. Just being fully accessorized had a way of making me feel
better.
Snatching up my leather fringed
purse from the bed, I left the bedroom and crossed the tiny living room.
“Phone,” I murmured to myself,
feeling in the bag for it. “Keys… check.”
I unlocked the front door and
yanked it open… then let out a yelp.
“Sorry.” Derek grinned, gazing down
at me. His unruly brown hair fell down over one side of his face, nearly hiding
one of his eyes. He looked like a college kid trying to be goth. When I first
met him, I thought he was actually younger than he was, mostly because of the
hair.
I exhaled loudly. “It’s all right.
I was just… lost in my head. How are you?”
“Good.”
I rolled up onto my tiptoes so I
could reach his face and give him a quick peck on the lips.
“Were you leaving?” He shifted his
weight and rested an arm against the doorway. “Yeah, I’m going to the orphanage
today. Remember?”“Oh, yeah. That’s right.” He straightened up. “Well, let me
walk you to your car.” “Sure.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right.” He
straightened up. “Well, let me walk you to your car.” “Sure.”
Derek stepped out of the way and
waited silently while I pulled the door to my apartment closed and locked it
up.
“How’s it going over there?” he
asked as we clomped down the stairs.
“Good.” I smiled just thinking of
their faces. “The kids at Hampton Road are great.”
He pushed the building’s front door
open and held it for me as I hurried through and out onto the bright sidewalk.
“I parked on the street last night,” I explained. “Just down a bit. I’m sorry
you stopped by for nothing. I thought you knew Saturday was going to be my
regular day there.”
He shrugged before looping an arm
around my shoulder. I pressed up against him, the crook of his arm warm and
familiar. Derek and I had been dating for about four months, ever since we met
through mutual friends at a concert. He was the only man I’d been with in the
whole last year and the relationship sometimes seemed too good to be true. It
was smooth, easy. We had our own things that we did separately, and we had our
things that we did together. It was my life and his life, the two existing
independently but meeting in the middle like one of those bubble graphs showing
what two variables had in common. It was a simple and well-defined formula. It
worked for us.
Wait. Was that called a bubble
chart? Or was there another name for it?
“It’s all right,” Derek replied,
jarring me out of my head. “I have a few hours to kill before work.”
I nodded, trying to act like I
totally hadn’t spaced out for a few seconds. “How’s it going at the shop?”
“Pretty good. Lots of people
bringing in their cars to get checked out before they go on vacation.”
We stopped next to my silver Honda.
“I can hang out later,” I told him. “When do you get off work?”
He shrugged. “Depends on what time
Rodney leaves. I’ll text you.”
“Okay.” I smiled up at him. “Maybe
we can catch a movie or something if you’re not too tired.”
“Yeah, there’s that new James
Bond.”
I wrinkled my nose slightly.
Derek laughed, the smile
transforming his face. “Come on. You’re the last person who should hate James
Bond.”
I snorted. “It’s so fake.”
“Every movie is fake. Those
romances you love, especially. People don’t just meet and fall in love then get
married all in one week.”
I gently swatted his arm. “That’s not
how they go!”
“Close enough.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, knowing he
was right. “Whatever. Well, either way, have a good day.”
“You too, babe.” Derek bent down to
kiss me, then turned with a wave before striding off down the street.
Realizing that I had no clue as to
what the exact time was, I quickly pulled my keys from my purse and hopped into
the car. Being late on my third day of volunteering would not be good. The
staff there was friendly and understanding, but I’d been raised to never make
people wait. Any time I did it, I ended up feeling awful about myself.
On the first day to Hampton Road
Orphanage, I used GPS to take me there. On the second day, I used my memory but
then ended up taking the wrong road once or twice. Surely by my third day, I
would finally have it down.
Heading out of Chicago after the
weekend rush hour meant traffic was fairly light, and I made it to the
three-story brownstone in great time. Tall oak trees dappled the small gravel
parking lot with shade, making it the perfect temperature. Built decades before
as a summer home for some rich scholarly family, a full wraparound porch hugged
the building. Lush green grass stretched out all around the property, giving it
an impressive amount of land when compared to the lower middle-class houses
clumped together on the rest of the street.
I tossed my sunglasses on the
passenger seat next to my purse, then locked the car and left everything
behind. The upcoming day’s activities were still a mystery, but since my other
volunteer hours had involved cleaning the kitchen and taking a group to the
park to play basketball, this third one would likely be just as physically
involved. I didn’t want to be encumbered by a bag hanging off my shoulder or a
ringing cell phone.
I took the front porch steps two at
a time, escaping into the cooler air of the awning. Before I could open the
door, it flew open, a little face appearing only inches above the door knob.
“Blaire!” Jenny yelled up at me,
her strawberry blonde pigtails bouncing along with her feet. “Blaire!”
Though there were a couple dozen
kids in the orphanage and I wasn’t even close to remembering half of their
names, Jenny would be the hardest to forget. At six, she was one of the most
precocious and social kids I’d ever run into. She was also a master manipulator
as the orphanage’s director quietly told me on the first day. Jenny could
design excuses to get what she wanted like a spider weaves webs.
“Hi Jenny,” I said, stepping
inside. “You answer the door now?”
“Jenny!” a woman’s voice called
from somewhere down the long hallway.
Jenny ignored the call, instead
keeping her pale blue eyes trained on me. “Cris… Cris… on is here.”
“Oh.” I paused, not having even the
tiniest idea what the child was talking about. “Okay…well, that’s nice.”
Teresa, the home’s director, popped
her head out of the doorway leading to the kitchen. “Jenny! Aren’t you going to
go play Red Rover? They’re out there waiting for you.”
“Okay!” the little girl yelled,
turning and barreling down the hallway. The back screen door gave under her
palms, and a second later, she vanished into the back yard. Realizing the front
door was still left hanging wide open, I turned around and gently shut it.
Teresa came out into the hallway,
the dozens of gold bangles she always wore clinking together musically as she
lifted a hand to brush some silver and black streaked hair from her brow.
“Blaire,” she sighed. “You’re
looking good. I love those bracelets. How are you?”
I smiled wide. “Great! How are
you?”
“Just fine,” she said with a bright
smile of her own. Though Teresa easily had one of the craziest jobs in the
whole city, she always moved with grace, constantly wearing a smile and giving
her full attention to whoever was in front of her. She reminded me of my mother
in a way, although a much calmer version of the woman who raised me. Maybe it
was her warmth. She had told me she’d never had any children of her own, but to
see her with the twenty kids who lived at Hampton Road, it was clear she felt
very motherly towards each and every one of them.
“Good, good.” She sighed lightly
and rested her hands on her hips. “Thanks for coming on a Saturday. Amy is busy
getting the last minute stuff together for her wedding, so she’s gone until
tomorrow. Until then it’s just me.”
“Oh, no worries. It’s my pleasure.
I can even stay longer today if you want me to. I have nothing going on.”
She bit her bottom lip, her
eyebrows bunching together. “Let’s see… it seems to me I had something… hmm…”
She ran her thumb over her lip, thinking hard. “There was something I had
planned for you to do, but now I just don’t remember it. Oh well.” She threw
her hands up in defeat.
“I can help clean,” I suggested.
“Or take some kids to the park. You know, whatever you need.”
She smiled. “Oh, that’s all right.
I don’t think any of them will want to leave. One of their favorite visitors is
here. He’s out back playing with them.”
I cocked my head. “Really?”
“Mm-hmm. Cristiano Leventis.”
My heart flipped. “The
Cristiano Leventis?”
“You’ve heard of him?”
I slowly nodded. “He was on the
local news last month. I don’t remember which station, but he was in this
segment about up and coming Chicago entrepreneurs.”
“I saw that!” she exclaimed, then
wiggled her eyebrows. “He looked so good.”
Yes, he did. So good, in fact, that
the sight of his face had bestowed me with my first real
insta-crush in years. I hadn’t gone
so ga-ga for a guy I didn’t know since fourth grade and N’Sync’s first album
cover. His raven black hair, olive toned skin and sparkling amber eyes had
practically melted me to the couch cushion.
I swallowed hard. “C-cool.” So that
was what Jenny had been trying to spit out. Cristiano was there, in the flesh.
Teresa smiled even wider. “Why
don’t you go out and play with them? He’s a really wonderful young man.” She
winked at me. “He’s single too… as far as I know.”
I nodded, blushed, and squirmed all
at the same time, suddenly feeling put on the spot. Could Teresa read the
effect the mention of Cristiano’s name had on me? “All right,” I said with a
thick tongue.
Stay professional, I told myself. This isn’t about you getting kicks
from the attention of some semi-famous hot guy.
Buy Links: Amazon
Author Info
Alice lives in Miami with her hunky husband. The beach is her all
time favorite place to relax with her laptop and write.
She might or might not have a thing for Gerard Butler (it’s the
accent).
To find out what Alice is up to currently, visit
authoraliceward.com.
Author Links:
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