HIS
LEADING LADY
by
Maggie Dallen
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Pub
Date: 7/11/2017
Nothing
less than a Hollywood romance would do . . .
Alice is calm,
cool, and aloof—except for the night she meets her new neighbor Dr.
Nicholas Bale—aka Hot Doc. The chemistry between them might be
through the roof but that doesn’t mean she’s going to let him
into her life. Having been seen at her most vulnerable, she vows to
have nothing to do with the sexy doctor. After all, Alice learned
long ago that love only leads to hurt.
Nicholas is smitten
at first sight with the gorgeous, mysterious redhead upstairs. But
between her attempts to push him away and the even bigger wall around
her heart, the dashing doctor is having a hard time getting close to
the sensitive beauty. Then he glimpses the emotion in her eyes as she
watches Fred and Ginger whirl across the screen and he’s determined
to uncover just what it will take to dance his way in to her heart .
. .
Alice was once again faced
with the daily
showdown—between two pairs of
shoes. She sank back in her office
chair and contemplated the contents of her
bottom drawer. One high-heeled and strappy—perfect for a night out on the
town—the other her cozy, well-worn
flats, which practically begged her to slip them on and walk home.
Her big meeting
with the boss was over, everyone else in the midtown
public relations office
of Jamison &
Co. had left for the day, and she should
be out celebrating. But those flats looked so much more appealing.
Her phone chimed with a new
text. Ugh, Bradley.
“Hey, babe, we on for tonight?”
No, Bradley. Just no. No for so many reasons. “Babe”? Really?
Who does he think he was, an action
star from the eighties? But mainly because she
and Bradley went on date number three two nights ago and, while he may not know it yet, he’d maxed out. She
had a strict three-date policy, and she certainly wasn’t
going to be bending any rules for Bradley
“Hey, babe” Newton.
She picked up the phone and texted back. “Sorry, made other
plans.”
And like that it was decided. The comfy shoes won. Shoving the
sexy heels back into their drawer, she slipped on the flats and headed home.
The walk from her office to her Upper West Side apartment was more than a mile, but it gave her a
chance to decompress after a long, albeit successful, day. She stopped off at the corner store to pick up a pint of
mint chocolate chip ice cream before heading to her high-rise apartment
building on Riverside. The doorman, Carl, gave her a nod of greeting.
The doorman and the view—that was what had sold her on her current
studio apartment. Luxury studio, her
realtor had liked to stress. And it was luxurious, but only because of the
doorman and the epic, sweeping view of the Hudson and the Jersey skyline. Other
than that it was just your basic studio.
She took the elevator up to her floor, let herself in to her luxury studio,
and swapped out her form-fitting skirt suit for some oversized flannel pajamas
and a pair of fuzzy slippers. After throwing her long red hair up into a
haphazard topknot, she grabbed the ice cream off the counter, and took the stairs
down three flights.
Ena answered on the second
knock, her white
frizzy hair a halo around her wrinkled, smiling face.
“Alice!” she cried, as if Alice’s presence
on her doorstep was a great surprise and not a frequent event.
Alice thrust the ice cream at her old neighbor. “I come bearing
gifts.”
Ena chuckled as she took the ice cream and held the door open for Alice to
enter. “What’s the special occasion?” Her eyes widened
with excitement. “Did you get
the promotion?”
“No.” She walked into the woman’s one-bedroom apartment, which
miraculously always seemed
to smell like
something was baking.
“Not yet,” she added
quickly. It was just a matter of time. Alice
did not take no for an
answer, not when she really
wanted something. And this promotion—she deserved it. None of the other junior associates worked as hard as she did.
The senior associate
job was hers. She just needed
her boss to make it official.
Alice headed straight toward Ena’s DVD collection, which lined a
bookshelf that covered most of one wall in her friend’s living room.
Maggie
Dallen is
a huge fan of happily-ever-afters. She writes contemporary and YA
romance and has been known to rewrite the endings to classic love
stories to ensure that they end on a happy note. In Maggie's version,
Ingrid Bergman does not get on the plane. She lives in Northern
California and works at a yarn store to support her knitting
addiction.
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