THE LIKELIHOOD OF LUCY
by Jenny
Holiday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
Trevor Bailey is on
the cusp of opening the greatest hotel in London. His days as a gutter snipe
are behind him, as he enjoys a life of wealth, society, and clandestine assignments
as a spy in the service of His Majesty. Until one tumultuous night churns up
the past he'd long left behind...
Turned out by her
employer for her radical beliefs, Lucy Greenleaf reaches out to the man who was
once her most beloved friend. She never expected that the once-mischievous
Trevor would be so handsome and gentleman-like and neither can deny the instant
attraction.
But Lucy's reformer
ways pose a threat to the hotel's future and his duties as a spy. Now Trevor
must choose between his new life and the woman he's always loved…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt :
Who was this man? He was the Trevor of her youth, yet he was
not. The boy would not have touched her like that. Would not even have noticed
her face long enough to bother with a dab of pudding gone awry. The boy had
reserved that sort of intense scrutiny for lock picking and cake filching.
The man, by contrast, was causing her stomach to feel like
little wings were fluttering inside it.
It was almost as if she wasn’t in the room, which was
ridiculous because of course she was. It was her lip he caressed. But he stared
so intently at her mouth that the encounter seemed somehow to be unfolding
between him and it without her presence mattering at all.
She lifted herself onto tiptoes, and the tiny birds inside
her took off, a great flapping flock of them. They were propelling her toward
him, and she wasn’t in charge anymore. She pressed her lips against the spot of
chocolate near the corner of his mouth. If she’d thought the chocolate
tasted sinful before, she’d been naive. The tang of his skin
magnified it, made it magnetic.
“Lucy,” he rasped, his lips moving against her skin as he
spoke her name. She waited for more, for him to cry halt. He did not. So she
remained where she was, her lips pressed against the corner of his mouth but
not moving, the roar of blood in her ears a rushing waterfall.
Beneath her mouth, his jaw clenched, became hard like iron,
and his breath, already short, took on a ragged quality. Warmth pooled low in
her belly like that chocolate, liquefied and hot. Every second they stood
there, unmoving, something coiled more tightly inside her. It was almost
painful, but it was impossible to imagine stepping away.
He moved only an inch. Less than an inch. His lips grazed
hers, and though they barely touched hers, the warmth in her belly became fire.
How was that possible? They weren’t even kissing, not really, and yet she felt
as if she were at the gates of Bedlam.
A thought crept in. She tried to push it away, but it
persisted. This is why Mary had fallen victim to her bouts of suicidal
behavior. This—this unnamable compulsion—would grow and grow until it took
over, displacing everything else, everything that made her herself. Unlike
Mary, she
wasn’t capable of producing great works of philosophy with
the potential to change the world, but she did have a life. A hard-won life
she’d made for herself through sheer force of will. Trevor was helping
her—she’d had no choice but to permit it given his logical argument that their
arrangement would benefit them both. But she needed to remember why she had
agreed to stay only for six months. Because men were dangerous—even him. Even
Trevor. Perhaps especially him.
So she stepped away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Jenny Holiday
started writing in fourth grade, when her awesome hippie teacher, between
sessions of Pete Seeger singing and anti-nuclear power plant letter writing,
gave the kids notebooks and told them to write stories. Most of Jenny's
featured poltergeist, alien invasions, or serial killers who managed to murder
everyone except her and her mom. She showed early promise as a romance writer,
though, because nearly every story had a happy ending: fictional Jenny woke up
to find that the story had been a dream, and that her best friend, father, and
sister had not, in fact, been axe-murdered. From then on, she was always
writing, often in her diary, where she liked to decorate her declarations of
existential angst with nail polish teardrops. Eventually she channelled her
penchant for scribbling into a more useful format. After picking up a PhD in
urban geography, she became a professional writer, and has spent many years
promoting research at a major university, which allows her to become an
armchair astronomer/historian/particle physicist, depending on the day.
Eventually, she decided to try her hand again at happy endings--minus the
bloodbaths. You can follow her twitter accounts @jennyholi and @TropeHeroine or
visit her on the web at jennyholiday.com.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennyholidaybooks
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/jennyholiday
BUY Links:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The author
will award a randomly drawn commenter a $25 Amazon gift card.
Please use
the following Rafflecopter code:
2 comments:
Thanks for hosting!
Thanks so much for having me! (You might have the best blog name ever, btw.)
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