How To Host A Seduction. Jeanie London

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СКАЧАТЬ worry about senility, but as I’m still in my twenties—”

      “Oh, thank goodness!” Stephanie covered her eyes with a shaky hand. “I thought I was the only one having this problem. The rewrites on this book have been so extensive that I’m completely off schedule with my other projects. And if I miss my deadline, I’ll never sell another book.”

      “Try not to let revisions undermine your confidence,” Susanna suggested pragmatically. “Revisions are just part of the process. Right, Ellen?”

      Ellen stared at the three tipsy faces, recognized high drama at its finest, and knew this scene had been staged, rehearsed and fortified with alcohol.

      “Okay, ladies.” She steepled her fingers before her and assumed a professional mien. “What’s on your minds?”

      “Heroes,” Susanna said.

      Not surprised that Susanna had been appointed the spokesperson of the group, Ellen asked, “What about them?”

      “Our normally brilliant and insightful editor doesn’t seem to like them anymore.”

      The woman didn’t pull any punches, but it wasn’t her delivery that blew Ellen away, but her allegation. “What on earth makes you think I dislike heroes?”

      The trio stared at her, but they suddenly didn’t seem so tipsy.

      “The fact that you hated my last one,” Susanna said.

      Tracy nodded. “And mine.”

      “And mine, too,” Stephanie added.

      Ellen stared, expression carefully schooled as her mind raced to assess the accuracy of this accusation.

      Susanna’s last hero…the medieval bastard—no, baron—who kept abandoning the heroine to run off to battle.

      Hmm, Ellen remembered him well and Susanna was right, he’d required some serious revision. She wouldn’t say exactly half a book’s worth, but abandoning the heroine was not a quality she or the romance readers considered heroic.

      Who wanted a man who would leave at the drop of a hat, a man who wouldn’t hang around long enough to fight for his heroine when the going got tough?

      Tracy’s last hero…the Elizabethan nobleman who’d gone to court as a spy and made love to the heroine without revealing his true identity.

      Lying to any woman suggested a character flaw that was tough to tackle successfully in any commercial book-length novel. But lying was especially dastardly when it involved an affair of the heart. It was never easy for a woman to let her guard down, to trust a man enough to become vulnerable, especially knowing she might wind up heartbroken.

      Stephanie’s last hero…the Scottish lord whose heroine had been kidnapped by a rebel clan. His lame attempts to rescue her had spanned several chapters.

      If Ellen had been Stephanie’s heroine she’d have been disappointed in a hero who couldn’t manage a decent rescue in a timely fashion. Any hero who left the heroine alone for so long was lucky his woman didn’t run off with the villain. A true hero would have pursued his heroine at all costs, quickly….

      Okay, so she’d had some problems with their heroes. Valid problems? Ellen had thought so. But writing was a subjective business, a creative business. Even at their most professional, her authors were still artists, emotionally attached to their work. Editing often required performing a delicate balancing act of compliment and critique, to get the job done.

      Okay, she saw where they were coming from, knew they wouldn’t have approached her unless sure their concerns were valid.

      She glanced at Lennon, who’d risen, hightailing it toward the bar. The coward. She’d known this conversation would invariably circle around to her latest hero.

      …The Regency smuggler who was more interested in his wants and needs than his heroine’s.

      A true hero would have found a way to satisfy both. And even all those scrumptious orgasms in some very steamy cave scenes didn’t make up for the lack.

      Uh-oh.

      Ellen stared into the trio of worried faces whose careers were currently riding on her ability to be as brilliant and insightful, and reasonable, as they believed her to be.

      And they must have seen something encouraging in her expression because Susanna threw a hand across her forehead in true Sarah Bernhardt fashion and sighed breathlessly.

      “Woe is me, I’ve forgotten how to write a hero and now my publishing house will stop buying my books. My agent will have to hit the streets, scrambling for new offers—”

      “At least you’ll get offers.” Tracy shot her a dubious look. “You’re a New York Times bestselling author. Publishing houses will be fighting over you. Even with all my promotional efforts, I’m still only in the mid-list with seven books.”

      “But at least you’ve got numbers.” Then Stephanie met Ellen’s gaze with a look of entreaty. “My third book isn’t even out yet. I’m completely at your mercy.”

      Folding her arms across her chest, Ellen tried to smile at their theatrics, but not so surprisingly, the smile that had seemed etched on her face had done a disappearing act, because a terrible, terrible thought had just occurred to her.

      If these ladies were right about her lack of objectivity—and Ellen had the sinking suspicion they might be—there could only be one explanation….

      He was interfering with her work, too.

      Félicie Allée—three days later

      THOUGH THE PLANTATION wasn’t quite an hour south of New Orleans, Félicie Allée might have been on a deserted island. The shady oak-lined alley leading to the circle drive and majestic front entrance transported Ellen from the reality of well-traveled highways baking beneath the sun to a shadowy fantasy place cooled by the bayou breeze.

      Sunlight streamed through the leaves overhead to play shadow-and-lace games along the columns and metalwork enclosing the double-tiered balconies around the plantation.

      She’d first visited Félicie Allée after Lennon’s wedding. Perhaps her second visit was even more breathtaking, because this time Ellen knew what to expect. Her awe was tempered with simple appreciation for the way the plantation had been built to bring a touch of elegance and civilization to the wildly lush setting. Crepe myrtles, azaleas and camellias all burst in bright bloom on the grounds, and to a woman like Ellen, reared beneath the often leaden skies of Manhattan and Long Island, the scene resembled a living oil painting.

      “Leave it to your great-aunt to turn boring old corporate training into a game,” Ellen said, as Lennon steered her sport utility vehicle down the oak-lined drive leading to the plantation. “Corporate training and murder-mystery events. Who’d ever have thought of combining the two?”

      Lennon shot her a sidelong glance. “No one has ever accused Auntie Q of lacking imagination.”

      Ellen couldn’t help but smile. Lennon’s great-aunt believed in having a good time and didn’t make apologies, an odd attitude to Ellen, whose family operated in such a different manner. Chatting СКАЧАТЬ