Analysis Of Love

By Fiona McGier

Catalina is the one Reyes sister who has always resisted her Hispanic roots. She refused to learn Spanish...she refuses to fall in love. She is always in control; no man can resist her sexy appearance that promises to fulfill their every dream. What happens when she is assigned to interview a blind man who can’t see her reliable attributes?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781597051293

Fiona McGier

I write contemporary erotic romance novels. Contemporary because having sex without birth control is a scary thought. Erotic, because I love to read books with sex scenes in them, so I write them too. And romance because the drive to pair up is a most basic human need, but the ways it can happen are endlessly fascinating.I write contemporary erotic romance novels about strong, independent women who are busy living their lives. When they meet equally strong, independent men, the sparks fly! Sooner or later one or both of them realize they are meant to be together for the long-term, and the "dance of love" moves to a whole new level of seriousness. I write happily-ever-after endings, because I really believe they are possible...not easy, but achievable. And I write hot scenes between the heroine and hero because that's the way they tell me their stories in my head!

Book preview

Analysis Of Love

Fiona McGier

A Wings ePress, Inc.

Contemporary Romance Novel

Edited by: Gina Cadorete

Copy Edited by: Elizabeth Struble

Senior Editor: Anita York

Executive Editor: Marilyn Kapp

Cover Artist: Stephen Schwartz

All rights reserved

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Wings ePress Books

http://www.wings-press.com

Copyright © 2010 by Fiona Gierzynski

ISBN 978-1-59705-129-3

Published by Wings ePress, Inc. at Smashwords

Wings ePress Inc.

3000 N. Rock Road

Newton, KS 67114

Dedication

To Paul, who knows very well that a free-spirited woman can be tamed… because he did it.

One

Catalina Reyes sighed as she glanced over her Friday afternoon e-mails. There were the usual back-and-forth e-mails from her colleagues, with some suggesting story lines, and others weighing in with reasons that the suggestions should either be followed up on, or ignored. There were meetings to be attended at least twice a day... long, boring, and tedious, they rarely presented any new challenges. Catalina was feeling a serious bout of boredom with her job, with her life in general, and it was starting to take over her state of mind.

She had been working as a reporter for the past thirteen years, since she had graduated from college with honors and an English degree that guaranteed that she was literate, but didn’t command any big money. Catalina had been the fifth Reyes child to attend college, but whereas the others had chosen professions like medicine or engineering, she had followed her passion and gotten a Liberal Arts degree. Their oldest sister Rosa had followed her passion to earn a Liberal Arts degree also, but with her emphasis in Interior Design, she had already been earning major money when she married her ex-fiancé, who had become a very rich businessman. They now had three kids, and one was almost a teenager already. It seemed like just yesterday that they got married. Where did the time go?

Idly glancing at the family picture on her desk, taken last Christmas, Catalina thought of her brothers: Enrique was a doctor, living in the area of Mexico that her grandparents had moved here from. He, like most of her siblings, had seen being bi-lingual in Spanish as a real plus. They had taken it in school, to supplement what their parents and grandparents had taught them at home. So when Enrique went with their late grandfather for whom he had been named, for a visit back to the old country, he had fallen in love with the area, and moved there to be the sole health care provider for the surrounding villages. He was married now, with two kids of his own also. Pablo and Miguel were still single, but no one questioned why men would still be single at thirty-nine and thirty-seven.

As for her younger sisters, Teresa had married her high school sweetheart when she unexpectedly (yeah, right!) got pregnant in her second year of nursing school. She had finished her schooling in-between pregnancies, and she and her carpenter husband had four children, one already a teenager as of this year. Susana was only thirty, so no one was pressuring her while she was still busy actively pursuing her career goals. And Amalia, the baby, was only twenty-eight.

Catalina sighed again. To be absolutely fair, she didn’t really get much pressure from her parents about getting married. Juanita and Edgar had been high school sweethearts themselves, and had celebrated their forty-third wedding anniversary earlier this year with a Caribbean Cruise for which all of their children had contributed money. They were busy with their own lives, and welcomed any chance to see their ever-growing family, either in small groups, or all together. Luckily Edgar’s oldest brother Alejandro owned the house directly behind his, so whenever they had family gatherings, there were two houses to visit in, and a huge expanse of backyard for spreading out in, to playthings like futbol, or volleyball.

Whenever boredom had reared its ugly head in her life before, Catalina’s usual solution was to find a new man with whom to entertain herself. She was currently involved with a man almost ten years younger than her thirty-five years; he was a construction worker she had picked up in a bar earlier this year, when he was out celebrating the beginning of his big season at work. The Chicago area was well-known for having two seasons: winter and construction. One’s weather directly influenced the other’s length. This year had been a mild winter, so construction season had begun in early April. She had been out with friends, celebrating her birthday. He had caught her eye, and as always, it was only a matter of making him aware that she would be responsive to his overtures, and the rest was easy.

Catalina was proud of her looks and well aware that she was extremely lucky. Her mother, after having eight children, still wore the same size clothing she had worn when she got married. The Reyes women kept their looks as they aged, if Juanita was any indicator, and Catalina was pleased to observe that both Rosa and Teresa also were still slim and attractive, if slightly curvier than they had been before motherhood. With a minimum of effort in the gym, and minimal attention paid to what she ate and drank, Catalina still looked much younger than her age, and used that to full advantage to capture the attention of any man she might desire.

Getting a man’s attention was never a problem for her. The problem was that she got bored with them so easily. She sighed once again, faced with what had been a recurring problem for her since she had first discovered the joy of sex with a fellow teenager when she was seventeen. She had learned all that she could from the boy she chose to give her virtue to, then she had abruptly dropped him, to date his college-aged brother. After that she had never looked back, and had spent the past almost twenty years enjoying herself with any man that caught her eye. She could count on one hand the number of times she had felt any serious connection with any man, and those were usually men that she was friends with, and not hitting the sheets with. She loved all of her brothers, and was good friends with her sisters’ husbands. She had male cousins that she hung out with, and with all of the men she was related to, she was capable of deep and introspective talking. She was their expert on female psychology, and she took great delight in making the inner workings of the female mind understandable to them, in return for them explaining how the other half thought.

When her mother and sisters asked her if she ever thought about getting married, she would smile and tell them that she was busy kissing a lot of frogs to find her prince. That usually led to some good-natured teasing, and a lot of talking dirty, as they shared confidences in the way that only women did, with lots of details, and bragging about what skillful lovers their men were.

A chime from her computer now interrupted Catalina’s reverie, as an instant message popped up in the corner of her screen. With interest, she leaned forward, only to be dismayed to see what it said:

My office. Now. BBW.

Caught off-guard by the summons from her boss’ boss, the owner and publisher of her paper, she momentarily reviewed her actions and behavior of late. She had not brought any criticism upon herself or her department with her recent writing... in fact, her boss had complimented her for her past two assignments, telling her that she was now consistently working up to her potential. He was glad that she gave his boss no reason to want to fire her anymore, so he didn’t have to spend any time defending her.

Despite the publishing czar’s oldest son being in his late twenties and drop-dead gorgeous, she had repeatedly over the years resisted the impulse to either respond to his advances, or seduce him, realizing that the owner of her company didn’t really need a legitimate reason to fire her if he was unhappy with her. His capricious and blood-thirsty behavior had earned him the nickname that most workers at his papers did not know he was aware of. He only acknowledged to a few in his inner circle that he knew that his name, Wolfgang Stevenson, combined with his ruthlessness, had earned him the nickname: The Big Bad Wolf.

Once her boss had talked him into not firing her over some minor infraction of company rules, Catalina had been called into the corner penthouse office only a few more times. Each time he had sent a message via IM that she was to come alone, and then he had given her an assignment that he wanted done quietly and quickly... usually to destroy someone’s reputation, or to debunk a rumor being passed around that involved someone close to the notorious Wolfgang Stevenson himself.

The paper had been floundering as the distantly second-best-selling newspaper in Chicago, until he had swept into town a number of years ago with lots of money and bravado, and sworn to make it number one or to die trying. Since he was still breathing, it was obvious that he was still working on his goal. That goal sometimes involved writing things that were in questionable taste, and of dubious accuracy.

The first time she was summoned into his office, Catalina had asked why he was telling her directly what he wanted written, instead of going through the usual channels, involving her boss. He had pointed out that the eminently respected and respectable Horace Collins was a wonderful editor, but much too honest and with too many moral scruples to be really trustworthy. She, on the other hand, struck him as someone he could work with. She had held her nose and written what he wanted, and had gotten a huge bonus check in with her company Christmas card that year. She mollified her conscience with a Michigan Avenue shopping spree, and her inner voice had been buried under expensive designer clothes that made her feel like a new woman.

So now that she had been summoned, there was no way to ignore the message. She quickly logged off of her screen so that no one could see the IM she had been sent, and she got up to make the trip down the hall, into the elevator, and up to the top floor of the building. As she walked up to the closed door of the office she shared with three other writers, she smiled at herself in the full-length mirror she had put up on the back of the door. Some called it vanity, and laughed at her having it there. She called it her preparation device, since it allowed for her to be sure that she was as attractive as possible before she walked out the door to face the world. After all, roughly forty-nine percent of the world was male. She was busy trying to see just how many of them she could sample before she got too old to play the game anymore.

With a wry smile for her self-consciousness, Catalina leaned over to adjust her breasts, to show maximum cleavage to the big boss. Then with one last sigh, wondering what odious task he had for her to do this time, she went through her door to answer her summons to the wolf’s den.

Two

Once outside of the penthouse office, Catalina told the secretary her name, and sat down on one of the hard plastic waiting room chairs. She had just flipped open a magazine, also published by their company, when the secretary nodded at her.

You can go in now.

Stifling another sigh, Catalina gave a tight smile to the other woman that implied that she would rather be anywhere else other than where she was right now. The woman’s return smile had a touch of sympathy to it, but then she had to work for him full-time, so their moment of empathy was brief.

Walking into the office Catalina was struck, as before, by the thickness of the carpeting under her feet, and the opulence of the furnishings and the original artwork on display. She had described the office to her sister Rosa once, and Rosa had sniffed derisively, saying, Yeah, I’ve worked for some like him. They want to bowl you over with just how much more money they have than you, in the first few seconds. Personally, I find it tasteless and soul-less; but if they are paying me enough to do it, I’ll design whatever they want. Rosa had made a face, then laughed, saying, Besides, it gives me anecdotes to entertain you all with at the next family gathering!

When she walked in, Wolfgang Stevenson was on the phone, sitting behind his desk with his back to her, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling window at the skyline of the northwest side of Chicago’s downtown. The crystal blue water of Lake Michigan sparkled beyond the buildings.

Abruptly he yelled, Later! He swiveled his chair around, and slammed the phone down into the cradle.

Catalina smiled tentatively at him, saying, I can come back later, if it would be more convenient for you.

He smiled speculatively at her, like a lion regarding his prey.

That anxious to get away from me already, are you? You just got here. I haven’t told you what I want you to do yet. So sit your nicely-shaped butt down in that chair, and give me a minute to compose myself.

He poured himself a shot of expensive single malt scotch and took a sip, then sighed and spoke at her.

Wives! Can’t shoot them, but sure as hell can’t live with them! At least not without a whole lot of drama and yelling. And God forbid you have kids with any of the ex-wives, because then you have to deal with their drama too, in addition to alimony, for the rest of your life! Raising the brats to adulthood is hard enough. But I’d rather chew nails, than have to keep talking to either of my exes.

Catalina gave him what she hoped was a sympathetic smile and clucked softly, saying, I’m sorry we women are so hard to get along with, Mr. Stevenson.

He laughed heartily.

I’ll just bet you are, honey! Tasty little morsels like you have been my downfall since I was twelve!

He took another sip from his glass, and poured some water into it from a pitcher on his desk.

Water? he asked her, indicating that she could help herself to a glass, if she wanted to.

Catalina shook her head. No thanks.

But you’d have some scotch if I offered it to you, wouldn’t you?

She shook her head. Actually, no. I prefer—

Let me guess, wine? All of you high-maintenance women like expensive wine. I’ve got a cellar full of it in my mansion, but she always wants to shop for more! I could buy the entire output of a French province, and she’d still want more!

Catalina smiled politely and watched as he got up and stalked around his office; she imagined that he was physically expressing his anger at whomever he had been talking to on the phone, so she waited quietly for him to tell her why he had summoned her.

Finally he turned to her.

My ex-wife. The first one. That’s who’s pissing me off now. But not nearly as much as her kid, my oldest son. Between the two of them, they’re conspiring to put me into an early grave.

He shook his head as he stopped in front of her.

And I’ve got too damn many bills to pay, to be able to afford to die! Thank God I only had one kid with her... but I had two with the second wife, and I’ve got two new ones with the current Mrs. Stevenson.

Catalina wondered where this was leading to, but she smiled again, saying, I know, sir. I’ve worked here for almost twelve years. I’ve met them all.

He surprised her by laughing aloud again.

And they certainly remembered meeting you, honey! No matter how many times I told them that I’m too smart to shit in my own nest, they have all accused me of giving in to your... um... considerable charms.

He leaned closer to her and sniffed appreciatively.

"Not that I haven’t thought about it, mind you. But you are much more valuable to me where you are right now. I can find a bit on the side anywhere, and deal with that quickly and cheaply, as long as I remember to use the damn condoms. But you? No matter how tempting you are, I need you for other things. Like now."

She sat quietly and waited while he walked back around his desk, to grab the glass again and take another drink. He sat heavily back into his chair, and leaned back.

Scared you just now, did I? Thinking the old man had finally gotten around to wanting you to put out to keep your job?

She shook her head.

"No sir. Being the good investigative