One Week to Score

By Kate Meader

He’s the man she loves to hate…

Olivia Kane’s wedding day has just imploded spectacularly. Shots lined up at the bar? Bring it. Hot stranger on the hook? Come on down. What this party does not need is six feet and change of home-grown Texas cockiness in the form of her brother’s best friend, the man who broke her heart seven years ago.

She’s the woman he has to have…

Flynn Cross won’t stand by while Liv finds sensual solace in the arms of a stranger, not when his own hard-for-her body is more than up for the task. For one week, he’ll make her honeymoon-for-one a sizzling party for two.

Breaking the rules, one steamy night at a time…

But the taboo they’re breaking is only the beginning…and Flynn’s part in Liv’s wedding debacle could bring about their end.

Each book in the Tall, Dark, and Texan series is a standalone, full-length story that can be enjoyed out of order.
Series Order:
Book #1 Even The Score
Book #2 Taking the Score
Book #3 One Week to Score

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jul 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781633757066

Kate Meader

Originally from Ireland, Kate Meader cut her romance reader teeth on Maeve Binchy and Jilly Cooper novels, with some Harlequins thrown in for variety. Give her tales about brooding mill owners, oversexed equestrians, and men who can rock an apron, a fire hose, or a hockey stick, and she's there. Now based in Chicago, she writes sexy contemporary romance with alpha heroes and strong heroines (and heroes) who can match their men quip for quip. Visit her at KateMeader.com.

Book preview

To Kate’s Kittens, the best readers’ group in the world.

Prologue

To: [e-mail]

From: [e-mail]

Subject: Re: Happy ‘escape from the womb’ day

Thanks for the birthday wishes and the care package for my ‘package.’ However, as much as I love the underwear with ‘It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself’ emblazoned across the front—real classy, sweets—it might give the boys in the barracks ideas. It sure gets lonely in the desert. :) I’d like to say you were the only one who remembered but your mom sent me a (perishable!) gift from Dean and DeLuca. Might’ve been a chocolate bunny once. Guess we’ll never know. And Brody sent me links to porn, like I’d have a problem finding that. I’m in Special fucking Forces, after all.

Flynn,

protecting your freedom to be a Texas American Princess

To: [e-mail]

From: [e-mail]

Subject: Re: Happy ‘escape from the womb’ day

Porn from my brother, X-rated boxers, a melted chocolate bunny, and my mother in the mix… Pretty sure you’ve hit all my triggers there, dickhead! My therapist is going to have a field day this week. LOL. Sorry I missed our last Skype chat, my Bio professor probably wouldn’t have appreciated me bailing on my mid-term to give comfort to our armed forces. Not that the C+ I got is anything to write to Iraq about. I promise to be around for the next one. Preview of coming attractions: Wait ’til I tell you about this girl Brody is banging…he makes her dress up as a Cyberwoman from that Doctor Who show. I kid you the fuck not.

Liv,

planning to invoice my therapist bills to one F. Cross on his return

To: [e-mail]

From: [e-mail]

Subject: Re: Happy ‘escape from the womb’ day

You can’t bring up the Brodster’s strange proclivities and leave me hanging! How he gets so much tail with those Clark Kent glasses, I’ll never know. Speaking of… If any of those pizza-faced Longhorns are trying to do you, feel free to use me as your fake boyfriend to keep ’em in line. Or better yet…you still wearing that Aggies tee you stole from me a couple of years back? Best form of birth control for a Lady Longhorn right there. Sure to scare off those UT cowards looking to get in your panties—assuming your big mouth or your even bigger feet hasn’t scared ’em off first.

Flynn,

still preserving your virginal honor from the middle of Bumblefuck, Iraq

To: [e-mail]

From: [e-mail]

Subject: Hey, loser

I’m guessing you must be out on a super-sekrit mission because you haven’t checked in lately. If I hear from my nerd of a brother that you’re dead and you didn’t tell me, I’m going to hunt you down and kill you again!

Liv,

who has never stolen an Aggies T-shirt in her life (you gave it to me!)

Chapter One

Seven years, four months later

Olivia Elizabeth Kane blinked at the hot mess staring back from the saloon mirror at the Four Seasons in beautiful downtown Houston. Panda-eyed, lipstick-smudged, but still perfectly veiled.

Awesome.

Her mother’s voice boomed in her head. Sit up straight, Olivia. Pride starts with posture.

Her response to that maternal nag? Slump a few inches forward over the bar. Recovering her pride after today’s events would require Liv to be stretched spine-taut on a medieval torture rack.

Five minutes ago, she had climbed onto the bar stool, arranged her Vera Wang gown’s cream puff layers, and delivered a brook-no-bullshit glare. The bartender took one look and knew better than to refuse her. Who would refuse the bride on the happiest day of her life? Especially one who had just witnessed the rapidly deflating cock of the groom mere moments after it had been wedged between the maid of honor’s over-tanned thighs?

In response to her demand for oblivion, five shot glasses were now lined up like good little soldiers on the bar. One for each year she had wasted on Peter Whitehouse, the not-so-honorable congressman from Texas.

She picked up the first and raised it high, like she was checking the color of a fine wine instead of contemplating how exactly she should dedicate this particular shot of Van Winkle Special Reserve.

To freedom, she spoke to no one in particular, and knocked the bourbon back. The smoky burn scored her throat and pooled with the acid in her stomach. No doubt she’d be getting re-acquainted with that shot later.

What else deserved a toast? Who else?

Certainly not her bridesmaids, led by that rat-faced, traitorous wench, Jess. Not a single one of them had stayed with her. Stung by their malevolent glee, Liv had sent them away immediately after the wedding-that-never-was. In their eyes, she saw exactly what they were thinking: my-shit-don’t-stink Olivia Kane sure is one ugly crier and…squirrel! Now to re-purpose these bridesmaid gowns for the glitzy Houston wedding season.

Usually, this was Liv’s favorite time of the year. As the owner of Let’s Party!, the premier event planning firm in Houston, she was a veritable fixture on the scene. Everyone wanted her services, her élan, her joie de vivre. An Olivia Kane wedding was an event with a capital E, so naturally her own would be remembered as the most spectacular bash of the year.

Oh, there’d be no doubt about that.

Who knew her brother, Mr. Uptight Nerd, had such a clean right hook? Well, her former fiancé Peter was now in possession of that salient fact. So sweet of Brody to make Peter aware of his opinion in such a heroic way. Unlike Flynn Cross, her brother’s best friend, business partner, and the man who had once filled Liv’s fevered teenage dreams. That blue-eyed devil had stood by with a sardonic raise of his eyebrow that said it all: Slow clap for you, Liv.

She hadn’t even invited him.

Somehow, the miscreant sheep fucker had wangled an invitation as Jess’s plus one. That’s right—the maid of honor, her so-called friend, the woman whose basketball-leathered thighs had been wrapped around Liv’s former fiancé’s hate-handles. Flynn hadn’t seemed all that upset that his date was caught in flagrante with the groom. Knowing him, he probably had an arrangement with Jess to bang as many guests as possible before they hooked back up for the first dance.

Second shot down. Glass overturned. Evil eye thrown at the judgy bartender.

How dare he? It was his job to accept drunken misery in all its misshapen, mascara-streaked, perfectly-veiled forms.

Damn, she’d forgotten to toast before that shot. To Jess’s heifer thighs, she shouted at the empty glass, drawing a few offhand looks from the other customers. Screw them. This was her wedding party and she was the fucking bride!

Her dirty scowl garnered her additional expressions of disgust mixed with pity…except for one.

Well, hello, there, hottie-with-the-million-dollar-smile. Unlike the rest of the whispering bar patrons, this sandy-haired cutie pie was undoubtedly enjoying her efforts to strut through her misery (while sitting down). So her wedding day sucked, but the wedding night was looking up.

She raised her empty glass in his direction, not ready to waste precious bourbon on him just yet. He tipped his Stetson back to her. Promising. She turned back to her only friends—the shots she had yet to down. They’d see her right.

A one-night stand. She’d never had one before. She’d never dared. The daughter of Texas senator Broderick Kane II and Houston society doyenne Suzanne Boudreau Kane—both now happily divorced, thank her stars—was not one-night stand material. She’d disappointed her parents in numerous ways, from her unimpressive grades to her failure to meet the body image standards of a child beauty pageant queen (put that Ho Ho down now, Olivia!). But never by getting her name on Page Six or making an ignominious crawl home after a sexy hook-up.

Could she do this? After the day she’d had, her judgment was surely impaired.

Yes, she could do this.

Third shot down. Feel the burn. Sneer at Benny the bartender. (He looked like a Benny.)

She was going to do this. She was going to have hot, drunken, impaired-judgment sex with a stranger on her wedding day while wearing her Vera Wang dress and a gorgeous veil. Maybe in the bar restroom of the Four Seasons in beautiful downtown Houston.

Hauling a deep, make-me-feel-sexy breath, she pinned on what she hoped was a coquettish smile, turned as smoothly as her bulky gown allowed, and found her previously pleasure-filled sightline newly blocked by six-foot-and-change of home-grown Texas assholery.

This particular example happened to have thick, wavy hair as dark as his heart, deep, soulful eyes as blue as the garter still circling her thigh, and a face that made angels weep. Probably after he’d screwed them senseless, knocked them up, and abandoned them with a wink and a smile.

Flynn Cross, her least favorite person in the world—and that was saying a lot after the horror she’d witnessed earlier in that back room of the First Congregational Church—leaned on the bar, looking (a) devastatingly handsome in a tux and (b) like he had any number of smart-ass comments at the ready.

And because the worst day of her life could always descend one more hell-born circle, he obliged on (b).

Why, Miz Olivia Kane, you sure know how to throw a party.

…

Flynn could think of no woman in the world who could pull off the Bride-With-One-Foot-In-Hell look better than Liv.

As diminutive as she was, she still managed to bear herself like a queen, even with that gash of smeared pink lipstick across her cheek and the damp smudges of make-up below her whiskey-colored eyes.

War paint.

The last place he’d expected to find her was here, in the bar of the hotel where she was to hold her reception for the wedding that had spectacularly crashed and burned this afternoon. When he’d asked Brody if she was okay, he’d been informed she was curled up in a fetal ball of misery in her

Reviews for One Week to Score

[pgchuis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Olivia and Flynn. I thought Olivia was going to be more fun (from her appearance in Brody's book).

[kendall · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was written well. There was a good descriptiveness in the characters and their history. I felt easily connected to them. The emotions were easily felt as well. I could imagine the scenes in every aspect. It gave way to a great story.

[booksnuggle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"One Week to Score" is a second chance and friends to lovers romance. If you like hot, hot, steamy, funny, and heartfelt scenes, then this book is for you!

"One Week to Score" by Kate Meader is book number three in the "Tall, Dark, and Texan" series. The book is a standalone. This is Olivia Kane and Flynn Cross' story. Flynn is Olivia's brother's best friend and she thought they were friends too. Olivia has always loved Flynn but never told him. Then seven years ago, Flynn broke off all communication with her and broke her heart.

Olivia's day hasn't turned out how she expected it to. Instead of getting married she is in a bar drinking shots. Olivia has always wanted to do the right thing, but she is not so sure anymore. Flynn cares for Olivia but has always felt he wasn't good enough for her so hid his feelings.

Flynn wants to be there for Olivia during this emotional time and to protect her from herself. He offers Olivia a proposition? Will Olivia accept his proposition? What will Olivia do when she finds out the role Flynn had in her wedding day disaster?

FYI, this is a mature content story. I received a copy of this book from NetGalley/Entangled Publishing for an honest review.