Hot on His Heels

By Margo Bond Collins

Sadie Quinn is at the romance readers’ convention for one reason only: to find editor Jocelyn Dellarivier. Which she could do if she didn’t keep running into the most frustrating, gorgeous man ever. To make matters worse, she just won a contest and a date with him is the prize.

Jake Blaine could kill his boss for rigging the contest, but now he’s face to face with the one woman who could expose his alter ego. He’s not about to leave, but he can’t tell Sadie he’s the editor she’s looking for. But even though he’s playing with fire, Jake can’t seem to stay away. And after a night with the raven-haired beauty, he’s not sure he wants to…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jul 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781633755826

Book preview

He’s exactly who she’s looking for…she just doesn’t know it yet.

Sadie Quinn is at the romance readers’ convention for one reason only: to find editor Jocelyn Dellarivier. Which she could do if she didn’t keep running into the most frustrating, gorgeous man ever. To make matters worse, she just won a contest and a date with him is the prize.

Jake Blaine could kill his boss for rigging the contest, but now he’s face to face with the one woman who could expose his alter ego. He’s not about to leave, but he can’t tell Sadie he’s the editor she’s looking for. But even though he’s playing with fire, Jake can’t seem to stay away. And after a night with the raven-haired beauty, he’s not sure he wants to…

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Find love in unexpected places with these satisfying Lovestruck reads…

Totally, Sweetly, Irrevocably

Bridesmaid Blues

Unexpectedly His

Kissing Mr. Wrong

Discover the What Happens in Vegas series

Tempting Her Best Friend

The Makeover Mistake

A Change of Plans

Masquerading with the CEO

Just One Reason

Tamed by the Outlaw

Tempted by Mr. Write

Gambling on the Bodyguard

Seducing Seven

Calling Her Bluff

Her Secret Lover

Accidentally in Love with the Biker

Betting on the Wrong Brother

Loving the Odds

The Seduction of Kinley Foster

Taming the Country Star

Opposing the Cowboy

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Margo Bond Collins. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Lovestruck is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Alycia Tornetta

Cover design by Heather Howland

Cover art from iStock

ISBN 978-1-63375-582-6

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition July 2016

For Allison Bell ~ because without you, this never would have happened.

Chapter One

You realize this is stalking, right? Despite her quelling words, Amelia leaned in until her chin almost rested on Sadie’s shoulder.

Sadie shrugged, ducking away from her best friend and turning to survey the room. "It’s not stalking. Jocelyn Dellarivier tweeted that she was here—she glanced down at the screen on her phone—two minutes ago." After several months of emailing the elusive editor with no response, Sadie had been thrilled when the woman finally created a Twitter account.

Grabbing Amelia by the hand, Sadie tugged her out of the entryway and into the auditorium. She scanned the room, holding up her phone and comparing her view to the picture. Come on. She was standing somewhere over there. She pointed toward the middle of an aisle about twenty rows closer to the stage.

With a resigned sigh, Amelia followed behind her, but Sadie knew her friend wouldn’t abandon her. Not now. Not when she was so close to tracking down romance novel editor Jocelyn Dellarivier, the final person she needed to interview for her first academic book.

There must be five hundred people here, Amelia complained. You don’t even know what this woman looks like. How are you going to find her?

Unfortunately, the Twitter profile picture for the woman was one of the best-selling books Jocelyn had edited.

First, I’m going to figure out where she was when she took that picture. Another glance showed her that they were in almost the right spot. Maybe down that aisle a bit?

You think that will be enough to tell you who she is? Magically impart some special locating ability to you? Despite her complaints, Amelia followed her friend.

The lines to a poem ran through Sadie’s mind, and she muttered them aloud. ‘If I should meet thee / After long years, / How should I greet thee?— / With silence and tears.’

I heard that, Amelia said. It’s Byron.

Sadie and Amelia had started the game as new graduate students in a literature Ph.D program because one of their professors was a stickler for requiring students to recite quotes on tests. Initially, they teamed up to study together, taking turns memorizing and identifying passages. Sadie had been surprised to discover that beneath Amelia’s flighty and carefree attitude was a razor-sharp mind, and the two of them had become fast friends. It had been years, and what began as a game had become a habit—but Sadie had yet to stump her friend.

Anyway, you will not be greeting anyone with silence and tears, Amelia continued. This conference is going to be fun.

Sadie ignored the running commentary, again pulling her friend along as they made their way down an aisle to a row of seats. There are two seats there, she said. It’s almost the exact same view as in the picture Jocelyn took. She’s got to be sitting somewhere nearby.

Because she couldn’t possibly have used the zoom function on her camera, Amelia muttered, but she followed Sadie toward the two empty spots anyway.

Oh, no, Sadie gasped, stopping in front of a heavyset woman in her fifties who had pulled her knees to the side to let the two younger women pass. I didn’t consider that. Her stomach dropped. Had she completely miscalculated? What if they weren’t anywhere near Jocelyn?

Amelia shook her head, waving Sadie on. We can discuss it after we sit down. You have to keep going.

Yes, please, said the older woman she bumped on her quest to get to the empty seats.

A blush crawled up Sadie’s neck. There she was again, paying more attention to her goals than to the people around her. It was a bad habit she had tried to break, but she spent so much time in her own head that she often forgot to think about actual humans.

Sweat gathered at the top of her spine, as it often did when she grew anxious. The extra moisture brought out the incipient curl in her hair, even in the dry Las Vegas air.

Incipient curl. That’s what her mother had called it.

A nicer way to say frizz.

With a slight stumble, she pushed forward, this time remembering to excuse herself to the people she passed, many of whom stood to let her through.

Pausing again, she checked the image on her screen against the view in front of her.

Look. She pointed at the picture, and Amelia leaned in to see. This is almost exactly where she was sitting. There’s that woman in the pink suit—

I think you mean that horrific Pepto-Bismol dress suit, Amelia noted.

Sadie waved her hand to dismiss the comment. Fine. Whatever. Jocelyn would have had to be near here to take the picture. She peered around her, trying to read the conference name tags hanging from the necks of the women around her to see if she could find anyone who might be the reclusive and mysterious Jocelyn Dellarivier.

Don’t get distracted, Amelia said, giving Sadie a gentle push to get her moving again.

Still craning her neck to examine the rows of conference attendees behind her, Sadie tripped over yet another woman’s feet. Her ankle twisted under her, and her arms pinwheeled out to either side. All around her, conference-goers ducked out of the way.

At the last minute she managed to spin around as she made a grab for Amelia, but it was too late to stop herself from landing ass-first in the closest seat.

Unfortunately for her, the chair wasn’t empty, as evidenced by the whoosh of air she knocked out of its inhabitant when she landed on his lap.

Her face scrunched up in embarrassment, she turned a sheepish look toward her not-quite-savior.

And froze.

The man had to be one of the cover models. He was that gorgeous. Dark, silky hair, deep brown eyes, a sensuous mouth curving up in a smirk that suggested he knew exactly the effect he had on women.

He also looked oddly familiar.

Where had she seen him before?

Maybe on one of the covers of the many novels she read while writing first her dissertation, and now this book.

That had to be it. She’d certainly remember if she’d met him in real life.

Beautiful men