Revenge In Room 426

By Michelle Conder

Step behind the hotel room doors of the Chatsfield, London…

Journalist Chloe Tyler has a plan:

1. Use the press junket for Liam Hunter's latest movie to get revenge. She shares a past with this movie star and his betrayal left her broken–hearted and a total laughing stock.

2. She'll use him, seduce him and once he's begging? Cut him loose.

But Chloe is playing a dangerous game and soon a pretend seduction becomes all too real! Suddenly the world's best laid plan for revenge might just be the one thing standing in the way of Chloe's happiness!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781488744297

Michelle Conder

From as far back as she can remember Michelle Conder dreamed of being a writer. She penned the first chapter of a romance novel just out of high school, but it took much study, many (varied) jobs, one ultra-understanding husband and three gorgeous children before she finally sat down to turn that dream into a reality. Michelle lives in Australia, and when she isn’t busy plotting she loves to read, ride horses, travel and practise yoga. Visit Michelle: www.michelleconder.com

Book preview

Chapter One

It was him!

No, no, it wasn’t… damn, yes it was. And he looked… Chloe Tyler flattened herself against the brickwork at the Chatsfield London hotel and tried not to stare. Which was a bit like those lab experiments where small children were told not to touch a plate full of cookies or something equally tempting, because Liam Hunter was born to be stared at.

He always had been. The most popular boy in high school, probably the most popular boy in kindergarten as well, he was, at twenty three, now the most popular star to grace the silver screen. Privileged. Wealthy. Spoilt. Chloe pulled a face. Basically the opposite of her. The poor, dorky exchange student who had gone to America looking for adventure and come away with egg on her face. Like every other girl in senior high she had fallen head over heels in love with him. Then she’d got to know him when she’d started tutoring him in English and not only did she think him the best looking guy she had ever seen but the nicest as well.

Boy, did he relieve her of that misapprehension very spectacularly. And very publicly.

His horrible prank had been the most humiliating experience of her life and he’d even posted the video of it on YouTube where it had gone viral. God, even her father had seen it.

Making sure to keep well out of his line of vision Chloe was unable to tear her eyes away from his long, muscular frame as he strolled along the red carpet and greeted what seemed like thousands of screaming fans and paparazzi. It had been five years since the nightmare of prom night. Five years since she had seen Liam Hunter – aka rat loser extraordinaire – in the flesh and unfortunately he looked better than ever. Larger. Leaner. His tawny brown hair, worn long now, sat just above shoulder length in an artful array of thick layers. His broad shoulders were encased in a navy blue shirt open over his trademark white t-shirt, and aged denims road low on his lean hips and muscular thighs, ending in worn workman boots.

Ha. The man – for that was what he was now – had never done a day’s hard labour in his life. He was the Golden Boy who could do no wrong, except that he had a snake’s personality and he thought nothing of hurting others. Of hurting her. And her fall had been that much steeper because he’d done it after making her feel so special. So wonderful. So beautiful.

Yeah, right. That should have been her first clue that something was up. If there was one thing Chloe wasn’t it was beautiful. Oh, she had some pluses – she had creamy skin that despite her red hair hardly freckled and blue eyes with long dark lashes and an okay smile. Unfortunately she had red hair - really red hair - that had a tendency to frizz when it was humid and her nose was a little on the prominent side, made worse, in her opinion, by her too wide mouth. Added to that she also had size eleven paddles on the end of her legs and was as tall as a giraffe.

As far as Chloe was concerned, the only women who fared well from being tall were supermodels and basketball players. Of which she was neither.

Suddenly dizzy she realised that she was holding her breath and released it in a rush. Painful memories of Liam’s cruel joke buzzed into her head like darting mosquitos around a bag of blood and she pushed them away, reminding herself that she was here to do a job whether she liked it or not.

A job that had landed on her desk yesterday afternoon when Globe magazine’s flighty entertainment journalist had decided to take off to follow a singing career. With her boss left in the lurch Chloe had eagerly jumped into the fray to take over Candy’s next assignment.

God.

She released a long slow breath. If only she’d asked who Candy’s interview subject was before she’d said yes.

Refusing to continue to dwell on what she couldn’t change Chloe slowly