Chasing Prince Charming

By Melva Michaelian and Anna Carrasco Bowling

History expert and publisher Dominic Stewart notices the fairy-tale shoes first, but author Meg Crawford, the woman who wears them, is no Cinderella. Meg should use those red stilettos to walk away from the powerful, determined man who challenges her to do what she never thought she could. Her refusal is quick and adamant, and the stakes are too high. Ultimately, she can't resist his extremely tempting offer. If she fails, they both lose; if she succeeds, it may be at too big a price. Both believe "happily ever after" is pure fiction, but their chance encounter in a bar just may give them a shot at romantic history on and off the page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Aug 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781509226719

Melva Michaelian

Melva J. Michaelian has taught English, Western, and American literature at Springfield College, was past president of Charter Oak Romance Writers, and is a current member of the New England Chapter of Romance Writers of America. When she is not teaching or traveling, she works on her novels and memoirs. She has also contributed short stories to such anthologies as Love Free or Die. Her poetry and humorous articles have appeared in several New England and national publications, and she has written two books, A Walk on the Wide Side and Testing the Heart, with co-author, Lorene Morin. As a solo, she has also penned two contemporary romantic suspense and a nonfiction manuscript now ready to put on the market. Melva is excited to be partnered with published author and friend Anna Bowling in a romance trilogy, the first of which, Chasing Prince Charming, is now complete. She resides in Massachusetts with her husband and enjoys having her four children living nearby, where they can both aggravate and inspire her.

Book preview

began.

Chapter One

The woman who murdered Lacey was late. Meg stood near the window, engulfed in a hellhole of a conference. Kelly was supposed to meet her here at six o’clock, two hours before the opening awards ceremony. Meg eyed the parking lot suspiciously through the long glass panels in the lobby of the hotel, no sign of her agent’s dark blue sedan. The missing woman had drop-kicked Meg into clusters of historical romance writers, a caged shark in a goldfish bowl. She couldn’t relate to all these women, and the few men, who strolled the halls of the hotel, gushing over each other’s sappy plotlines.

Meg was a bestselling author; she had been riding high in the chick lit market until her agent, Kelly Nolan, told her it was time to reinvent herself. How does one do that? She shouldn’t have to. That was the answer. Her last three books had skidded off the shelves and into the hands of an eager readership. So what if the chick lit genre in general was free falling? Her main character was alive and well.

Just a few days earlier, Meg had argued that very point when Kelly told her she couldn’t sell the latest novel in the series. Everybody loves Lacey Logan, and you know it.

The two women sat facing each other across Kelly’s oversized mahogany office desk.

"Everybody loved Lacey, Kelly countered, and they will again. Let’s just give her a vacation until the genre makes a comeback."

Some vacation. You’re sending her on a cruise ship with intentions to torpedo the boat, aren’t you?

She’ll just be resting for a while.

Pretty damn difficult with that knife in her back.

Your sassy, confident female stirred the sense of adventure in millions of readers, true. Kelly tapped her green blotter with the eraser end of her blue pencil. The Lacey novels were filled with brassy escapades, snappy dialogue, and a heroine every woman in America wanted to be. You can take those elements and put them into something else. The current, quick-selling trend now is more…well, sweet.

"Sweet! You want me to write sweet?" Meg gasped, then gaped at the woman who had become her friend. Working as a team, they had muscled into the market hard and gotten Meg’s stories to the top of the charts.

Kelly rose from her swivel chair and rounded the desk to stand next to Meg. Look, you’re a writer and a good one. You can write anything you set your mind to.

But I don’t have a mind to do sentimental mush. It’s just not me. Tears erupted, threatening to spill from lashes to lips.

All I’m asking you to do is to try it. I’ve even arranged for you to attend some romance writers’ workshops in New England. Think of it as a three-day retreat where you can get a feel for what they do and how they do it. Kelly had placed her warm, solid hands on Meg’s stiff shoulders, pleading with those no-nonsense hazel eyes of hers. Just go, mingle a little with the other writers, and pick up some pointers. I think you’ll change your mind about romance. I’ll even drop by on the first day and help make you more comfortable.

Well, Meg was now here in the heart of Massachusetts, of all places, and so far, she wasn’t impressed. It was March, and she had taken a tumble in the icy parking lot of the hotel as she dragged her bags from the trunk of her Lincoln. Back home in Manhattan, streets were cleared of every remnant of this winter’s visit. A chill sprinted up her spine, and her ankle ached from her fall. Her cell phone gave its signature song—this week it was Madonna’s Like a Virgin—in the pocket of her dark blue blazer. A text message. So sorry, Meg. Won’t be able to meet up with you. New, very needy client needs hand holding through final edits. Talk later.

Oh, we’ll talk all right, Meg fumed. She just got bumped from the hot first place on Kelly’s priority list to somewhere beneath the South Pole. So now, she had to play nice in the literary sandbox with a bunch of writers chatting about their saccharine fairy tales, and she had to do it alone. She hated fairy tales, all those princesses and their Prince Charmings. It was going to be a very long weekend. Maybe if she attended the damned workshops and reported back to Kelly that she still found the genre repulsive, her agent would give Lacey’s last novel another push for publication. Right now, though, she was going back to her room to sulk.

She reached the elevator bank just as the door closed on the only car open to the first floor. Meg looked at the digital display above the other two doors. One was on the twentieth floor while the other dallied on the tenth. She pressed her index finger on the up button and held it there, willing the pressure to shoot one of the cars downward to where she stood. Five depressions later, the metallic doors to her right opened and expelled a knot of smiling women with blue identification wallets hanging around their necks. They all sported a name and a Northeast Romance Writers heading. She had received one just like it in her registration packet. She had stuffed it deep into her handbag, not wanting anyone to think she was ready to engage in a discussion of the significance of the first kiss in a Regency novel.

As the elevator car rose, so did her pique. She could stay in her room and tell Kelly she had circulated, socialized, and done some deep learning. No, Kelly knew her too well, and besides, Meg had never been a good liar, even though she could fabricate a whole world of glitter, glamour, and erotic undertones. She had created a character who could knock the boxers off a guy from a hundred feet away with a mere side glance, who could make the manliest of men surrender to her sensuous appeal, and then move on with broken hearts and frustrated lovers left behind like discarded cola cans. But she could not tell a simple fib in real life.

There were many things she couldn’t do in real life. She marched defiantly to her suite and jammed the keycard into the slot. The blinking red light mocked her, and the door refused to yield. She removed the card and wiggled it back into the metal slit until the tiny green signal allowed her to turn the knob and propel herself into the room.

Her computer lay open on the guest desk, calling to her, demanding she tap the keys and begin to sculpt another work as she approached the empty screen. It beckoned her to slap an outline into a document and build scenes and people, places and dialogue. After her meeting with Kelly, she had actually tried to begin a story without her favorite heroine. The white computer document had glowed in front of her, the cursor blinking its challenge. Her fingers had petrified in their position over the keys, unable to pound out the words she wanted, needed to rouse to duty.

Here she was at a writers’ conference, and she couldn’t even touch the keyboard. She had lived with Lacey for so long she didn’t think she could write about anyone else. But she had to. No books, no money, and if there was no money, what would happen to Mom? Her father had left home when Meg was only five, and her mom never complained as she struggled to raise and educate her only daughter. Meg owed her big time, although Constance Crawford would never have suggested as much. Well, Meg couldn’t think about that now. Dammit! Now I’m talking like Scarlett O’Hara. Well, I’m not going to dress in the drapes and go traipsing after some man to pay my bills.

She backed away from her laptop. Dread descended like a cinderblock to the pit of her empty stomach. The edge of the king-sized bed nudged at the back of her knees, and she automatically sank onto the plump white comforter. What is wrong with me?

The thought bulleted through her brain. She flicked her eyes down to the navy-blue pumps with their comfortable, foam inner soles. Of course! She wasn’t wearing the shoes. She raced to the suitcase she had parked in the closet, unzipped the top compartment, and plucked out the cherry-red spike heels. These were the magical shoes, the ruby slippers of Oz that had transformed her world from black and white to Technicolor. She always slipped them on when she wrote. Kelly had called them part of her Lacey costume, but the shoes had always been Meg’s.

Meg had bought them on her lunch break at the Chic-ly Shod shoe store across the street from where she had worked the perfume counter at Harrison Goodson’s. She stepped out of the crowded department store to eat her ham sandwich in the nearby park when she saw them in the window. Her gaze immediately latched onto the flashy, crimson, skyscraper heels, and she knew she had to buy them. They cost her a half-week’s salary, but they were worth every Brew Baron latte she sacrificed to purchase them.

The first time she slid them onto her feet, she conjured Lacey. She had been trying for months to come up with a concept for her first book, but with those shoes hugging the soles of her feet, that first story burst right out of her. After years of having her short stories and poetry published in minor magazines and local journals, she’d been on her way to the big time.

Meg wrenched open the side pocket of her suitcase and plucked out the shoes that hit the sunlight from the window and shone like dragon fire. Meg was reminded as she admired them that her first Lacey novel caught the attention of every woman who wanted to escape her ordinary routine and follow the conquests and capers of the exquisite Lacey, impeccably dressed, self-reliant, and poised, who solved mysteries and enticed the most stalwart of men.

Meg sat in the cushy window chair and pulled off her pumps. With reverence, she slipped her feet into the glossy red shoes. Body and brain buoyed. A surge of euphoria penetrated each nerve, each fiber, each cell. She stood up and faltered slightly. Ah, yes, that was why she didn’t wear them outside of her apartment. They gave her height; they gave her power, but she never could walk in them. The potency of the shoes hummed from heel to head. Well, it was time to walk in them now.

If she had to go down and play with those love pushers who fed their readers’ addiction to romantic ecstasy, she would do it as her own heroine. She wobbled her way to the full-length mirror and took inventory. A young Margaret Thatcher type in Madonna’s shoes gazed back at her. She yanked the side combs out of her light brown hair and ran her fingers through her shoulder-length locks. Better. She snatched her purse from the bed, her ankles thrusting sideways as she did so, and delved into its depths to extract the only tube of lipstick she had brought—Modest Melon. Really? That was not going to do it, but it was what she had. She smeared on three coats of the light shade before pressing her lips together to spread the color more evenly.

She did a close-up with her reflection, turning her face from side to side, assessing her work. She shook her head to loosen her hair to a more wanton mass of long curls. She stepped back shakily, removed the jacket of her suit, and unbuttoned the top three buttons of her sheer eggshell blouse. Getting there. She rolled the waistband of her dark blue pencil skirt a couple of times, bringing the hemline up to a whisper above her knees. She checked the mirror once more. All right, she looked nothing like her blond, curvaceous creation, but inside, she was pure Lacey. Hands on hips, chin thrust forward, she was ready to roll. But to where? Surely not down to the lobby to banter about the bloom of romance in the Wild West or Victorian England.

Maybe this was the time to make her own romance. Lacey always did. Meg swaggered out of her room, her legs desperately trying to keep her balanced on the elevated heels, and headed downstairs. As the elevator car pinged open on the first floor, she saw the destination that had not been clear to her when she had taken that first comb out of her hair. The bar.

The entrance to the bar was ablaze with tiny, colorful lights that summoned customers past the little blinking bulbs into the dark depths of the lounge area. Frank Sinatra crooned My Way from an invisible speaker. Several high, petite tables lined the dark-stained wooden walls on the right, and a long, polished bar to the left invited customers to ease onto the padded stools.

A lone male figure sat on one of those stools, his spine straight. His head bowed slightly, contemplating the glass in front of him. Meg gauged the broad back in the dark suit coat. The jacket probably enshrouded some impressive musculature. Not too heavily muscled, but perhaps he spent time at the local gym. The man’s black hair was casually trimmed, but thick and lush on top. She couldn’t see his face from her position just outside the entrance, but she could feel the power emanating from him. It called to her on some primal level. Lacey would definitely approve. Lacey would do something about it.

Meg stood static on the plush carpet of the lobby. She shouldn’t approach him. After all, she had just shed Brock, her significant other and publicist of the past three years. He had turned out not to be so significant after all. He had shrugged her off like a bird molts feathers when her book sales started to drop. It was just as well. If she had married him, they would have lived crappily ever after in some mediocre relationship. He was about as faithful as her father had been. Well, she could fly without him. She could do this.

She took one wobbly step through the twinkling arch into the shadowy chamber of the bar. She didn’t have butterflies; she had pterodactyls winging back flips in her intestines. Her Lacey shoes did the walking to the velvet-topped stool next to the man at the bar.

Chapter Two

Dominic noticed the shoes first. The rhythmic click of high heels on the faux marble floor of the hotel bar wrenched his attention away from his second drink in the last forty-five minutes. Not even he could ignore shoes like that. Those shoes didn’t merely command attention. They stalked it, clubbed it over the head, and dragged it back to their lair, where—huh. He didn’t know how to finish that sentence, and he always knew how to finish a sentence. That’s why they paid him the big bucks. More like he paid himself, and after dealing with authors, printers, formatters, graphic designers, and what seemed like a dozen more positions that hadn’t even existed ten years ago, that figure slid down to mediocre bucks. It would slide down to none at all, for any of them, if he didn’t find a way out of this current mess. He loved Heather for trying, but her best efforts to finish their mother’s final manuscript only got them in deeper. Good nurse, bad writer. Really bad writer.

No. He stopped himself there. He wasn’t thinking about that now. For five minutes, he would not think about business. Better to think about those shoes and the legs that went with them. Heels that high ought to come with a building permit. Then there was the color. Lipstick red? He struck a mental line through that description. Too cliché. Candy apple? Definitely juvenile. A woman wearing those shoes was most assuredly all grown up. Blood red? Too violent, and if he couldn’t tell the difference between blood and candy apple, he might as well go back to teaching history to bored jocks who slept off hangovers during the entire Norman Conquest lecture. Ice clinked as he turned the glass in his hand. Conquest was the right word. Those shoes were red, no modifiers required.

Is this seat taken?

Dominic set his glass down on the shreds of his paper napkin. The shoes didn’t only have legs; they had a whole woman, tall, light-brown hair sliding around her shoulders. That subtly sexy librarian vibe could go places. He gestured to the empty stool to his left. Be my guest.

Thanks. Sexy Librarian settled herself on the stool, crossed those killer legs at the knee, and fiddled with the waistband of her skirt before she held out her hand. I’m Meg.

He took her hand with his, gentle but firm. Dominic.

She pumped his hand once with businesslike precision and released him. Nice to meet you, Dominic. Her voice purred his name in three distinct syllables. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. She gestured to the bartender. I’ll have what he’s having.

He raised one brow. Adventurous.

What’s life if you don’t try something new once in a while? she asked with a roll of one shapely shoulder. The motion allowed him a glimpse of what lay beneath the deceptively demure blouse, but only for the briefest of seconds. I like your suit, Dominic. Three syllables again. They tripped over his ear, as intimate as a physical touch. Are you here on business?

He smoothed his tie with an absent touch. Haley had picked this one out, light gray with a repeating pattern of black fleur-de-lis. For good luck, she’d insisted. I am. You?

Same, or at least that’s the plan. My colleague bailed on me, so I get to navigate this thing alone.

The bartender set down a drink identical to Dominic’s, atop a napkin as yet unshredded. Meg’s fingers went to the clasp on her purse.

Dominic couldn’t let her pay, not when she was about to provide the entertainment. Put that away. My treat. Bartender? This young lady’s drinks are on my tab.

Her head tilted. Light-brown waves brushed across her shoulder and released a whiff of lavender. Thanks. Very gentlemanly of you, Dominic. She raised her glass to him before she took her first sip. Her brows pinched. What’s in this?

Meg, he decided, wore confusion very well. Definitely worth the cost of admission. Seltzer, pineapple juice, and a dash of grenadine.

That’s all? Her voice came small and quiet, disappointment with a grace note of suppressed anger. She stared at her glass, as though she could will something stronger into it.

He held his own glass forward as evidence. Lime wedge, cherry, and ice. I like to keep a clear head.

Figures. She poked at the red plastic sword that held cherry and lime wedge together. She shrugged and took another drink.

He followed suit. I am going to guess you are having a bad day.

Ice crunched between her teeth. You would be right. First of all—she ticked off the day’s faults on tapered fingers that ended in clear-polished nails—"I’m spending my weekend in Massachusetts." She spat out the name with a shudder, as if it tasted bad.

He pulled the sword from his drink and set the lime wedge adrift. I kind of like Massachusetts. I come here this time every year.

"Okay, Boston, maybe, but here in North Nowhere? I don’t know what you’re here for, but it has to be better than my gig. I’m with the romance conference." Apparently, romance tasted worse than Massachusetts. Not only that, she said before he could form a single word, but a romance conference where, according to the schedule, somebody stuck a funeral in the middle of dinner.

Dominic’s jaw jutted. His free hand curled into a fist. I am going to assume you mean the memorial banquet for Jessica Stewart. He bit the words from between clenched teeth.

I know, she was a bestselling author, but really? Everybody’s here to talk about love and kisses and all that stuff, and they want to dedicate dinner to a dead person?

His teeth ground. He set the drink down and pushed it away. I take it you’re not a romance writer.

Meg slid the cherry from her sword and popped the fruit in her mouth. I write. She pulled the stem away and deposited it on her napkin. I mean, I wrote. No, I write, but not romance. Her lower lip plumped as she aimed a breath at the wayward strand of hair that fell over her brow.

If she said she wrote real books, killer legs or no, he was taking her drink off his tab. His gaze traveled down from knee to calf to ankle, back to the shoes. He knew those shoes. He knew those shoes and that face. He knew those shoes went with that face. The hair was different, loose about her face instead of pulled back and fastened in an intricate knot as on her book jackets. The shoes, those very red shoes, were always showcased on the front cover, worn by the blond heroine. Her name leapt to his lips. Meg. "Meg Crawford? The Lacey Logan books? I love those."

She sputtered, her eyes wide. Three drops of juice dotted the front of her shirt. You read chick lit? She jabbed one finger in his general direction, then back at herself. "You read my books?"

I read a lot of books. It’s kind of my thing. He fished the blue conference badge from his pocket and held it out for her inspection.

"Dominic Stewart? Her voice squeaked on the surname. Editor? Stewart House? Color drained from her cheeks. Please tell me you’re not related to Jessica Stewart."

He extended the cord attached to the badge and draped it around his neck. She was my mother.

A mutinous expression narrowed her eyes. He’d never seen an actual storm cloud form over a person’s head before. I. Am. Going. To. Kill. Kelly.

Nolan?

Yes. The single word slithered, coiled like a whip. My agent. My former agent. Possibly my late agent.

Of that, he had no doubt whatsoever. She has sent us some great writers. We should— The sound of Heather’s ringtone, an upbeat ’80s tune, cut him off. He took his phone from his pocket. The image of Heather, blond ponytail draped over the shoulder of her favorite fairy-tale princess scrub top, arms around her very own mini-her, Haley, filled his screen. Excuse me. I have to take this.

Nathan again. He didn’t even have to hear a word to know that much. By this time, he could sense it. He left a crisp bill on the bar and stalked down the hallway in search of somewhere private. If Heather was calling now, she couldn’t wait for him to get to his room. Not an easy task when clusters of guests mobbed the lobby, but the frosted glass doors of the business center promised sanctuary. He shut the door behind him and breathed in deep of the quiet. Hey, Heath, he answered in the practiced modulation that usually calmed her down. Haley okay?

He heard Heather’s choked weeping. That was a Nathan sob. Damn him! If dueling were still legal, Nathan would be dead. Problem solved.

I got another letter, she said, her voice pinched. Nathan wants random drug tests.

Asshole. Is that all? Drug tests? Bring them on. You’ll come out clean, no problem. You were in a car accident five years ago. You needed painkillers for a torn rotator cuff and a compound fracture. Okay, you came to like them a little too much, but now? You don’t even take aspirin. You won’t eat poppy seed bagels. You practically live at NA meetings. Dread settled low in his gut. This latest threat reeked of a classic Nathan Cross smokescreen. Drug tests are not what has you worried. Spill.

A long breath of resignation. Money. Nathan brought up finances again. He’s concerned about how I can provide for Haley now that I’ve been out of work for this long. He’s just made partner, and I doubt there’s a single hospital that would want me with my record. We’re going to lose, Dom. I’m going to lose Haley. She sucked in a deep breath, her voice a pained whisper.

Heath? Listen to me. We are not going to lose. Nathan is just making noise. Call his bluff. You are not unemployed. Send him a letter back, on Stewart House letterhead, and circle your job title in Mom’s pink ink, Ms. Editor in Chief. Haley’s not going anywhere.

She groaned. "You mean if there still is a Stewart House after the end of the year. Love Notes wants the full payment now to reserve the December cover, or they’re going to have to fill it with somebody else."

So pay it.

But there is no book. Nobody is going to buy half a book, even if it is the last book ever by Jessica Stewart. Mom left Miranda in Bedlam. Jonathan is in Newgate. Neither one of them has any idea the other one is in trouble, or they would do something about it. Felix burned the king’s pardon, anyway, so it doesn’t even matter. Neither of them are ever getting out. That is not a happily ever after, Dom. That is not romance. That’s not even a love story. That’s just tragic.

He dropped down onto one of the overstuffed chairs next to the computer bank. "That is why I am going to find another writer to work from Mom’s notes and finish the damned thing and in plenty of time. I’m in a hotel full of romance writers, from New York Times bestsellers to motivated newcomers and everything in between. Somewhere in this building is the perfect writer. I am going to find her or him and have a contract signed by the end of the conference. Cut the check."

But—

He couldn’t let her work herself into any more of a knot. Time to be firm. He summoned his best no-nonsense voice. No buts. I’m the CEO, and I am telling you to cut the check. His voice snapped, harsh to his own ears. This is all going to work out. As a matter of fact, I was in the middle of a conversation with a potential author right when you called. He crossed his fingers behind his back. King’s cross, their mother would have termed it. He wasn’t lying, not really. Meg Crawford was an author and a good one. He would have gotten around to the subject in time. Guess who.

The ghost of Kathleen Woodiwiss? Heather’s voice betrayed a note of desperate hope, despite the fake chipper tone.

He allowed himself a chuckle he didn’t entirely feel. Better. Meg Crawford. From the Lacey books.

There was a moment of silence before she answered. Um, didn’t she quit writing?

"She didn’t