Breaking Stone: Bad Boy Romance Novel Read Free Page B

she loves me, and people love her. They think she’s wonderful with all the good work she does for charity and the church. What they don’t realize is that the opinion they hold is the one she forced upon them. Mother is a passive bully, and everyone gives in to her. I’ve tried to make her proud of me, I’ve danced to her tune, and I’ve stood up for myself, but nothing works. I’ve come to understand that I’ll never be good enough in her eyes, and I’ve developed armor plating with the help of Carrie, which helps Mom’s little digs slide.
    “I want to do this without her influence or opinion.”
    Carrie grabbed my hand. “I know you do, and you’ll be fantastic. Now, tell me more about Stone.”
    I wasn’t sure how much of the information I was keeping from Carrie was already in the public domain. “Tell you what, let’s hunt him down on the internet after dinner.” That way, I couldn’t be guilty of breaking my contract. “I probably should find out where he hangs out online, anyway, because I have to run his social media, and my Kindle is loaded with the first six books in the series he’s supposed to be finishing, so it will probably burst into flames next time I open it.”
    Carrie laughed. “Don’t get Stone’s social media persona mixed up with the stuff you do for the FaithLits.”
    The FaithLits is a group of authors from Mother’s church, attempting to save the youth of today from all the torrid young adult books filled with violence, drugs and sex. Well, that’s what they believe the books are filled with, no matter how much I try to tell them there are excellent stories without that sort of content. They take what they believe to be the standard tropes—once again, sex, violence, drugs—and use them to write stories with faith-based resolutions. Their stuff has an audience, so who am I to judge?
    I do their social media because Mom offered up my services for free. Although that annoyed me, I could see the benefits I would gain from the experience of working with authors and readers. Now, of course, I’m reminded to thank Mom for her wonderful idea because without her, I’d blah blah blah. She exhausts me.
    We got dinner cleared away, and I pushed all thoughts of contacting Mom from my head. Carrie refreshed our wine glasses while I fired up my laptop and typed Stone’s name into the search box.
    Carrie’s finger jumped to the trackpad. “Images first,” she said. “I want a good picture of him in my mind once we get to the sleazy stuff.”
    In seconds, the screen filled with pictures of Stone. Across the top was a ribbon offering us various options of more focused collections: his modeling shots, girlfriends, and Steele Heart, the infamous romance series.
    Carrie turned to me. “He was a model?”
    We both stared at the screen. “Um, underwear, by the look of things.”
    We were both silent as we scrolled through the images. Stone got out of modeling a few years ago, but the photos stood the test of time.
    Carrie clicked on an image of Stone reclining on a lounger wearing briefs that left nothing to the imagination, one finger crooked in a sexy ‘come here’ gesture. The caption beneath read 50 Shades of Totally Fuckable.
    “Shit, Katrina, you’re spending the next six weeks alone in a house with that ?”
    “Don’t say any more—you’ll freak me out.”
    What the heck had I got myself into? His was a world so foreign that I doubted we spoke the same language. I imagined him sneering at my work ethic and demanding exotic cocktails at breakfast.
    “Look at him.” Carrie started clicking on pictures, enlarging them, each one portraying Stone in a provocative pose, his goods on display so that there was no mistaking what he was packing.
    “Do you think it’s enhanced, like maybe a sock or something stuffed down there?” I asked.
    “Nope.”
    “How am I going to look him in the eye now, having seen this?” I waved my hand at the screen. “Shut it down. I can’t