I’m In No Mood For Love Read Free Page A

had always known how her mother felt about her writing, but Joyce had always ignored her career, pretending instead that she wrote “women’s fiction”—right up until the day Clare had been featured in the Idaho Statesman and the Wingates’ dirty secret was out of the closet and splashed across the Life section. Clare Wingate, writing under the pen name Alicia Grey, graduate of Boise State University and Bennington, wrote historical romance novels. Not only did she write them, she was successful and didn’t have any plans to stop.
    Since the time Clare had been old enough to put words together, she’d made up stories. Stories about an imaginary dog named Chip or the witch she’d always believed lived in her neighbor’s attic. It hadn’t been long before Clare’s naturally romantic nature and her love of writing melded and Chip found a poodle girlfriend, Suzie, and the witch in the neighbor’s attic got married to a warlock that looked a lot like Billy Idol in his White Wedding video.
    Four years ago her first historical romance novels had been published, and her mother had yet to recover from the shock and embarrassment. Untilthe Statesman article, Joyce had been able to pretend that Clare’s career choice was a passing phase, and that once she got over her fascination with “trash,” she’d write “real books.”
    Literature worthy of the Wingate library.
    In the cup holder between the seats of her car, Clare’s cell phone rang. She picked it up, saw it was her friend Maddie, and set it back down. She knew her friend was probably worried, but she didn’t feel like talking. All three of her best friends were the very best women to have around, and she’d talk to them later, just not right now.
    She didn’t know how much Maddie knew about the prior evening, but Maddie wrote true crime and would probably put some kind of psychotic killer spin on it whatever it was. Adele was just as well-meaning. She wrote fantasy and had a tendency to cheer people up by relating bizarre stories from her personal life, and Clare didn’t feel like being cheered up at the moment. Then there was Lucy, who had just gotten married. The rights to Lucy’s latest mystery novel had recently been optioned by a major studio. And Clare knew that the last thing Lucy needed was to have her own problems steal an ounce of her happiness.
    She turned onto Crescent Rim Drive and continued past houses that overlooked the parks and the city below. The closer she drove toward her home,which she’d shared with Lonny, the more her stomach twisted. As she pulled her car into the driveway of the light blue and white Victorian she’d lived in for five years, her eyes stung with the painful emotion she could no longer hold back.
    Even though she knew it was over with Lonny, she loved him. For the second time that morning déjà vu tightened the back of her skull and settled in the top of her chest.
    Once again she’d fallen in love with the wrong man.
    Once again she’d given her heart to a man who could not love her as much as she loved him. And like those other times in the past, she’d turned to a stranger when it all fell apart. Although she supposed that technically Sebastian wasn’t a stranger, it didn’t matter. In fact, it made what she’d done worse.
    Once again she’d turned self-destructive and ended up disgusted with herself.

Two
    S ebastian Vaughan pulled his white T-shirt over his head and tucked the bottom into his jeans. So much for doing a good deed, he thought as he picked up his BlackBerry from the couch. He glanced at the face and saw that he had seven e-mails and two missed calls. He slid it into the back pocket of his Levi’s, figuring he’d get to those later.
    He should have known better than to help Clare Wingate. The last time he’d helped her, he ended up royally screwed.
    Sebastian moved to the nightstand, grabbed his Seiko, and looked down at the black face with its compass and mile marker dials and