Excerpt of Once Upon a Seduction by Jamie Sobrato

Once upon a time, in a land not far from L.A., there lived a girl who seemed to have it all.

NO, NO, THAT WASN'T RIGHT. Have it all was vague, cliché and boring.And Once upon a time? Would an editor even get past that first trite phrase to read the rest of the sentence?

Doubtful.

Skye Ellison glared at the manuscript she'd been struggling with for months. She couldn't get the first line of the story right, so how could she expect to write an entire young adult novel anyone would want to read?

She might as well just face the fact that she sucked the big one and move on to a less creative endeavor, maybe even throw all her efforts into the job she was actually getting paid to do. Now there was a novel idea.

She minimized the document entitled The Cinderella Solution and turned her attention to the calendar hanging on her cubicle wall. Today's square was empty, leaving her with two choices — she could start making follow-up harassment sales calls to her on-the-fence customers, or she could wade through the never-ending crapload of interoffice e-mail that flooded her inbox daily. The choices left her with a vague urge to go running out into traffic.

Skye had a theory about cubicles. She believed that if you sat in one long enough, all your thoughts became square. You'd lose your ability to think outside the box, and your creativity would get lost in a haze of geometric shapes and flickering computer screens.

After three tedious years at Dynalux Systems in her six-by- six cubicle, doing work she had trouble explaining to anyone outside the high-tech, pallid-faced world of networking equipment and the people who sold it, this had clearly happened to Skye.

She could no longer even compose a sentence that wasn't an utter and complete cliché. Which was ironic, since she'd taken the mindless job in the first place thinking it would leave her with the mental energy to be creative enough to write novels during her off hours.

In fact, she'd slipped into such a state of crippling boredom at work in the past few months, she'd begun to fear her brain was atrophying. Nothing was going right in her life, she'd made no progress on her book, and she sometimes felt as if she was unable to complete even the simplest of mental tasks.

So when someone dropped a red lace bra on her desk, she couldn't begin to imagine where it had come from. The burst of color alone was shocking enough, but to have something so blatantly sexy right out in the open at her office was an event unheard of since the time Bill Muller tried to spice up the corporate decor by putting a bunch of Hooters Girls posters on his cubicle walls.

"You left this at my house," an unfamiliar male voice said as Skye stared at the bra she'd never seen before.

The only coherent thought she could form was that the cup size looked big enough to accommodate an engorged milk cow.

She looked up from the humongous bra to the source of the voice, and she realized he wasn't so unfamiliar after all. He was someone she knew in passing — Nico Valletti, her ex- boyfriend's landlord. And his expression wasn't exactly congenial. He was one of those guys who smoldered all the time, regardless of whether it was called for or not.

Nico had been blessed with a physical appearance verging on the sublime. A former racecar driver who'd retired early after a famously bad accident on the track, he was gorgeous in the extreme, with nearly black hair, nearly black eyes and a body that could make a girl think dirty thoughts.

And he seemed all too aware of his power over women, as evidenced by his ever-present smirk.

According to Skye's scumbag ex, Martin — or whatever his real name was — Nico had a different girlfriend every week. Sometimes two or three.

She finally found her voice and croaked, "That's not mine. What are you doing with it at my office?"

"Returning it to you, because you've got information I need."

"Are you sure that doesn't belong to one of your girlfriends?"

His gaze traveled from her to the bra and back again. Something about his eyes made her feel as if he had X-ray vision, as if he could see straight through her blouse to her mismatched, no-chance-of-sex-today bra and underwear. As if he could tell she didn't own a single red lace bra.

If he made a comment about the fact that the bra on her desk was about four cup sizes away from fitting her, she'd staple him in the hand.

"I'd recognize it if it did," he said in a tone that made her feel like blushing.

If he was telling the truth, then where had the bra come from? Martin had left town three weeks ago, as far as anyone could tell. Not that he'd bothered to say goodbye, or return the money he'd cleared out of her savings account.

She'd been having violent thoughts about her ex ever since that horrifying day when the police had come to her asking questions about him. They'd said Martin was a wanted con artist, that he'd used so many aliases in so many states that no one was sure what his real name was.

She glared up at Nico, wondering if he'd been in on the con. "How did you find out where I work?"

"Your boyfriend mentioned it once, and I'm here to learn what you might know about where he's holed up now."

Her across-the-aisle neighbor and fellow cubicle hater, John Hanson, returned to his desk, watching them. With honey-brown skin and dreadlocks pulled back in a thick ponytail, John was eye-catching, and at six foot four — a couple of inches taller than Nico — he was a little intimidating. He was also Skye's closest friend at Dynalux.

As if he felt the tension in the air, John looked at Nico. "Is there a problem here?"

Skye appreciated his interest, but she wanted to take care of herself. "It's okay, John. We're just talking."

He nodded and sat at his computer, but he kept his gaze locked on Nico for a moment longer — the guy equivalent of a territorial growl.

Skye stood and made like she had work to do elsewhere, grabbing a stack of papers to deliver to destinations unknown. "Whatever I thought I knew about Martin was a lie, so I can't help you."

Nico's eyes narrowed. "You expect me to believe that?"

"How do I know you weren't in on his scam? Have the police checked you out yet?"

She tried to walk around him, but he stepped into her path.

"Your boyfriend rips me off, and you accuse me of being part of his con? I'd say you're his biggest suspected accomplice."

"Accomplice?" Skye eyed her stapler, wondering how much force it would take to penetrate flesh.

She'd been through hell ever since Martin had run off. And now to have someone suggest she'd been an accomplice in his crime was the cherry on top of her crap sundae.

"I know not to trust appearances, thanks to Martin."

"Well, trust this — he stole ten thousand dollars from my savings account. I'm not his accomplice. Now you'll have to excuse me, because I have a job to do."

Being conned by her ex had been the final straw that had convinced Skye all her instincts about men were wrong. If Martin had been the only loser she'd ever hooked up with, then, okay, maybe she could have called it a fluke, but unfortunately, Martin was just one of a long line of losers on Skye's ex list.

She couldn't name a single one of her exes who'd left her with pleasant memories.

She edged around Nico and was a little surprised he let her escape, but then she faced the dilemma of leaving him at her desk alone. What if he stayed?

As if he'd read her mind, he plopped down in her office chair and looked up at her with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"I can wait," he said.

He certainly could, and then when her boss happened by, he could make her life hell.

She noticed now that she was standing that the scene at her desk had gotten the attention of the entire office. People were peering over cubicles, talking amongst themselves as they cast curious glances at her and Nico. It was only a matter of time before the boss sniffed a lack of productivity in the air and came out to do one of his motivational stalks around the office.

"You have to leave now," she said in a stage whisper. But instead of doing as she'd asked, he turned around and looked at her computer monitor. That was when Skye remembered the document she'd minimized a few minutes ago — her work in progress. She hurried back into the cubicle and leaned over Nico to grab the mouse, but it was too late.

"What's this?" he asked, covering the mouse with his too- large hand before she could reach it.

"Nothing."

With a click, the first page of The Cinderella Solution glowed on the monitor for all the world to read.

"Don't read that!" she said, to no avail.

"Once upon a time —"

"Stop!" Skye felt her face flush. She hated anyone reading her lousy rough drafts and hated getting caught slacking off on the job even more.

"Is this what you do for —" he glanced up at the wall, where the company's logo was emblazoned in royal-blue print " — Dynalux Systems? Write stories?"

"I was taking a break," she lied. "Haven't you ever heard of those?"

"Looks to me like you were slacking. Does your boss know you write stories at work?"

"It's my business what I do on my breaks."

He looked at his wristwatch — an expensive Swiss one, Skye couldn't help noting. "A break at four-thirty in the afternoon? Aren't you about to leave work?"

So she was busted. "I finished all my Dynalux work, okay? Now don't you have a car to go wreck or something?"

He gave her a look. "I wonder how your boss would feel about your slacking, or the fact that he has a probable criminal working for him."

Her manager, Nelson Rudderman, whose favorite words were maximize and strategize, would have a cow if he found out she was doing something besides maximizing her time and strategizing how she'd contribute to the future success of Dynalux on company time.

"I'm not a probable criminal," she snapped.

"I don't know that. I think either you tell me where Martin disappeared to, or I'll have to tell your boss about your dirty little secrets."

"I don't have any dirty little secrets, and I have no freaking idea where Martin went."

"You're lying."

Nico might have been hot, but he was a world-class jerk.

"I can call security. You're not even supposed to be in here."

"Go ahead. I'll make sure I talk to your boss on the way out the door."

"What makes you think I'm Martin's accomplice?"

"He talked about you constantly. "Skye's so hot. Skye's so smart. Skye's gonna write the next big craze in kids' books." Why would any of that drooling adoration have been an act?"

"Because he wanted you to think he was a nice guy?"

"He could have accomplished that without being so damn annoying. I don't think he would have taken off without a plan to hook up with you again in a few months when the police have forgotten about the two of you."

"Why wouldn't I have just disappeared with him?"

"He's trying to protect you by making it look like you weren't involved."

Skye looked at the bra on her desk. Clearly not hers and apparently not one Nico recognized as a garment he'd removed from any recent dates.

It was just her luck that when she found a guy who was crazy about her, he was also crazy enough to clean out her savings account — not to mention that he was a crazed sex hound who would hump anything in a skirt.