“Come out here,” he said insistently but not unkindly. “I have water.”
“I’m fine. Really.” She was not going out there with puffy eyes and streaking mascara looking like Frankenstein’s bride.
No. Way.
“Tessa?” he said. She heard him pace back and forth in front of the stall. She wanted to answer him, except for some reason she started to cry. Silently, of course. But she couldn’t seem to stop.
Then Leo said, “I’m coming in.” She heard the thud of his hands hitting the stall door. At the same time, the bathroom door squeaked open again.
“Excuse me, young man,” a woman’s voice said, “but what do you think you’re doing?”
Oh no. Who…?
“Oh, hi,” Leo said. “I’m just talking to my…fiancee.”
“Well, I’m in charge of this restroom, and you need to leave right now.” It was a woman with a gravelly voice, like maybe from smoking cigarettes. “Are you okay in there, honey? If you aren’t, just say the word. The police headquarters is right down the hall.”
“No, ma’am, you don’t understand,” Leo said. “It’s just--hey!”
A scuffling ensued. Was that the sound of Leo being dragged away?
The woman’s voice was more distant now, echoing in the nearly empty restroom. “You can wait for her down the hall on the bench where all the couples sit, if and when she decides to come out and marry you. But until then, you need to get your butt out of here, pretty boy.”
What on earth was going on out there? Pretty boy?
Tessa scrambled up and opened the door to see a middle-aged woman in a cleaning uniform, holding a large mop like a gun and aiming the head at Leo. Leo--big, tall, broad-shouldered Leo--was cornered between the wall and the sinks, hands up in surrender, a water bottle in one hand.
Being held hostage by a mop. On their wedding day.
Oh dear.
“It’s all right,” Tessa said. “He was…helping me. He’s not dangerous.”
Except somehow he was. He’d convinced her to do this, after all.
Tessa turned to the woman, who stood beside a cart stocked with toilet paper, tampons, and paper towels.
“Would you mind giving us a minute?”
“Okay, but if you need something, you just give a yell. Okay?”
“Thank you,” she said gratefully.
As soon as the door shut, Leo straightened his coat.
She almost cracked a smile, but he seemed a little agitated. So no mop jokes. For now. She nodded at the water bottle. “Is that for me?”
“Drink up,” he said, handing over the ice-cold bottle.
She did, desperate to stop the acid burn in her throat.
Suddenly she heard a chuckle. She gave him a look that could kill.
“What? What could possibly be funny?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his hand over his mouth as if to wipe off the smile. “I can’t believe you actually did something I said.”
She drank again, a long draught, then wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “Yeah, well, don’t count on that becoming a habit.”
“If it means anything to you, I’m sorry about this.”
She flicked her gaze up to his. He did look sorry. And far too handsome. She’d always had a weakness for men in dark suits.
Whatever criticisms of him she harbored, she had to hand it to him that he’d come after her. In the ladies’ room. And survived an attack by the tampon lady.
(c) Miranda Liasson, Entangled Amara, 2022. Shared with permission from the publisher.
Blossom Glen #1
From the bestselling author of the Angel Falls series, two enemies say “I do” in the first irresistible book about Blossom Glen.
Pastry chef Tessa Montgomery knows what everyone in the teeny town of Blossom Glen says about her. Spinster. Ice Queen. Such a shame. It’s enough to make a woman bake her troubles away, dreaming of Parisian delicacies while she makes bread at her mother’s struggling boulangerie. That is until Tessa’s mortal enemy—deliciously handsome (if arrogant) chef Leo Castorini, who owns the restaurant next door—proposes a business plan…to get married.
Leo knows that the Castorinis and the Montgomerys hate each other, but a marriage might just force these stubborn families to work together and blend their businesses for success. The deal is simple: Tessa and Leo marry, live together for six months, and then go their separate ways. Easy peasy.
It’s a sweetheart deal where everyone gets what they want—until feelings between the faux newlyweds start seriously complicating the mix. Have they discovered the perfect recipe for success…or is disaster on the way?
Romance Contemporary [Entangled: Amara, On Sale: January 25, 2022, Mass Market Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781649370273 / eISBN: 9781649370402]
Miranda Liasson is a bestselling author whose heartwarming and humorous romances have won numerous accolades and have been praised by Entertainment Weekly for the way she “deals with so much of what makes life hard . . . without ever losing the warmth and heart that characterize her writing.” She believes we can handle whatever life throws at us just a little bit better with a laugh. A proud native of Northeast Ohio, she and her husband live in a neighborhood of old homes that serves as inspiration for her books.
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