Revenge in Room 426. Michelle Conder

a hankering to run his hands over her skin and that last night – prom night – he’d nearly given into it.

      He’d kissed her just before entering his friend’s post-prom party and been blown away by how sweet she was. He’d kissed a stack of girls by the time he got to senior high but none had made his heart beat faster like Chloe Tyler had. Not that he would have admitted as much back then. Back then, when his friends had dared him to get the ‘nerdiest’ girl in the school to fall in love with him.

      Not that Liam had ever seen her that way. It might have been completely illogical but he’d got to know her while she tutored him and he’d liked her. Not enough to ever consider dating her. His image had meant too much to him back then, especially with his father breathing down his neck about his university placement letters. The last thing he’d needed was to have his father accuse him of choosing an unsuitable girl to date. And his friends would have laughed; which Liam knew he would not have had the maturity to handle back then.

      Looking back, he’d been going through a bit of an identity crisis thanks to his old man’s rock-solid expectation that he would follow him and his grandfather into the law. His grandfather had started the firm way back when and neither man had stopped waxing lyrical about whether Hunter and Hunter would soon become Hunter, Hunter and Hunter or Hunter and Sons.

      Liam had wanted to act but the one time he’d broached the idea with his father he’d laughed and told him that only gays and girls went into the arts. With the school year drawing to a close and his university acceptance letter laying heavily on his mind he’d been looking for a distraction and his juvenile behaviour had wound up hurting the only person who seemed to value him for who he really was and not who he would one day become. The only person he had ever shared his acting dreams with other than his father and who hadn’t laughed in his face.

      And here she was. In the flesh. In the very cool and reserved flesh. Not that he could blame her. He owed her one hell of an apology.

      But what was with the name change? Had she really changed it or was Candy Lane a type of pseudonym? He knew plenty of actors who had distorted their name to make it sound better.

      Or worse, was she married and Candy was a cute moniker her husband called her? He cast a quick glance at her left hand but she was gripping her iPad in such a way that he couldn’t see her ring finger. But he could see her long legs and he’d always wondered if they had been as shapely as her delicate ankles had suggested.