The proof of her desire...
Mathematician Della Clark just met the most gorgeous man on a plane. According to her calculations, the odds of meeting Mr. Perfectly Hot are approximately 1 in 285,000. Gabe Ross is an unexpected variable. Handsome, smart and unusually interested? Yes, Della has definitely improved her odds...
Except that Gabe Ross isn’t his real name. He works for the Department of Homeland Security, and Della is a part—a very distracting one—of an investigation into a critical security breach. Gabe tells himself that their affair is vital for the investigation. That he can remain objective. But mostly, he lies to himself...to hide the fact that he may be falling for the right woman at the wrong time.
She knew what she wanted...and went for it.
Della looked deeply into Gabe’s eyes, hoping she was communicating every bit of desire she was feeling.
“Tell me if I’m overstepping, but do you think our waiter would wrap this dish up so we could take it back to your place?”
Della smiled. Was Gabe asking what she thought he was asking?
“I think he’d do that, yes,” she whispered, lifting her face toward his so she spoke close to his mouth, just a breath away from a kiss.
“Good.”
The way he said the word, with so much sensual promise, made her shiver.
This was a first for Della, for sure. With the meal paid for, she took Gabe’s hand and they moved quickly down the walk, less busy now that the stars were out.
As they passed into the shadow of a streetlight next to a huge tree, Gabe held her back, directed her under the tree. He pulled her up close and looked down into her face. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I saw you on that plane.”
He kissed her then, and Della’s world turned upside down. She’d been kissed before, but certainly not like this...
Book settings are so important to me, and I’ve visited most of the places where I set my stories so that I can capture the details and atmosphere of the location. I like to think the books are a mini-vacation as a reader accompanies my characters on their adventure. In the case of Hot in the City, Della Clark and Gabe Ross meet in a place I’ve been to many times, my home state city, New York.
What I love about New York City is its contrasts: it’s a place of glaring neon and noise, big buildings and bigger personalities—but it’s also a city with surprisingly quiet corners, quaint, tree-lined streets and beautiful gardens. Gabe and Della experience all of these as part of their own romantic landscape. Of course, the city has its secrets, and so does Gabe. With him, Della is about to discover more adventure than she ever counted on in her hometown.
If you’ve never been to New York, I highly encourage you to go. But in the meanwhile, you can enjoy some of the sites and atmosphere of the city in this book. As for me, I’m continuing to travel, which means more settings for future books, including new areas of the US as well as Europe. To hear more about where I’m going and the books I’m writing, follow me on Twitter or Facebook, or at The Chocolate Box blog. I love to chat.
Happy Summer,
Sam
Hot in the City
Samantha Hunter
SAMANTHA HUNTER lives in Syracuse, New York, where she writes full-time for Mills & Boon. When she’s not plotting her next story, Sam likes to work in her garden, quilt, cook, read and spend time with her husband and their dogs. Most days you can find Sam chatting on the Mills & Boon Blaze boards at www.millsandboon.co.uk, or you can check out what’s new, enter contests or drop her a note at her website, samanthahunter.com.
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Contents
Dear Reader
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AS SOON AS Della Clark settled into her first-class seat, flying back to New York City after a month of consulting on a project in San Diego, she pulled out her tablet to check for progress on her online dating accounts.
Yes, accounts—plural.
Statistically speaking, she needed to cast a broad net. Fellow mathematicians had posited that the chances of finding a perfect partner, depending on the variables and location, were about one in two-hundred and eighty-five thousand. Della was pretty sure she hadn’t met that many people in her thirty-three years, and true to the math, very few were at all suitable for her. Well, at this point, the sum was actually