Brazen & Burning. Julie Leto

this, Cassie frowned. “You like to think so.”

      “Think so? I’m famous for my haphazardness. Ask your aunt. She rags me all the time for being such a mess.”

      “That’s because Aunt Devon has elevated organization and planning to a religion. Compared to her, you are a mess. But compared to the normal population of the world, you’ve mapped out your entire life, ending with debuting your novel at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Am I right here?”

      Sydney couldn’t argue, not only because of her pounding headache, but because the kid made sense.

      “But you don’t have someone to love.”

      With a groan, Sydney folded her arms on the table and laid her forehead down. Gently. This verified her earlier suspicion. Young Cassie was in love and wanted to share her joy.

      Great. Just great.

      “God, please save me from being the clichéd heroine of a romance novel!” Sydney wailed dramatically before skewering her inexperienced friend with a powerful glare. “You know, that line in Jerry Maguire was written by a man. I do not—I repeat—I do not need a man to complete me. If you really subscribe to such thinking, you’ve set feminism back to the days of Susan B. Anthony.”

      Sydney managed to keep her head lifted long enough to watch Cassie laugh, but she didn’t see the humor. This wasn’t funny.

      “Call it the new feminism. I’m not saying you need a man to complete you. But you could use a shot of something deeper, don’t you think? An emotional experience to challenge you and your status quo. Someone to challenge you and your status quo.”

      Ah, so this mystery boy had shaken up Cassie’s life. Bully for her. Sydney was long past such a beginning-of-life discovery.

      “No such man exists,” Sydney concluded.

      “Have you looked?”

      No.

      “Of course I have.”

      “And no guy ever rocked your world a little, shook you up so badly you had to walk away or risk losing your heart?”

      Damned if Adam Brody’s rugged face didn’t pop right back into Sydney’s brain again, causing an electric charge to spark low in her belly and shoot to the tips of her breasts. The man had been an incredible lover. Selfish when it suited him, yet giving at the core. So incredible, in fact, that while with him, Sydney had broken so many of her self-imposed dating rules that she’d done more than risk her heart—she’d risked her very soul.

      Yet, when he’d asked her to make their affair about commitment and love rather than just sex, she’d walked away. Actually, ran was more like it. Scared and out of her element, like a second grader enrolled in high school calculus. Sydney had mustered her cool enough to exit with style, but she still couldn’t get the man off her mind. Not on the eight-hour flight to London the day after she’d left him, not through the month-long tour through Scotland, or the seemingly endless three weeks in New England with her parents. When she’d finally returned and had decided to give in and take a chance on his offer, he’d disappeared off the face of the earth.

      He’d sold his condo, deactivated his cell phone, closed his business. He’d once told her he was considering relocation to Baltimore to partner with his former mentor, so she’d assumed that’s what he’d done. And being a woman who never announced her regrets—rarely even to herself—she’d simply moved along, writing her books, playing poker with Devon on Tuesdays, traveling for autographings and research, and taking a handsome lover whenever her body needed release.

      But maybe Cassie was on to something. Maybe she needed a male-female relationship less predictable than one based only on sex. Orgasms she could give to herself. She needed an affair equal to a cache of fireworks—haphazard, chancy—a true risk that might rock her world back into the tumble of chaos she so enjoyed.

      And who better to fire her wick than sexy Adam Brody?

      “Know any good private investigators?” she asked.

      Cassie lurched forward, her young eyes alight with intrigue. “As a matter of fact…you remember Jake’s best man? Cade Lawrence? His wife, Jillian, is a P.I. A darned good one from what I hear.”

      Sydney nodded, sat up straighter and downed her orange juice, finishing the entire tumbler. She tried to comb her fingers through her hair, but a mass of tangles stopped her progress. Oh, yeah. She looked like crap.

      That, at least, she could fix.

      “Get me her number, then make yourself comfortable. I’ll be down in twenty.”

      “Dare I dream you’ve taken my advice to heart?”

      Sydney grabbed a pad of paper from a drawer beneath her telephone, then tossed it and a pencil at her young friend. “After you write down Jillian’s number, call the spa and throw some weight around. I’m in desperate need of a facial.”

      Cassie’s chuckle followed Sydney out of the kitchen and through the living room, toward the staircase to her bedroom. She wondered if Adam would be excited to see her, or was he still angry? He’d been fairly pissed the night she’d walked out of his condo, shamelessly sticking to her rule about not getting emotionally involved with any man. She’d insulted him to the core, just by telling him no. And she hadn’t explained. Why should she? She’d been up front with him from the moment they’d banged into each other while jogging around a corner of his building. One bang had led to another, and she’d been clear about the fact that she wanted nothing more than sex and maybe a few laughs from their affair.

      Trouble was, they’d had more than that from the get-go. Adam had been intelligent, witty, charming—a fine match for her razor-sharp sarcasm. He was a driven businessman who lost himself in his blueprints and designs just as she went MIA during the best parts of her books. And from the dinner table conversation to the acrobatics in the bedroom, he had never failed to give as good as he got, which was probably why the affair had lasted six months longer than a one-night stand.

      Then he’d made the ultimate mistake. The night before she was leaving for a book tour and research trip, he asked her to stay the night with him. It had seemed like such a small request, Sydney remembered, her gaze drawn to the bay window, the one that had once faced his across the courtyard. But his suggestion hadn’t been small at all. He’d asked her to break a major rule in her dating constitution…and she’d already bent more rules for him than she had for any other man. He’d even admitted he’d intended to entice her to spend the night as his first step in luring her to try settling down.

      Sydney bristled, more out of habit than true discomfort over the idea of hearth and home. She wasn’t a fool—she understood and accepted the awesome power of a committed relationship. She wrote romance novels, for Pete’s sake. She usually even teared up when she penned the happy ending. But she also knew that true love relationships came at the price of compromise and change, perhaps even a complete overhaul of life choices and personal goals. The kind of overhaul she might be ready for now, but hadn’t been when Adam had asked.

      So she’d walked. Just as she was walking now with the same purposeful, unapologetic stride, ending up in the same place, in the hall outside her bedroom—alone.

      On the wall next to the thermostat hung her most cherished collectible—a framed movie poster from the classic 1933 film She Done Him Wrong, starring Mae West. Sydney had admired the woman since the first time she’d stayed home sick from her exclusive Boston private school and watched a marathon of the actress’s old movies on television. Irreverent, powerful, sexy Mae had inspired Sydney on varying levels throughout her life. By the time she was twenty, Sydney had turned a flash of cinematic curiosity into a full-fledged motion-picture obsession. The actress’s autograph graced the lower left corner of the yellowing cardboard, but it was the quote across the top that Sydney treasured most.

      She read the snippet aloud, injecting herself with the confidence she’d need to not only find Adam Brody, but to entice him back into her bed—and into her