Under Contract

  Under Contract

  By Jeffe Kennedy

  The kinkier the sex, the higher the price tag...

  Ryan Black has admired Celestina Sala from afar for years, her lush body and sensual nature calling to the dominant in him. For just as many years, Celestina was off-limits—married, proud and self-sufficient. But all that has changed, and now Celestina is in debt and in need...and available. Ryan proposes a contract: he’ll pay off her debt if she gives herself to him in bed, yielding control in exchange for the pain and pleasure he’ll bring them both.

  There are words for women who take money for sex, and none of them are nice ones. Celestina never thought she’d have to sink this low, but giving up control sounds more enticing than ever before. And suddenly it’s not about having to give in to Ryan. It’s about wanting to.

  But when Ryan’s dark past comes to light, they may both be in over their heads. The terms of his contract say her body is his...but her heart may be another story.

  One thing is for sure—now that Ryan has Celestina, he can never let her go.

  100,160 words

  Dear Reader,

  I’ve been hearing the term brand promise a lot recently in business articles. This is something we talk about behind-the-scenes at Carina Press quite often, because we know there’s a trend right now to call something romance but not deliver on a happily-ever-after or even a happily-for-now. But those of us at Carina Press are longtime romance readers and fans, and we know how important that brand promise of a HEA is to romance readers, so we want to assure you that if we call something romance, we’ll deliver a story with strong characters, a wonderful relationship and, eventually, an emotionally satisfying ending at the conclusion of the story (even if that conclusion comes after two, three or four books, not just one!) You can trust us to want that romance ending just as much as you do!

  This month, we have seven romances in a variety of subgenres I’m happy to be sharing with you, including one by a debut author.

  Christi Barth wraps up her contemporary romance Shore Secrets trilogy with the stand-alone novel Back to Us. When her ex-boyfriend refuses to sell her his land unless she dates him for a month, an uncompromising winemaker learns that some bargains are worth making for a second chance at love.

  Joining Christi in the contemporary romance category, with one of a male/male nature, is A.M. Arthur and her Restoration Series. In Finding Their Way, Boxer thought he was done with relationships, but deepening his new and evolving friendship with Riley could be worth the risk of another heartbreak.

  And in the erotic contemporary romance subgenre, a financially destitute and desperate woman agrees to a shocking contract—engaging in BDSM sex with a man who has a dark and mysterious past—in exchange for all the money she could ever wish for. Check out Under Contract, part of Jeffe Kennedy’s Falling Under series, which also includes her previous two novels Going Under and Under His Touch.

  Fan-favorite Cindy Spencer Pape is back with a new steampunk romance in the Gaslight Chronicles. In Ether & Elephants, Tom and Nell have loved one another since they were children, but one cataclysmic mistake destroyed their chances. Now they are forced to work together to save a missing child and all the old sparks have returned, igniting fires that may burn out of control.

  If you’re looking for a bit more of a traditional historical romance, Alyssa Everett delivers a fantastic one with The Marriage Act. Though bitterly estranged since their wedding night, warring husband and wife John and Caro must mask their hostility to play a devoted couple for Caro’s unsuspecting family in a second-chance-at-love regency romance.

  Taking a less traditional historical romance route is Kari Edgren. Defying her goddess-born family, Selah Kilbrid joins with a mortal enemy in An Immortal Descent to save the two people she loves most as they race toward a long-forgotten nightmare that awaits them in Ireland.

  And this month we’re proud to present debut author Caitlyn McFarland and her Dragonsworn trilogy. In book one, Soul of Smoke, Kai Monahan’s uneventful hike in the Rocky Mountains ends with a dragon shapeshifter named Rhys magically bound to her—now she must complete the bond and give up her freedom or risk unleashing dragons on humanity in a war that will decimate both.

  Escape into fun (and a happy ending!) with a Carina Press romance this month by picking up one of these novels or one of our more than a thousand backlist titles.

  Until next time, here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  Angela James

  Editorial Director, Carina Press

  Dedication

  To Margaret

  who gave me permission

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Under His Touch by Jeffe Kennedy

  Acknowledgments

  Also By Jeffe Kennedy

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “I’m sorry to tell you, Tina, but this is it.” Linda’s gaze skittered away.

  Another ending. Not the worst blow, but the one that might finally drop her into the abyss. Tina tensed. She’d be panicking if she didn’t feel so numb.

  “It’s obviously bad for all of us.” Linda put her cold Diet Coke against her forehead. “Losing this account is the final straw. I can eke out a few weeks’ severance for you, but not anything more. If I waited another week, I couldn’t get that much past the forensic accountants. I’m really sorry.”

  “I could stay and keep working. Maybe—”

  “You know I’d tell you if I thought there was a chance.” Linda set the Coke down without drinking. “We’re tanked. It’s just not common knowledge. I’m letting you and a few other people go now so you can at least start looking for other jobs. With your particular niche, I know it might take a while.”

  Another understatement. Tina had chosen landscape design as a profession—and specialized in water-focused features—with all the idealism of the naïve. Back then she’d believed in studying what you loved. Follow your passion and the money will follow. That’s what all her guidance counselors said. What her parents, God rest their souls, had affectionately encouraged her to do. The perfect complement to Arabella’s degrees in civil engineering. They’d had such dreams, she and her twin sister, of working together, always in tandem.

 
So many endings.

  “I’m really sorry,” Linda repeated. “I feel like I failed you. You know you have a tremendous reputation and I wrote you the most amazing reference letter I could dream up. It’s not enough, but...”

  “It is what it is.” Nothing like having that tremendous reputation in a niche specialty like water design in a freaking desert during the worst drought in recorded history. The land had dried up, year by year, echoed by the devastation in Tina’s life.

  “I know you’re like a third-generation Los Angeleno, but maybe you should consider moving? Take the girls, make a fresh start.”

  Tina gave Linda a reassuring smile, at least the best one she could muster. Her boss had tried her best. She took the envelope Linda handed her. Three weeks’ severance wouldn’t last more than a few days against the mountain of debt threatening to crush her in a landslide of unopened bills and haranguing voice mails from creditors. “We might have to do that. Guess I’d better go start the job search.”

  She knew there was nothing to find in the city, for sure. She’d been killing herself, tagging past clients, trying to drum up new business. The slow collapse of Delaney Landscape Design had followed the crash of the California construction industry, drawing ever closer to the edge, then falling into that ever-expanding crater. No one had thought the downturn would last so long, but with every year the firm had lost money and clients. Even with new xeriscaping jobs, they hadn’t held steady. No sense keeping their star water feature artist in the face of a city ban against fountains.

  Now the ground had crumbled beneath her feet and, like a disaster-movie heroine who’d been too stupid to run, she was clinging to the edge of the abyss, screaming. Except no hero would suddenly appear to haul her to safety.

  “You know what they say.” Linda produced a weak smile. “When a door closes, a window opens.”

  So you could throw yourself out of it. A slow burn of anger began to penetrate the numbness.

  It must have showed on her face because Linda’s smile faded. “Take the rest of the day off,” she suggested. “Carly and Josie don’t get home until after four, right?”

  “Later today, with dance team after school. And then Carly has some science club meeting.”

  “Take some time then.” Linda pulled two twenties out of her billfold. “Buy yourself lunch in some little place overlooking the ocean and rest your brain.”

  “I don’t want your money.” Beneath the numbness, her pride stirred. She had that much still.

  Her boss blinked rapidly and pressed her lips together. “I have Bill’s salary to fall back on. Let me do this for you. When was the last time you did something nice, just for you?”

  She knew the exact date. Twice now she, Carly and Josie had taken sick days to light candles at the cathedral and toss the ashes of letters into the surf to commemorate the day that changed all their lives. How would she support them now? They had no idea how bad things were—Tina had managed to shelter them from that fear, at least—but there would be no hiding this. So she took the forty dollars, for her nieces. Not to squander on lunch, but to buy groceries.

  Linda knew they had it bad. But she had no idea how bad. Even Tina didn’t really know, because she couldn’t bear to look.

  “Thank you for everything. You know I loved this job.” Tina stood and Linda did likewise, coming around the desk to hug her.

  “We loved having you here. You know how many projects came in because of your gift for fountains. I’ll be expecting a deluge of phone calls checking your references. And anything you need—just ask.”

  “I will.” Tina choked the words out, acutely aware of the lie in them. She wouldn’t be asking for help because there was none to be had. When people offered that, they meant well, but they didn’t expect the kind of price tag hanging over her head. Tina had stopped keeping track of anything but the general number, so overwhelmingly huge it overshadowed everything else.

  Only money—huge amounts of money—would help at this point. And, like the rain that vanished before it ever hit the ground, money didn’t fall from the sky.

  Blindly, unable to muster motivation for anything, she cleared her desk, stowed her things in her crappy car and started walking down Figueroa. Rush hour had subsided in the Financial District, with everyone busily tucked into their offices, but traffic never stopped in LA. So many busy people with places to be. Maybe something would occur to her, some way out of the crater of debt and desert of unrelenting grief. Not for the first time, she vaguely contemplated suicide. Not the deliberate kind, but the sort where she might just trip and fall in front of a bus. Except that would solve only her own despair and leave her nieces even worse off without her.

  Stopping at the Salmon Run sculpture by the Manulife Plaza, she let the fluid lines soothe her soul. The artist, Christopher Keene, had crafted the bronze to look like water. The scent, the sweet life-giving essence of it, almost wafted up from the sunbaked metal. The mother bear and her twin cubs feasting on the bounty of salmon. Both ferociously powerful and joyful, it reminded her of Ara, and how fiercely she’d loved and protected her precious daughters.

  Tina couldn’t fail to do less than that.

  * * *

  Ryan checked his phone, noted he had plenty of time before his next meeting, and indulged in an extended appraisal of the woman studying the bear sculpture. Though the heels were low enough to qualify as dowdy, excellent legs rose up to a deliciously formed ass. She’d look amazing in stilettos. Perhaps four-, even five-inch heels with some training.

  As he drew nearer, he caught the edge of her profile and recognized Celestina Sala with a start of surprise and an increased surge of lust. Odd to see her here and now, after all these years. He might not have recognized her out of context, if he hadn’t spent so much time surreptitiously studying her lush figure. She’d designed the garden pools at his offices three—no, four—years before, and she’d been married and therefore off-limits, even for someone of his questionable morals.

  Hell, who was he kidding? Morals had nothing to do with it. He hated complications and she had never seemed like the type to cheerfully commit adultery. That had stopped him from suggesting anything, but not from enjoying her easy sensuality, the swing of her hips that made him think of salsa dancing, tequila, hot nights and hotter sex.

  Or from the occasional fantasy of dragging her across the conference table, baring those mouthwatering breasts and taking her with brutal savagery while their colleagues watched in titillated horror.

  He knew how to behave in polite society, how to cover his baser nature with the gloss he’d developed as painstakingly as his identity, and he’d made sure she never suspected his interest. They’d kept things strictly professional and he hadn’t laid eyes on her since the project ended. Barring the occasional starring role in his sexual fantasies.

  She looked different. She’d cut her hair short—a pity, as he’d entertained himself with visions of releasing the gleaming black coil of it, seeing her naked framed by the glorious waves, of winding his fist in it to hold her still while he watched her suck him off. Now he’d never see that and he was not a man who graciously gave up what he wanted. Still...what if serendipity had handed him a new opportunity to make some of it come true? With her left side to him, hand wrapped around the strap of her bag, the telltale gold gleam of her wedding band should have been visible in the bright sunshine. Had fate put her back in his path, this time as a free woman?

  Gifts from the universe such as this should never be taken lightly. People made their own luck. He’d made up for poor beginnings in life by courting serendipity as his favorite mistress, fickle though she might be. No one had ever accused him of bypassing an opportunity. It knocked, he answered—and dragged it inside before it could escape. If the lovely Celestina happened to be available, he owed it to himself—and to fate—to do his utmost to capture her as well.


  All right then. If she was free, he’d talk her into lunch. And then into bed.

  The decision firm in his mind, he tucked his smartphone into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and eased up beside her.

  “Celestina Sala?” he purred, going for charming and sensual, beginning the seduction immediately. Women responded well to sound.

  Celestina, however, nearly jumped out of her skin, shoulders spiking to her ears in a reflexive flinch. She spun, eyes hidden behind her sunglasses but dismay clear in her body language.

  “Remember me—Ryan Black? I’m sorry I startled you.”

  She relaxed, though not by much. Rather, she took on the studied demeanor of a woman who recognized a valued business client and pulled herself together. Assuming that careful poise she’d always carried, that regal bearing that begged to be stripped away. Giving him a smile, polite, not the warm, unconsciously sensual one he recalled, she held out a slim hand. “Mr. Black, of course! Forgive me—I was deep in thought. How has the pool series worked out for you?”

  They hadn’t been happy thoughts, by the look of her. She’d changed more than her hair. She looked tired and tense. The shorter length could work for her, framing her high cheekbones and emphasizing the fullness of her lips, but the cut hadn’t been high quality and now looked a bit unkempt, grown out too far. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she spoke, a nervous gesture that revealed she no longer had the perfectly glossy manicure she’d always kept in the past but, more important than any of it—that she indeed no longer wore a wedding band.

  His lust rose up like the beast it was and salivated at the prospect of having her. Lull her with small talk and shared business, yes.

  “It was very well received and the plantings have grown up quite a bit. Of course, we’ve had to empty the pools, change out some of the more water-dependent shrubs and flowers for some xeriscaping. The drought continues to plague us all.”

  Her mouth flattened unhappily—not the direction he’d meant to take with her—so he added, “But I think the design carries it well. You should come see it.”