About PLAYING DIRTY
Faced with a choice between bad-boy detective Dean Ryker and sexy power player Parker Anderson, Sage Reece fought the law-and the law won. But while Ryker's sizzling touch may rule her nights, Sage's days belong to Parker's cool, calculating intensity . . .
Both Ryker and Parker are determined to protect Sage from a brutal enemy who'd use her to pay for their mistakes. Yet when the usually on-point Ryker is distracted by ghosts from his past, Parker seizes his opportunity to get Sage's attention . . . and keep it in ways beyond her wildest dreams.
Now, caught between a mobster out for revenge and two men who were once best friends, Sage must play to win-even if it means getting dirty . . .
Both Ryker and Parker are determined to protect Sage from a brutal enemy who'd use her to pay for their mistakes. Yet when the usually on-point Ryker is distracted by ghosts from his past, Parker seizes his opportunity to get Sage's attention . . . and keep it in ways beyond her wildest dreams.
Now, caught between a mobster out for revenge and two men who were once best friends, Sage must play to win-even if it means getting dirty . . .
Excerpt:
It was late in the afternoon when Parker called me into his office to work on a file for one of our biggest clients. It took a couple of hours and I kept glancing surreptitiously at my watch, wondering if I was going to have to cancel dinner with my parents. This last time, Parker caught me at it.
“Something wrong?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No, I just—”
“Have a date with Ryker?” Parker interrupted.
“No. My parents are coming to take me to dinner,” I said, omitting the information that Ryker was coming, too, and that he was in fact the entire reason for my parents driving in to the city.
“Ah. I see.” Parker settled back into his chair from where he’d been pacing as he talked through the case and I’d taken notes. “You know, I’d like to think we’re still friends, you and me.”
“We are?” Parker and I had never discussed our relationship after I’d left his apartment—and his bed—in the middle of the night.
“Of course. Which is why I told Monique I wasn’t going to fire you.”
“Excuse me?” Surely I had misheard. “I thought she said I was pretty.”
“Oh, she did. That was the problem. She doesn’t like the idea of me having a secretary who looks like you.”
“Executive Administrative Assistant,” I automatically corrected him. My immediate thought was, what a bitch. My next thought was to wonder why he was telling me this.
“I told her she was being ridiculous. And you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this,” he said.
My internal um, yeah must’ve shown on my face.
“I like Monique,” he said. “She’s an…interesting diversion. But you…you are a fixture in my life and I wouldn’t dream of firing you, especially at the whim of a temporary girlfriend.”
“Is that what she is? Your girlfriend?”
“For the moment.”
“I see.”
“Is Ryker for the moment? Or a fixture?” he asked.
That gave me pause. Since when were we discussing our personal lives at work? Or at anyplace, for that matter?
“Why do you care?” I asked.
“We’re friends, Sage. I care. I just want what’s best for you. Like you said last night, I want you to be happy, too.”
About Tiffany Snow
A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Tiffany Snow earned degrees in Education and History from the University of Missouri-Columbia, before launching a career in Information Technology. After over a decade in IT, she switched careers to what she always dreamed of doing - writing. Tiffany is the author of romantic suspense novels such as the Kathleen Turner Series, which includes No Turning Back, Turn to Me and Turning Point. Since she's drawn to character-driven books herself, that's what she loves to write, and the guy always gets his girl. She feeds her love of books with avid reading, yet she manages to spare time and considerable affection for trivia, eighties hair bands, the St. Louis Cardinals, and Elvis. She and her husband have two daughters and one dog.
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