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Just One Touch…
Beautiful and aloof, actress Jessica Sullivan wants nothing to do with good-for-nothing men. But when the darkly handsome Lee Montgomery walks through her door, that simple rule is forgotten forever. Because the secret hidden in her heart is about to be revealed…
Is All It Takes…
Boston-born Lee Montgomery is anything but proper. He knows he’s called a rogue, and he doesn’t give a damn. Jessica can keep her distance if she wants to but that won’t last. Not when he longs for her the way he does. Now how in the hell did a confirmed cad fall so deeply in love—and what can he do about it? Lee intends to mend his ways—and make Jessica love him back….
Praise for Denise Eagan
“Eagan debuts with a powerful novel that is…intensely emotional and pure romance. A desperate woman, an alpha hero, a sexually charged meeting, secrets, danger and passion all meld into one nonstop read.”
—Romantic Times on Wicked Woman, 4-star review
Denise Eagan resides in suburban Boston. The town is just boring enough for her to keep writing her Victorian romances, generally with a mystery/murder element because nothing says romance like a dead body. In a house of all males—husband, two teenage boys and a thieving beagle—she keeps her sanity and fends off testosterone poisoning by eating massive doses of chocolate chip cookie dough. She has a degree in finance, but when her first book, soon to be titled Wicked Woman, became a finalist in the American Title competition sponsored by Romantic Times, she turned to writing full-time. Please visit her website at www.deniseeagan.com.
Chapter One
San Francisco, 1885
Jessica Sullivan lay dead on the polished wood floor, an
overturned goblet of bloodred wine dripping near her hand.
Her gold satin gown pooled around her body, except for a
section of skirt pulled up to display a tantalizing portion of
well-formed calf. Having fallen from her blond head, her
crown still rolled slightly, its jewels gleaming in the gaslight.
But nobody noticed Jess. Everybody’s eyes were glued to
the scene two feet from her, of a man dying in his best friend’s
arms. Except for a few sniffles, the room held a tense silence,
ears straining to hear the last words of a brokenhearted man.
“Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet Prince, and
flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
With that the curtain descended and a thunderous burst of
applause ripped away the silence. Alive once more, Jess jumped
up, swept her crown back on her head, and then smoothed out
the wrinkles of her gown as she sped across the stage. Hidden
among the side curtains, Michelle Dubois, gold curls bouncing
excitedly, greeted her. “Oh, do you not hear them ma amie?!
Are they not even louder than last night?”
Jess kissed her roommate’s rouged cheek. “Of course they
are, Michelle. They came for you.”
“Oh non! Some are surely for you!”
Jess smiled indulgently as the curtain rose to expose the
now-vacant stage. The narrator began calling out parts, and the
actors glided out to center stage where they bowed and then
formed a line. At “Ophelia” Michelle floated out. As if one
person, the audience lunged to its feet, whistling and stomping,
and warming Jess’s heart, for her friend ate, drank, and
breathed applause. When it started to wane, the narrator called
out “Gertrude, Queen of Denmark,” and Jess walked out to
center stage. Curtsying, she passed an eye over the crowd,
mostly male she noted with cheerful cynicism. As she took her
place in line, out came troupe manager Robert Madison—
Hamlet—and if noise could bring down a ceiling, it surely
would have fallen then. Well, Jess thought merrily, there were
a few women out there, too.
Several curtain calls later, the curtain fell for the last time.
As the audience filed out of the theatre, stagehands scurried
about moving scenery, and the actors grouped together to critique
the performance, the crowd, the applause. Carefully avoiding
eye contact, Jess removed the tin crown from her head and
while pulling pins out of her hot, itchy wig, crossed the stage.
Another performance, she calculated, another $1.25 toward her
Jason-account—$1.25 nearer to redemption, $1.25 nearer to
home.
“Jess! Jess, hold up a minute!” Behind her Jon, who played
that most faithful companion Horatio, had broken from the
throng of actors.
“NoJon,” Jess answered, the two words spoken so often in the
past, they’d become one. Moving down a hall toward her dressing
room, she yanked off the wig, displaying jet black hair.
“Deny me not, fair Jessica! I beg but one minute of your time!”
“NoJon.”
“You can’t deny me forever!”
“NoJon,” she said, opening the door to her dressing room.
“There, you admit it! Secretly you pine for my love!”
“NoJon.” She shut the door in his face. Generally she was
kinder, but after six straight nights of performances—and two
matinees—tonight she was just too darned tired.
She turned a key to the gas lamps hanging on the wall.
They sizzled slightly as they lit, revealing a large dressing
room decorated with pink-and-gold-flocked paper, a thick
pink carpet, a dressing table with two chairs, and a doubledoor
wardrobe. Although no fan of pink, after six years in a
traveling troupe Jess deeply appreciated the luxury.
Before she could seat herself, the rapping of knuckles on
wood rang through the room. As Jess turned, Jon opened the
door a crack and stuck his head in. “In all earnestness, Jess,”
he said, “a few of us are going out. We were wondering—”
She shook her head, flashing a smile to ease the rejection.
“Thank you, but I have other plans.”
He rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes. “It’s only supper
and drinks, Jess,” he said in a softly persuasive voice. “Nothing
very expensive.”
Nothing very expensive, her mind echoed, but between alcohol
and flirtation, something remarkably sordid, for theatre
people cared nothing about propriety or virtue. None except
for Jess, who for six years had clung to both like a drowning
man clings to a life preserver. “No, Jon, thank you anyway.”
He sighed, and then shut the door with a disappointed click.
Alone again, she settled down at her dressing table and
humming tunelessly—there were reasons she didn’t act in
musicals!—unpinned her hair, allowing her curls to swing
free. With a jar of cleansing cream, she proceeded to wipe
away her wrinkles, revealing the silky smooth skin of a young
woman. To her chagrin a San Franciscan reporter had recently
compared its texture to fine porcelain. So, she thought with a
gurgle of humor, at twenty-four she resembled a chamber pot.
Good gracious, what would they say at thirty-four?
Michelle swept in on a wave of expensive French perfume.
“Jess! Always here before me, aren’t you? I swear, I cannot
understand why you never greet our admirers. That is the best
part of the show, you know.”
“The best part of the show is the cash.”
“Well, yes, but all those men,” she said with a deep sigh of
satisfaction. She shook her head as she seated herself in front
of the second dressing-table mirror. “And you are ever so
pretty! You must know that if you ever showed your true face,
men of every age would flock to you, and then you needn’t
worry so much about money.”
Sighing, Jess sat back and shook her head in amused exasperation.
“I’m not interested in men, Michelle. How often
must I tell you so?”
“Oh, that William Acton again! Do not speak to me of him!
He is nothing, not even a snap of my fingers,” Michelle said,
slipping effortlessly into a thick French accent as she snapped
her fingers to emphasize her point.
Ever-ready humor bubbled up inside Jess. “You are entirely
too combustible! And he is something. Acton’s one of the
most respected doctors of our time.”
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