LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Brenda, you made this book awesome.

      THANK YOU!

       1

      OMG I’m going to kill this client!

      ALI FLORES LAUGHED as she looked at the text message from her best friend, Elisa. Apparently some guy had hired Elisa’s modeling agency to find an actress for him but he couldn’t verbalize what he was looking for. Go figure. A guy who didn’t know what he wanted in a woman. What were the odds?

      Ali was smiling as she texted back.

      I’m still coming for lunch. Have to get out of here!

      She’d just hit Send when her boss popped his head into her cubicle.

      “Hey, Ali, did you proofread that brochure?”

      “Right here,” she said as she handed over the document. “But I really think the photos could be better—”

      “Great. I’m having a terrible time getting those promotional pens out of China. Can you call their customs department for me and get it worked out?”

      “Because I speak such good Chinese?” Not.

      “Because you’re the best. Thanks!” And off he went with a wave. She wanted to scream. How the heck was she supposed to navigate Chinese customs? But she didn’t say a word. Instead, she grabbed her phone and typed out another quick text to Elisa.

      My boss knows exactly what he wants: me, chained to my desk. Until I DIE!

      She had to get a new job. Truthfully, she had to get a new life, but what? And how? She dropped her chin on her hand and stared at her computer screen. And as she glared at the blinking cursor, she imagined a knight in shining armor stepping up to her desk to rescue her. He’d take her away to his castle, he’d shower her with jewels, and…and he’d probably ask her to mother his seven screaming brats from a previous marriage.

       Not!

      Ali groaned and started pulling up all the correspondence with the Chinese factory. But as she worked, her mind kept churning on her own life problems.

      Ali believed in happily ever after. Perhaps that was the problem. She didn’t just believe in it, she ached for it. She obsessed about it. She wanted it with a hunger that filled her fantasy life to overflowing.

      But she needed some way to shape her dreams. It wasn’t like knights in shining armor were wandering around Houston looking for her. And she wasn’t really a damsel in distress. Truth was, she didn’t know who or what she was.

      She’d been a quiet child growing up, buried in books because that’s what she liked. She and her single mom had been happy up until she was ten. Then suddenly her mom up and married a guy with two sons, both younger than Ali. And if that weren’t enough, Mom got pregnant just a few months later.

      Ali went from the girl who liked to read to the girl who changed diapers, did laundry and screamed at the boys to stay out of her room. In the end, she escaped to college only to quit when the money ran out.

      She’d got this job as a secretary to the head of PR in a hospital. Talk about being unimportant. The hospital saved lives. Her boss kept the hospital looking good so it could save lives. And what did she do? She made sure their booth at a health fair was well stocked with promotional pens. Sure, she wasn’t screaming at toddlers anymore, but she was working just as hard screaming at customs or tracking UPS shipments or doing whatever menial task her boss threw at her.

      Other people had passions, they had goals and a purpose. She had fantasies about handsome pirates not because she liked pirates but because she didn’t know what she did like. And she wasn’t going to find out sitting here filling out customs forms.

      It was time to make a change. So she whipped out her phone and texted Elisa.

      Lunch NOW. We’re going to find me a new life.

      KEN JOHNSON WAS SEARCHING for a queen. And for some ridiculous reason, he couldn’t find one. Maybe because Queen Guinevere didn’t exist in Houston. Still, he was determined to try. He was now at his seventeenth modeling agency praying that the woman he sought walked through the door. But so far, he’d been sorely disappointed.

      Ken was CEO of Quirky Games, Inc., and he was about to launch a new adventure game that he hoped would take the geek world by storm. But in order to do that, he had to throw a huge publicity campaign that included gaming conventions, comic conventions and even a theme-park opening. And after years of experience in the geek gaming world, he knew that every event hinged on one thing: the actors who played the characters.

      Any model could strap on a corset and a sword. Put a babe in a brass bra and kids would look, but they wouldn’t necessarily buy. These days, players needed more than a hot chick before they invested the hours to get fluent in a game. They needed a goal, a challenge and, most of all…a queen.

      His queen needed to be divinely beautiful but so approachable that boys would immediately want to talk to her, be with her, play the game for hours just to spend more time around her. She needed to be reserved enough to seem mysterious, and yet so warm that you believed she could strap on an apron and serve chocolate-chip cookies. Sex goddess and Betty Crocker, all rolled into one.

      That was the queen he wanted, and damn it, she was nowhere to be found.

      “I need a break,” he said, shoving up from his chair. He was in the primary conference room of the last modeling agency on his list: OMG Action! But just as all the others, every woman who’d strutted, shimmied or swaggered in front of him had left him cold. Not just cold, but vaguely nauseated. They were certainly beautiful, but the personalities beneath the flawless skin and high cheekbones were arrogant or just plain over-the-top.

      The agency owner, Marilyn Madison, pushed out of her chair and teetered on her ultra-high heels. “Mr. Johnson!” she cried, panic in her voice.

      Then her assistant—a

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