Snippet (Paris Hearts 2)

The lovely Elyssa Patrick​ tagged me to share 7 lines from page 7 of my work in progress.

You know, I am *very* stingy about sharing from my works in progress, but Elyssa is a sweetheart, and I thought some of you might enjoy it, so here you go. This is from Violette’s story, book 2 in the Paris Hearts series.

(YES, I am also working on Tristan and Lucien’s stories. But I can only write so fast, y’all! I’m glad you’re interested in them, though, and appreciate that very much.)

Hope you enjoy!

***

Her burglar grinned like a cat that had rolled in way too much catnip. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but you are really hot.”

“Is there a good way to take that?” she challenged dryly.

“Well…as a compliment? I mean, if you told me that, that’s the way I would take it.”

She sighed, wishing his cockiness and physical strength and visible attraction to her didn’t get to her the way they did. The last thing a female chef needed was to be vulnerable to that particular male combination. She’d never hold her own. “Did Quentin send you to sabotage tomorrow’s banquet?”

A little of the grin faded off his face. He straightened away from the wall. In the light, his hair was a kind of blue-brown, his skin faintly ghostly. “Who’s Quentin?”

“He was my second.”

Her burglar’s eyes narrowed just a little. It changed the whole look of his face, from cocky and dangerous to her equilibrium to just…dangerous. To everybody else. “Was?”

She shrugged, as if this kind of thing didn’t hurt every time. Why the hell did men have to make it so hard to do her job? As if everything in life was all about them and their wants, all the time? “Well, since I’m a woman, obviously he thought he was the real star in the kitchen and that I was just some figurehead who was sleeping with the hotel owner.”

Her burglar held up one finger. “Just a little point of interest, and not to distract your story, but are you sleeping with the hotel owner?”

She gave him a withering look.

He smiled. “Good.”