Breaking Her No-Dating Rule

I have failed in every single New Year’s resolution I’ve ever set for myself. In fact I pretty much pick the most extreme resolutions possible and set myself up to fail. Because, like my heroine, I’m kind of flaky. My resolutions usually go like this:

I want to lose weight …

Day One: I RESOLVE TO GIVE UP SUGAR FOR EVER.

Day Four: Where’s my chocolate?!

This year I might actually keep my resolution—or get pretty close to it. I won’t know if I succeed until December 31st, since it’s a year-long career goal and I still have time to pull it off. We’ll have to see who wins—the flake in me or the over-achiever.

It’s fitting that in the first year I have a shot at holding a resolution I also got to work with Tina Beckett (a complete joy for me) and write linked books about besties who go to opposite extremes in setting their New Year’s resolutions … and set them up to fail spectacularly instead of myself for a change. Of course I don’t want to spoil the ending, but they fail in the best way possible.

I hope you enjoy reading my half of the New Year’s Resolutions! duet, and encourage you to grab Tina’s book—HOW TO FIND A MAN IN FIVE DATES—for Miranda and Jack’s story. And I wish you resolutions that work out for the best—succeed or fail.

Amalie

There’s never been a day when there haven’t been stories in AMALIE BERLIN’s head. When she was a child they were called daydreams, and she was supposed to stop having them and pay attention. Now when someone interrupts her daydreams to ask, ‘What are you doing?’ she delights in answering, ‘I’m working!’

Amalie lives in Southern Ohio with her family and a passel of critters. When not working, she reads, watches movies, geeks out over documentaries and randomly decides to learn antiquated skills. In case of zombie apocalypse she’ll still have bread, lacy underthings, granulated sugar, and always something new to read.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Tina Beckett—a great friend, fantastic writer, and an awesome lady to work with! It’s been a blast!

To Laurie Johnson—for giving me the chance to collaborate with a writer I adore, and letting me slip a hippy chick into a book :) You rock.

Cover

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

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

EPILOGUE

Copyright

“I KNOW THAT you want to manage this situation yourself, but you do have to relax at some point. Let me and the universe carry the load for a few days.”

The fact that most of the resort had been abandoned at the first hint of the approaching storm gave Ellory Star more confidence than she might’ve otherwise had in what would be an intense situation at best. Only a handful of staff remained—enough to keep the resort running—and a handful of guests trying to get in as much time on the powder as they could before the clouds rolled in. But it wasn’t like Mira was leaving the premises. She’d be around for catastrophe, her safety net.

“Enjoy your post-coital vacation, spend time with Mr. Forever, Number Five. I promise not to refer to him any more in any way that highlights the fact that I totally won the New Year’s resolution war this year.” Ellory leaned over the bar in Jack’s suite, where she and Mira were chatting, tidied a stack of napkins emblazoned with the lodge logo, and pretended not to be feeling smug about how totally right she was.

Mira—her sister by everything except genetics and actual family ties—was the concierge doctor for the ski lodge where Ellory was now living and working, and her best friend since they’d set eyes on one another as toddlers, when Ellory’s mother had brought her to work at the lodge Mira’s family owned. She was the brilliant one, and rational, dependable, smart, and a lot of other good-sounding words that everybody would use to describe Mira and only Mira would ever use to label her.

“You haven’t won until you figure out your quest. Your project. The thing you’re working on.”

A project Ellory hadn’t explained. “I should’ve just bet you I could go without a man longer than you could keep serial dating. Though I haven’t seen any contenders for sexy fun since I’ve been home. So the resolution is safe.”

But that wouldn’t have served the point of her making the resolution to begin with. Besides, her inability to articulate exactly what was wrong was part of the problem she needed to figure out. She skated through life, largely flying on instinct and ignoring anything that hurt her to the point that she wasn’t even sure what hurt her any more. For the past year she’d been running from some pain she couldn’t name—because ignoring the reasons for pain didn’t mean she didn’t feel it. It just meant she felt it blindly.