Her Fictional Fling: Scandals in Scotland Contemporary Romance Series Book 1 by Jo Summers Page A

their skirts so they could tell their friends about it the next day or make a small fortune running their mouths to the media.
    Maybe that was why he found Andi so fascinating. She made him feel more normal than he had since his career had taken off, and although he wouldn’t trade what he had now—he enjoyed the lifestyle, the money, and the often twelve-hour days that kept him out of his own head—sometimes, he missed being anonymous, missed being able to move through life without constant attention from people who didn’t even know him, and didn’t give a shit about him beyond the entertainment he provided.
    Still, why had she frozen up so suddenly, after flirting with him? What was it that caused her to shut down and turn inside herself the way she had? He knew it wasn’t any of his business, and he wasn’t about to get in that deep, but something about her raw vulnerability tugged at him, and even though he knew it was irrational, he couldn’t help wanting to know more.
    Colin took the back stairs two at a time up to his rooms, holding the bag of food in one arm as he turned the key. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find when he opened the door. Perhaps Andi would be on the couch, having poured herself a new glass of wine. Maybe she was on the bed, waiting for him, still warm from the shower. She could be freshening up in the bath, or lounging on the balcony, enjoying the crisp air. Any of those scenarios would have been fine.
    What wasn’t fine was that when he called her name, no one answered. And when he dropped the food on the counter and hurriedly searched the whole place for her, she was nowhere to be found. A tiny spot of color near the balcony caught his eye, and for a moment he was hopeful, but when he went to pick it up, he discovered it was only a small plastic thumb drive. Andi must have dropped it on her way out, but she hadn’t even the courtesy to leave a note with her cell number or any other way to reach her. He tucked the drive—his only connection to her— in his pocket.
    Colin Walker, rising star and tabloid king, had been stood up.
    Shit.
    His jaw clenched tight at the nerve of her. He wasn’t in the habit of chasing down
    women; it had never been necessary.
    And yet, the simple fact that she’d been the one to leave without a trace made Andi
    McKenna all the more interesting, and he found it difficult to remain annoyed for long.
    Simultaneously grinning and cursing to himself for being such a chump, Colin picked up his cell and set to the idiotic task of finding his mystery girl.
    Andi stared at the blank screen of her laptop, eyes glazed over with lack of sleep and the perpetual worry that the words she needed for the new book, due in just a few months, wouldn’t show up. Her first three books had been a joy to write, and she remembered the nights she’d stayed up late to finish that very first one, fingers racing over the keyboard after endless shifts at various greasy spoon diners where her ass had been pinched by dirty old men too many times to count. That very same keyboard now seemed to mock her.
    She’d never had this much trouble with her work before. What was wrong?
    Lily had said it was a problem with the sex scenes she’d written so far, but deep down Andi knew it was much more than that. After she’d left Jared the Jerk, writing books about heroes and heroines finding love had sustained her, had given her a reason to get up each morning even when her life had felt like it was on a fast train to nowhere. Living their adventures had been her saving grace, and she’d held onto it, terrified of what would happen if she let go. Reviewers might rave about her deft plotting, pace, and characterization, but Andi knew that anything shining in her writing really all boiled down to one thing—hope. She’d given her characters hope when she hadn’t had any herself, and, one step at a time, she’d turned their hope into her own and used it to build a career she loved.
    So