Any Way You Want It

Is That A Treble Clef In Your Pocket-- Or Are You Just Glad To See Me? Maggie Gallagher spends her nights with lots of men. Of course, they're all dead composers, but why nitpick? Her love life is just like the musical compositions she researches--undiscovered. It's time for Maggie to let loose and go wild. In a dive bar on Bourbon Street, Maggie makes a real find in the house band's keyboard player. He's hot. Sexy. Flirtatious. Soulful. And she could swear he's playing an unknown piece she's been researching, which is impossible, unless he's dead. . . Centuries before he was a badass vampire with a rock-star wardrobe and Big Easy charm, Ren was Renauldo D'Antoni, a composer on the verge of great success until he was betrayed. No one could ever know that, but tonight, the shy strawberry blonde with the big eyes and obviously borrowed outfit actually seemed to recognize his long-lost composition. Now, she wants to know about the composition, and Ren wants to know her. . .intimately. But what starts as attraction--and distraction--just might lead to the biggest discovery of their lives. . .

PROLOGUE "You know what your problem is?" Gatlin bit out. "You're too damn naïve. Not everything in life is all butterflies and sunshine Kylie." "And do you know what your problem is?" Kylie shot back. "You're too damn jaded. You wouldn't know happiness if it bit you in the ass," she continued. "You're content being miserable — and I'm going to leave you to that because it has no place in my world of butterflies and sunshine," she ended, storming past Gatlin. His arm snaked out and grabbed her. "Let go … of … me," Kylie bit out as she fought against her rising tide of passion. Gatlin's heat-seeking tongue melted her last bit of resistance. Kylie dug her hands into his thick, dark hair. Gatlin slowed his assault on her mouth, moving to the golden column of her neck. "No, no, no … stop. Stop Gatlin," her words slowly penetrated his aroused state. "This doesn't solve anything," she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. It's never been our problem … and it won't be our salvation." Shaking off his desire to focus as best as he could, Gatlin responded, "It's a damn good place to start," and reached for her again. "Gatlin stop!" Kylie yelled. "Don’t you see? This is just another way for you to not deal with your real feelings. … I'm looking for real, lasting, soul-connecting love; not some casual roll in the hay!" "You know you mean more to me than just a roll in the hay," Gatlin said. "I really care about you Kylie." "I love you Gatlin. And I know it's not something a modern woman is supposed to say so early in a relationship. But there it is. And I don't expect you to do anything or say anything. I just wanted you to know where I'm coming from." "In my world, love is not complicated. Difficult at times? Yes. But hard? No. You're absolutely right, I do believe in butterflies and sunshine. I believe in love — and I won't let anybody make me feel bad about that or take that away from me." "The thing is, I know you love me too. But you just won't let yourself trust that what we have is real. And I refuse to spend my life trying to prove it to you." ### "Stop hitting my mom!" Gatlin yelled, jumping in front of his mother to prevent his father from landing another blow. "This is between your mother and me boy!" his father said in his drunken slur. "Go to your room. I'm ok honey." "I'm not leaving you," Gatlin cried, his seven-year-old voice cracking with fear as he tried to drag his mom from the room. As his father prepared to land another blow, Gatlin kicked him in the groin. He doubled over in pain, shouting, "You miserable little piece of shit! I'll kill you for this!" Gatlin's mother ran to his side. "Honey are you alright? " she said, wiping blood from the side of her lip with one hand while she consoled his father with the other. ### Gatlin had mentally catalogued hundreds of these memories from his childhood. But this particular one stuck with him vividly. He realized why when Kylie said, "I believe in love and I won't let anybody take that away from me." When his mother had gone to his father to comfort him, instead of coming to him, a frightened 7-year-old, he realized the power of love. His mother had loved his father beyond all rhyme and reason — even beyond her child. He didn't realize it, but that had been the moment he'd stopped believing in love. Love hurt. It was cruel. It wasn't kind. It was loyal to the wrong people. ### Can Kylie trust that what's between them will blossom into everlasting love, or will Gatlin's painful past always be a barrier to their happily ever after? ### african american romance, contemporary romance, interracial romance, bwwm romance, multicultural romance, drama romance, short romance, steamy romance, suspense romance

Zandra Kennedy owes the success of her elite escort agency to some simple rules. Her girls offer companionship, not sex. And business always comes first. Zandra won't allow any man to rule her life the way her father dominated her mother. But that doesn't mean she's immune to fantasies–especially when it comes to her childhood friend, gorgeous former navy SEAL Remington Brand. For years, Remy has been breaking other women's hearts while guarding a secret. He's in love with Zandra's feisty spirit and the vulnerability she keeps hidden under those lush curves. A Caribbean vacation leads to an erotic encounter that's every bit as mind–blowing as they'd imagined. Remy wants more. But he has another secret, too–a betrayal that could shatter Zandra's career, their lifelong friendship and a passion too explosive to deny.…

On paper, Sadie's got it all - the partner, the children, the house. But in real life, that doesn't feel quite enough. Sadie can't help harking back to the time when she was a career woman by day and a party animal by night. And what happened to feeling like a sex kitten, anyway? The only sleepless nights she's getting now are due to the baby. Maybe a little reinvention is the answer . . . Sadie can't resist creating a fictitious online identity for herself as a hot TV producer. It's only a bit of harmless fun . . . until truth and fantasy become dangerously tangled. It isn't long before she's wondering if the exciting alter ego she has dreamed up really is the kind of person she wants to be after all . . . Wry, funny and with a wonderful twist in the tale, Lucy Diamond's debut novel Any Way You Want Me is an enchanting story of infidelity, motherhood and friends reunited.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage • “Life has questions. They have answers.” —The New York Times Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve. In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2009-- now adapted into the feature film Certain Women, starring Kristen Stewart-- award-winning writer Maile Meloy's short stories explore complex lives in an austere landscape with the clear-sightedness that first endeared her to readers. Don't miss her new novel, Do Not Become Alarmed. Meloy's first return to short stories since her critically acclaimed debut, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It is an extraordinary new work from one of the most promising writers of the last decade. Eleven unforgettable new stories demonstrate the emotional power and the clean, assured style that have earned Meloy praise from critics and devotion from readers. Propelled by a terrific instinct for storytelling, and concerned with the convolutions of modern love and the importance of place, this collection is about the battlefields-and fields of victory-that exist in seemingly harmless spaces, in kitchens and living rooms and cars. Set mostly in the American West, the stories feature small-town lawyers, ranchers, doctors, parents, and children, and explore the moral quandaries of love, family, and friendship. A ranch hand falls for a recent law school graduate who appears unexpectedly- and reluctantly-in his remote Montana town. A young father opens his door to find his dead grandmother standing on the front step. Two women weigh love and betrayal during an early snow. Throughout the book, Meloy examines the tensions between having and wanting, as her characters try to keep hold of opposing forces in their lives: innocence and experience, risk and stability, fidelity and desire. Knowing, sly, and bittersweet, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It confirms Maile Meloy's singular literary talent. Her lean, controlled prose, full of insight and unexpected poignancy, is the perfect complement to her powerfully moving storytelling.