Harlequin Desire January 2021--Box Set 1 of 2 by Maisey Yates (inspirational books .TXT) 📗

didn’t stop him from spending his day at his desk, refreshing the website until the byline popped up in red print: Her Name is Nina Taylor.

* * *

Dear fans, followers and inquiring minds of all stripes:

Thank you for your interest in the #1HOT KNIGHT affair.

If you’re not familiar with the scandal, I will get you up to speed. Last fall, my diary fell into the hands of an unscrupulous individual who ripped out a few pages and sold them to a gossip website. Those of you who’ve read the excerpt know more about my sex life than I’d be willing to share with my closest friends.

The story begins in July. While on holiday in Miami, I met action movie star JL Knight. Our courtship got off to an unusual start. Day 1: We agreed to share a hotel suite. Day 2: He dived into a pool to save me. Day 3: We went on an excursion with his former landlady. Day 4: He kissed me in the moonlight.

Don’t take my word for it. There are photos documenting it all.

This love story should have remained a closed-bedroom-door romance. Instead, readers have been offered an explicit account of our most intimate encounter. My intention here is not to fill the few remaining cracks in your imagination. But since this is a story, and I’m a storyteller by nature, I would like to take this opportunity to flesh out the main characters, provide some context and backstory.

My name is Nina Taylor. The man who became my hero, friend, lover and creative partner is Julian Leroy Knight.

I am a writer. I’ve kept a diary since childhood. My journals have always been the guardian of my secrets. I’ve published a couple in the form of a memoir. However, that was a very different experience. I had control over the material and the process. Also, I had an editor to prune out the excess exclamation points and overabundance of clichés.

Julian is an actor, writer and filmmaker. He trusted me to read and revise the script he had spent years working on. We bonded over the written word. It is disheartening that words—my written words—caused so much havoc.

How this love story ends is none of your concern.

Over the next few weeks, I will be actively promoting Midnight Sun alongside my friend, director Julian Knight, and the countless other creative professionals who brought the film to life. Should we meet along the way, ask me about the creative process. I’d love to share. Ask me about my private life and I’ll have no problem putting you in your place.

Thank you and be well.

* * *

The following day, Julian met with Kat for lunch at her favorite French bistro in West Hollywood. Kat was her usual chatty self. Julian was sullen. Nina’s words pursued him, unsettled him. Friend. Lover. Creative partner. How had he managed to lose all of that?

Kat was full of praise for Nina. “Mark my words. She is now and for all time a feminist icon.” She squeezed a lemon into her iced tea. “Right up there with Rosa Parks.”

Julian raised his eyes from the menu. “Don’t bring Rosa Parks into this.”

“Why aren’t you happier?” Kat said. “She masterfully rebranded you as an artist. JL Knight is dead. You are now Julian Knight, a triple threat—actor, writer and director.”

“I don’t care about that.” Julian knew how insane that sounded, because it was all he’d cared about up to this point. “I betrayed her and let her down.”

Kat reached for her glass of iced tea, knocking her designer sunglasses clear off the table. Their waiter retrieved them, set a breadbasket on their table and took their order. But Julian knew Kat well enough to know when she was hiding something.

“Anything you want to tell me?” he asked once the waiter had left.

Her blue gaze skidded away. Julian crossed his arms and waited. Finally, she turned to him, composed. “It’s my fault you two split up. I called in the middle of the night with all my theories and wouldn’t drop it. What’s wrong with me?”

“You were looking out for a friend,” he said. “But I knew what I had with Nina. It was real, and I should never have been swayed.”

“She loves you, you know.”

Julian lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if that simple gesture could keep him from falling apart. “But she hates me, too.”

“That’s to be expected,” Kat said. “I’ll say this—the woman I got a glimpse of in Miami last summer was not the woman I met with in New York. She tried to hide it, but she looked sad, dejected and disappointed as hell that you weren’t traveling with me.”

Sad? Dejected? He thought she’d be better off without him, but his better-off theory was proving to be bull. A guttural moan escaped him. “I want her back so badly. I don’t want to go on like this. I don’t think I can.”

“Moaning to me about it won’t get the job done, Knight.”

He composed himself. “I need a strategy.”

“Yeah, you do.”

Julian grabbed a piece of crusty bread and tore it in half. It was going to take a heck of a lot of groveling and the mother of grand gestures to get Nina to consider forgiving him. “Would you mind helping me?”

She passed him the butter. “Thought you didn’t want me to meddle.”

“Does it make you uncomfortable? It’s not exactly your job.”

“Julian, we’re friends!” she cried. “If I wanted to win someone back—or just get back at someone—I’d enlist you.”

“And I’d say yes.”

“Good,” Kat said. “Now that we got that straightened out, let’s strategize.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Miami Beach, Florida

This was his night and she would play fair, but she reserved the right to be pissed.

Nina sprayed perfume on her wrists and slammed the delicate bottle on the marble vanity. One last glance in the bathroom mirror, and she was out the door.

During the ride from the hotel to the Fillmore theater, she repeated her mantra: He’s nothing to me. I’m