How to Tame a Modern Rogue Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Diana Holquist

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Forever

  Hachette Book Group

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  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at http://www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

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  Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Forever name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: August 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55195-3

  Contents

  Copyright

  “Good Night, Sam.”

  Praise for Diana Holquist

  Also by Diana Holquist

  Step One: Every rogue has a weakness. Find it.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Step Two: Every rogue has something they hold dear. Take it.

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Step Three: Every rogue has a heart. Break it.

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgments

  A Preview of The One True Love Series

  The Dish

  “GOOD NIGHT, SAM.”

  She turned to the door, but Sam got to the doorknob first.

  He shut the door with a sickening click.

  Ally’s heart sank. “You cad.”

  “Rogue.”

  “I can go down to the front desk and get another key.”

  “Not if I don’t let you.” He stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

  “Now see here, Sam—”

  He grabbed her and kissed her, stopping the flow of words. His lips were warm and insistent against hers. She tried to pull away. “Sam!”

  ONLY WHEN HE WAS THOROUGHLY DONE KISSING HER DID HE MUMBLE INTO HER NECK, “WHY DO YOU KEEP CALLING ME SAM? I AM THE DUKE.” HER HANDS WERE TRAPPED BETWEEN THEIR BODIES AND ALL SHE COULD MANAGE WAS A FEEBLE STRUGGLE, WHICH FELT SO ENORMOUSLY SEXY, SHE STRUGGLED AGAIN JUST TO FEEL HIM DENY HER.

  THEN, ALL AT ONCE, HE SWEPT HER OFF HER FEET AND INTO HIS ARMS.

  “YOU’RE COMING WITH ME, PRINCESS, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.” HIS VOICE WAS GRUFF AND DOMINATING AND NOT AT ALL LIKE THE PLAYFUL SAM SHE KNEW…

  Please turn this page for rave reviews for Diana Holquist…

  Praise for Diana Holquist

  HUNGRY FOR MORE

  “Fascinating and very sexy. Holquist shows us food isn’t just love, it’s magic!”

  —Susan Mallery, New York Times bestselling author

  “4 Stars! The main characters are appealing, and the secondary ones add depth to the tale with intriguing stories of their own. A bit of psychic phenomena adds a delightful thread to this entertaining read.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine

  “Hungry for More will keep you grinning throughout the whole novel. [It] is a light read that’ll lift your spirits and make you…well…hungry for more from author Diana Holquist. The unique characters are loads of fun.”

  — NightsandWeekends.com

  “An intense, sexy, funny, wonderful redemption story…Feed me, Baby.”

  — AllAboutRomance.com

  “Hungry for More is everything that I expected from a Diana Holquist romance. The author’s talent for creating personalities with charm, passion, and humor reels readers in right from the beginning. If you have not read the One True Love trilogy you are missing out on a fantastic series.”

  — BookLoons.com

  “Wonderfully witty, filled with so much heart and soul and fun dialogue it kept me grinning. Diana Holquist has a fresh, lighthearted style of storytelling that is both appealing and entertaining…I enjoyed it enough that I wanted it to go on and on!”

  — RomanceReaderatHeart.com

  “An engaging contemporary romance with a whimsical thread of fantasy…Holquist continues her fabulously jocular spin on the twisted paths of true love.”

  — HarrietKlausner.wwwi.com

  SEXIEST MAN ALIVE

  “A humorous tale with lovable characters enhanced by the paranormal.”

  — Midwest Book Review

  “4 Stars! This sequel to Make Me a Match is a quite entertaining and enjoyable read. The bit of paranormal…adds an intriguing twist to this romantic tale.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine

  “A funny, sweet, and tender contemporary romance.”

  — DearAuthor.com

  “A quirky, humorous, yet thoughtful read.”

  — RomanceReaderatHeart.com

  “Diana Holquist has another hit on her hands! Sexiest Man Alive is tender, amusing, and purely fantastic!”

  — ARomanceReview.com

  “By far the wittiest, smartest, and hottest book I’ve read all year. This book fairly sizzles!”

  — ArmchairInterviews.com

  “An easy, fast-paced romance that proves to be a good escape from reality. Everyone’s search for their One True Love should be so much fun!”

  — FreshFiction.com

  “A fun romance combining the girl-next-door with movie stars and a hint of magic, this is the feel-good book that is as sweet as hot chocolate on a cool fall night.”

  —Parkersburg News and Sentinel

  MAKE ME A MATCH

  “4½ Stars! Peopled with charming characters and containing a fascinating, almost believable, paranormal element.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine

  “Diana Holquist has a knack for pulling together a great story with romance, humor, and a touch of the paranormal—a story that keeps readers turning pages as fast as possible.”

  — BookLoons.com

  “Sparkles with humor and heart.”

  — RomanceReaderatHeart.com

  “Clever and engaging, the story line is unique and fun.”

  — OnceUponaRomance.net

  “Diana Holquist explodes onto the romance market with this ingenious tale…a fun frolic through love’s twisty maze, with just enough of life’s hard knocks to keep it real.”

  — NightsandWeekends.com

  “Five cups! This was the most heartwarming story I have read in a long time…I devoured this book and wanted to beg for more. Ms. Holquist is a gifted storyteller who makes you laugh, cry, and cheer.”

  — CoffeetimeRomance.com

  “Humorous and entertaining…Ms. Holquist does a great job showing the great leaps people will take for love.”

  — TheRomanceReadersConnection.com

  “A unique romantic comedy tha
t has a heart that will keep you laughing, crying, and sighing until the last page. Holquist has brought readers a great new concept…who doesn’t want to know the name of their One True Love?”

  — ContemporaryRomanceWriters.com

  “A funny, lighthearted tale of a match made in the stars.”

  — RomRevToday.com

  “A laugh-out-loud book that looks at the wild and wacky ways in which we screw up our lives…the fast-paced, emotion-grabbing Make Me a Match is one story I truly enjoyed.”

  — FallenAngelsReviews.com

  “If you enjoy stories where character development is right on par with sizzling romance, Make Me a Match will be the perfect match for you!”

  — ARomanceReview.com

  Also by Diana Holquist

  Make Me a Match

  Sexiest Man Alive

  Hungry for More

  Step One :

  Every rogue has a weakness. Find it.

  The duke made his way out of Hyde Park with his usual loose-limbed, easy gait. The evening was excellent for walking despite the heat of early-summer London. Ahead waited his luxuriously appointed town house, a snifter of brandy, and not a woman in sight to scold him. In a word, perfection.

  —From The Dulcet Duke

  Chapter 1

  Manhattan; June 24, 2009

  Sam Carson strolled out of Central Park, a long blade of grass between his teeth. What a rush that meeting had been, selling the client on his riskiest campaign, then dinner at Daniel with champagne corks flying and the ad agency brass begging him to sign on for the long haul. As if he would ever commit to an agency when his day rate was so bloody—

  Veronica.

  He pulled the grass from his teeth and stuffed it into his pocket. The spirited version of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” he had been humming petered out into a single flat note of dread.

  Across the street, Veronica paced in front of his building, looking pissed enough to vault the six lanes of streaming traffic in a ferocious leap, plant one of her red stiletto heels in his chest, and then fling him under the tires of the nearest SUV, after first, naturally, retrieving her Jimmy Choo.

  Did he deserve punishment? He had told her from day one he wasn’t the marrying kind. A pang of something that might have been pain sprang up, but he shook it off. I told her not to expect more of me than good times and fun. Maybe a really nice birthday gift if the timing was right.

  He scowled. It had been up until now such a successful, lovely summer’s evening.

  He considered his options. Talking to her. Again. About how it was over. Again.

  SUV tires crushing his skull sounded more appealing. Veronica was a lot of things. A subdued, rational conversationalist wasn’t one of them.

  On to plan B: Retire to Boule’s Pub to argue about Premier League soccer with Angelo, the Italian bartender, until the danger had passed. With a pint of warm Guinness. Or two. Because Veronica notwithstanding, he’d had a very top-notch, lucrative day.

  He looked around. Every cab was taken. There wasn’t a bus in sight. He had ten more seconds at most before Veronica spotted him.

  Nine, eight, seven…

  On six, a horse and carriage trotted smartly out of Central Park, turned onto Central Park West, and stopped in front of him for a red light. A wrinkled, gray-haired speck of a woman in an elaborate gown in the back of the open carriage cried down to him, “A marquis walking! How charmingly odd!”

  Not as charmingly odd as a costumed grandma in a carriage on a sweltering June evening at West Seventy-second and the park, but this was no time to quibble. Sam’s life had always been a precarious balance of creativity, luck, and strange circumstance, and he recognized this hatter-mad and/or drunk doddering woman for what she was at once: plan C.

  He bowed deeply to the dowager and said, “Marquis? You are mistaken, madam. I am a duke. Duke Whatthe-hell.” Then he added for good measure, “The third.”

  The opposing light turned yellow. He couldn’t see Veronica, but he was sure her heels were clicking his death march on the opposite sidewalk.

  “Ah! A duke!” The old woman gazed down at him adoringly. “But a duke walking? Do climb in! I’m on my way to see my granddaughter.” Her accent was British, but just muddled enough for Sam to guess it was part of the act.

  The opposing light clicked red.

  Sam vaulted into the rig just as his light turned green. The horse pulled forward, incongruous and regal in the stream of yellow taxis and commuters. It was messy business, leaving a woman who, somehow, despite his up-front declarations of perpetual bachelorhood, had gotten the wrong idea.

  He ought to be better at it by now.

  He glanced back. Veronica stared down the avenue in the wrong direction. His doorman, Clive, however, had seen the whole affair and shot Sam a crisp salute.

  Sam leaned back against the leather seat, bathed in triumph, even though he knew his escape was temporary. He found the blade of grass in his pocket and planted it back between his teeth. “To whom do I owe the pleasure?” he asked the costumed woman beside him. She was delicate, practically see-through, with soft, unfocused pale blue eyes. Her pink lace gown was high-waisted with puff sleeves, spot-on for the dresses in the endless Jane Austen movies he’d been dragged to by excited, weeping dates whose names he had long forgotten, if he’d even bothered to learn their names in the first place. Gad, those movies. Besides the torture of having to see his native England on-screen (he shuddered just to think about it), the movies were too close to his own life for comfort. He preferred The Terminator.

  “I am Lady Donatella,” the old woman said, her voice clear and steady. “But since you will marry my granddaughter, you can call me Granny Donny.”

  Marry? Bollocks. The word chilled his heart.

  He had almost been looking forward to finding out Lady Donatella’s story. Now he’d have to jump out at the first red light and bid the sweet, unhinged woman a hasty farewell.

  Except that the blue of the old woman’s eyes was so pure, her lips so well drawn. That she was a gentlewoman and as such required the escort of a duke was obvious, and he rose to the occasion with a sense of duty his up-bringing demanded, despite the sense of foreboding that was spreading from his frozen heart to ice his veins.

  Ally Giordano was leaving New York City. She had waited exactly as long as she had promised herself she’d wait—ten years. Time was up. Her parents hadn’t come back, and now it was time to move on.

  In the last two weeks, she had sold her parents’ left-behind possessions, from her father’s dusty brown over-coat still hanging in the front closet to her mother’s three jewelry boxes that had been crammed under the bed. What she couldn’t sell, she’d given away.

  The bittersweet, empty feeling of all this discarding was offset by the stunning success she’d had in planning her move, as if it was meant to be. She had found a ridiculously sunny, cheap studio in the Noe Valley section of San Francisco. A miracle, she was told. Then, to her utter surprise, another miracle. She’d gotten her dream job as a tenth-grade English teacher at the Ludington Charter School. It was the chance of a lifetime to teach at one of the most progressive, successful high schools in the country.

  There was nothing to tie her to New York now but her beloved grandmother, who luckily was still ferocious and tenacious at eighty-four, perfectly capable of fending for herself and perfectly rich enough to jump on a plane to the coast to visit Ally whenever she pleased. In fact, Granny Donny had urged Ally to get out while the getting was good. She knew better than anyone how badly Ally needed to leave the past behind. “Go. Have fun. Get laid,” Granny Donny had said when the move to San Francisco was set. She had patted Ally’s hand, not taking her eyes from the mah-jongg table in her stately living room at the Plaza Hotel where she kept an elaborate apartment. The gray- and blue-haired mah-jongg ladies had nodded their agreement, Mrs. Ludith using the opportunity to slip a tile into the sleeve of her green cashmere cardigan.

  That was two wee
ks ago. Ally had been so busy getting ready to go, she hadn’t seen her grandmother since. She knew she was avoiding saying good-bye. She hated goodbyes. She’d do it tomorrow. And she wouldn’t cry.

  As Ally sealed the last box with packing tape, her apartment mate, June, glided into Ally’s bedroom. June had just come home from her three-hour afternoon work-out with her dance company and was eating a mouse-size dinner of rice and greens, if pecking at a bowl with chop-sticks could be considered eating.

  June was gorgeous, smart, and happy. Her fiancé, William Cho, was moving in as soon as Ally moved out in three days.

  Ally wasn’t wild about Will. She thought he was a little on the cold side. It was June’s enormous, extended family just over the bridge in Nutley, New Jersey, that made Ally jealous with longing. Just seeing the leftover dumplings from their family feasts in the fridge sometimes brought tears to Ally’s eyes.

  June flopped down onto a ratty red armchair Ally was leaving behind. Her muscular legs swung rhythmically over the armrest. She sniffed suspiciously at the grains of rice. Maybe she could smell which ones contained an extra fraction of a calorie.

  June was edgier than usual this month because her dance troupe, the Mephistopheles Project, was deciding which ten dancers would go on tour to Europe this summer and which ten would be left behind. June was never the stay-at-home one, so Ally couldn’t take her roomie’s nerves seriously. Everything always worked out for June. She was that kind of person. But Ally liked her anyway.

  “See you didn’t manage to get dressed today,” June said, motioning to Ally’s pajamas. “How’s the head?”

  “Is it still there? It feels like I packed it by mistake.” Being a Person Who Didn’t Drink, Ally was still suffering from drinking three beers at her good-bye/birthday party the night before. She had never been a partier.

  Or a smoker.

  Or a drug user. Or a gambler. Or a sex kitten…

  Hell, she wasn’t even a jaywalker, which in New York City meant her ethical standards were just a smidge higher than, say, cloistered nuns circa 1602. Ally had never met a rule she didn’t follow.