Feeling too cold and dreaming of warmer days? Well, we’ve got the perfect thing to help because summer starts here! Scroll down and read an exclusive extract of Sarah Morgan’s brand-new summer novel, Summer Wedding, coming this May!
For the first time in her life she was planning to kill some-one.
She never would have thought herself capable of such a thing—she was a romance novelist! Romance novelists didn’t kill people, but she was now forced to consider the unsettling possibility that perhaps she didn’t know herself as well as she’d thought. Perhaps she wasn’t, after all, a per-son with a kind and gentle disposition. She’d always thought of herself that way, and yet here she was typing a variety of decidedly ungentle questions into her browser and feel-ing a thrill of interest. Her fingers shook on the keyboard.
How to kill someone and leave no trace.
Best way to kill someone.
Murders that remain unsolved.
It had to look like an accident, she’d decided. People would be sad, and probably shocked because death is always shocking even when it is expected. The one thing they wouldn’t be was suspicious, because she was going to be clever. It would be called an “accidental death.” No one would know the truth.
But was the truth really so bad? Was it truly wrong, when she was delivering justice?
The man deserved it, after all.
In fact, if she were truly giving him what he deserved, her search would read how to kill someone in the most painful way possible.
She stared through the window at the smooth calm of the Mediterranean Sea, so many shades of blue and dazzling in the sunshine. She’d decided long ago that the island of Corfu was her paradise. Sun-baked olive groves, soft sand, ocean waves, leisurely days, slow delicious dreams—those, surely, were the ingredients for a perfect life. It was a place where problems were suspended; a place for happiness, for relaxation, for nothing but good things. But expecting noth-ing but good was a fantasy. She knew that now, just as she knew that light and dark could coexist. The dark often lay hidden, simmering undetected beneath the surface, ready to take a bite out of the unwary, the trusting, those who believed in happy endings. She’d been that person. She’d made so many mistakes.
Lost in the view and her own thoughts, she didn’t hear him enter. She wasn’t aware of his presence until she felt his hand on her shoulder and the sound of his voice.
“Catherine?”
She jumped and slammed the lid of her laptop shut. Her heart hammered like a fist against a punching bag.
How much had he seen? She was annoyed with herself for not having had the foresight to lock the door. She’d been so absorbed by her thoughts that she hadn’t heard him enter the room.
Careless.
She needed to up her game if she was actually going to do this. She needed to think like an assassin. She needed to be inscrutable and reveal nothing.
She turned with a smile (did assassins ever smile? She had no idea).
“I didn’t know you were awake. It’s early.”
“I didn’t mean to surprise you. I know you hate being disturbed when you’re working, but I woke up and missed you. I came to offer you strong coffee.” He brushed his fingers across her jaw.
“You look tense. Is something wrong?”
So much for being inscrutable.
She wasn’t built for a life of crime, but fortunately she wasn’t considering a whole life, just this one teeny tiny mur-der. That was it. She had no expectations of enjoying it and didn’t intend it to become habitual.
“Nothing’s wrong.” She couldn’t even lie without feeling guilty, which didn’t bode well.
They shared everything—well, almost everything—but there was no way she was sharing this. Not yet. One day, maybe, if she actually went ahead with it. If it all went as planned, then of course he’d find out, but until then she had to keep silent. This was something she had to do by herself.
What would he say if he knew what was really going on in her head?
Would he try to talk her out of it? Tell her that her plan was foolish and dangerous? Or would he preach acceptance and tell her that she just had to let it go. That this wasn’t the answer. He’d probably tell her to move on.
And that was what she was doing, of course.
This was her way of moving on. And not before time.
He bent to kiss her. “I love you, Catherine Swift.” She felt the brush of his lips and the answering warmth that rushed through her body.
It felt jarring to go from death to love but that was life, wasn’t it? Brutal in its extremes. And assassins were people too. They were allowed a love life.
For the first time in weeks, she felt optimistic and hope-ful. She’d been smothered in a dark cloud of gloom, fueled by bitter resentment. She’d felt like a failure for letting it reach this point. She hadn’t been able to see a way forward, but now she could.
The future was clear to her. All she needed was courage.
It was time to make a fresh start. Time to put the past behind her and reinvent herself.
It was a just a shame that someone had to die.
Summer Wedding is out in paperback, eBook and audio this May.
