After a dry spell, freelance writer Jaine Austen's life is suddenly full of romance. For one thing, she's reconnected with her ex—though her cat, Prozac, isn't happy about it. And Jaine's also got a new ghostwriting gig, working on a steamy novel called Fifty Shades of Turquoise . . .
Daisy Kincaid is in her sixties and heiress to a fortune. Now she wants to make a name for herself as a romance author . . . with a little help from Jaine, that is. As Jaine labors away on love scenes, she gets to know the wealthy woman's gentleman friend, her household staff, and her social circle—every one of whom is horrified when Daisy falls under the spell of a much younger stud named Tommy, a rude, crude lothario who's made himself a fixture in Daisy's Bel Air mansion.
After Tommy and Daisy shock everyone by announcing their engagement, it doesn't take long for someone to stab him in the neck—with the solid gold Swiss Army knife that Daisy gave him as a gift. The challenging part is trying to narrow down the list of suspects. Jaine's going to have to put a bookmark in that love story and focus all her creative talent into untangling a tale of money and murder . . .
Release date:
September 24, 2019
Publisher:
Kensington Books
Print pages:
304
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The first thing I noticed as I drove up to Daisy Kincaid’s estate was a brass plaque at the foot of her driveway, engraved with the words LA BELLE VIE.
Thanks to Mrs. Wallis, my French teacher at Hermosa High (Bonjour, Mme. Wallis! ), I knew that la belle vie meant “beautiful life.”
No kidding, I thought, as I wended my way up to Daisy’s villa—a castle-like affair with arched colonnades, enough balconies to house a troupe of Rapunzels, and a gurgling fountain out front.
Think Downton Abbey with palm trees.
I parked in the circular gravel driveway, and after a quick inspection of my curls in my rearview mirror, I trotted over to ring the doorbell.
Deep chimes reverberated within the house, and seconds later, the front door was opened by a svelte young blonde, her hair coiled in a chignon. So elegant did she look that for an instant I thought she was Daisy Kincaid. But then I realized she was wearing a crisp, white maid’s uniform.
“Ms. Austen?” she asked.
“That’s me.”
“Come right in. Ms. Kincaid is expecting you.”
I followed her through a foyer the size of a hotel lobby into a living room littered with priceless bibelots and centuries-old antiques.
“Have a seat,” she said. “Ms. Kincaid will be right with you.”
With that, she left me to marvel at the gewgaws strewn around me. I was looking at the painting hanging over the fireplace (signed by a fellow named Picasso) when I smelled a blast of tea rose perfume.
I turned to see a short marshmallow of a woman with a wide smile and neon red pixie hairdo. She floated toward me in a turquoise caftan—turquoise necklace nestled in her ample bosom, turquoise bracelets jangling from her arms, and a honker of a turquoise ring on her pinkie.
“Jaine, dear,” she trilled, extending her bejeweled hand. “So lovely to meet you. Do have a seat.”
I parked my fanny on a sofa no doubt once owned by Louis XIV as Daisy plunked herself down on an equally posh armchair.
“Lance has told me so much about you! I can’t believe you’re the one who wrote In a rush to flush? Call Toiletmasters! I see it on bus benches all over town.”
I put on my best aw shucks smile.
“And to think! You’re an Emmy-winning TV writer, too.”
Darn that Lance. He’s always making up the most outrageous lies. True, I once worked on a long-forgotten TV sitcom and had another gig on an equally forgettable reality show, but the closest I ever came to an Emmy was seeing one on TV.
“I’m afraid I didn’t really win an Emmy,” I admitted, hoping it wasn’t going to cost me the job. “Lance must have gotten his facts mixed up.”
“Oh well. No matter,” Daisy replied with a sweep of her turquoise sleeve. “I was very impressed by the little story you wrote. Romance at the Mailbox. So precious.”
“I’m glad you liked it.”
“Liked it? I loved it! I just know we’re going to make a terrific writing team.”
“Does that mean I get the job?”
“Indeed you do!”
Yes! I got the job!
“Do you want to hear my story idea?” she asked, eyes twinkling with excitement.
“Absolutely!”
“I’m calling it Fifty Shades of Turquoise!”
Whoa, Nelly. Suddenly I saw a Cease & Desist order from E. L. James’s attorneys winging our way.
“Are you sure you can use that name? It’s awfully similar to Fifty Shades of Grey.”
“Oh, poo! Grey is so blah, and turquoise is so much more fun. I just adore the color!”
No surprise there, I thought, taking in her caftan, jewelry, and assorted turquoise throw pillows strewn among the antiques.
“Our book won’t be at all like that dreary little grey series.”
That only sold about a gazillion books.
“So what’s the story line?” I asked, praying it didn’t involve handcuffs and chains.
As luck would have it, it did not involve any handcuffs or chains.
In fact, it had no plot whatsoever.
“I haven’t exactly worked out the details yet,” Daisy confessed. “I thought you could do that. You’ll sketch out the story, and I’ll do the fine-tuning. All I know is that I want there to be a fifty-room mansion with every room painted a different shade of turquoise, and that somehow the heroine winds up making love to the hero in every one of those rooms.”
Sex in fifty turquoise rooms? Suddenly my confidence as a romance writer plummeted. No way was I going to be able to write this bilge.
“So what do you think?” Daisy asked with an eager smile. “Are you on board?”
Absolutely not. I had to steer clear of this train wreck of a novel before it took off.
“As I told Lance,” Daisy reminded me, “the salary will be ten thousand dollars.”
“When do we start?”
What can I say? I’ve got the backbone of a Slurpee.
“Just sign right here,” she said, whipping out a contract from the pocket of her caftan.
Thrilled to see all the zeroes on my salary, I signed on the dotted line.
“Let’s start right now,” Daisy said. “I hope you don’t mind working here at the house. That way it will be easier for us to collaborate.”
“I don’t mind a bit,” I assured her. Working there would be like working at the Four Seasons. Besides, I was getting tired of Prozac stomping on my keyboard in one of her anti-Dickie meltdowns.
Daisy led me to her office, a spacious room at the rear of the house—which I was relieved to see was not painted turquoise. Instead, it was bright white, with a wood beamed ceiling and French doors providing a breathtaking view of a pool and tennis court beyond.
One wall featured an ornately carved bookcase filled with thick, leather-bound volumes; another wall adorned with what looked like a genuine Renoir.
Two antique desks were face-to-face in the middle of the room, topped with twin laptops and Villeroy & Boch mugs filled to capacity with sharpened pencils. Seated at one of the desks was a sturdy thirtysomething gal with Harry Potter glasses and a mop of sandy hair even curlier than mine.
“Jaine, I’d like you to meet Kate, my personal assistant. You two will be sharing the office.”
“Welcome aboard!” Kate said, shooting me a friendly smile.
“You can use my desk while you’re working here,” Daisy said. “And here’s your laptop.” She pointed to a shiny silver beauty on my desk. “I bought it especially for our little project.”
Holy moly! The woman bought a brand-new computer for one file. I was in the land of the one-percenters, all right.
“I’d better scoot along now so you can get started.”
And with a flash of her turquoise ring, Daisy waved good-bye and sailed out of the room.
The minute she was gone, Kate shot me a pitying gaze.
“So you’re the poor soul who got saddled with Fifty Shades of Turquoise. What a clunker, huh?”
“It does seem a bit far-fetched,” I said, trying to be tactful as I settled down at my desk.
“Oh, well. At least you’re getting ten thousand bucks out of the deal.”
I guess she could see the look of surprise on my face when she mentioned my salary, because she hastened to explain, “I do Daisy’s books and keep track of all her expenses. So I pretty much know what she’s paying for everything.
“Daisy’s an utter doll to work for,” she added, slinging her Nikes on her desk. “The pay is great, and rumor has it, she’s left all her employees a generous chunk of change in her will.”
Talk about your job perks.
“And as if all that weren’t enough, the food’s terrific, too. Raymond, her chef, used to work at some fancy French restaurant. And the freezer is stocked with Dove Bars, Eskimo Pies, and whatever flavor ice cream you like. My favorite is Chunky Monkey.”
“You’re kidding. So’s mine!”
“It’s a good thing I wear elastic waist pants,” she said, “otherwise I’d never make it out of here alive.”
“You wear elastic waist pants?”
Elastic waist pants just happen to be a staple of my wardrobe, second only to my CUCKOO FOR COCOA PUFFS T-shirts.
“Can’t live without ’em.”
“Me too!” I marveled. “It’s unbelievable. Curly hair. Chunky Monkey. Elastic waist pants. I think we may have been separated at birth.”
We spent the next several minutes chatting about curl definers, curl shapers, curl straighteners, and our mutual adulation of Ben & Jerry. I could’ve gone on yakking like this for hours, anything to avoid facing Fifty Shades of Turquoise, but Kate was made of sterner stuff.
“I’d better get back to work,” she said. “Just ask if you need anything.”
With no more diversionary tactics left, I opened a Fifty Shades of Turquoise file on Daisy’s brand-new laptop and stared at the blank screen in front of me.
And kept on staring.
Not a single idea popped into my cranium.
Filled with a growing sense of panic, wondering how I was ever going to wrangle my heroine into fifty shades of turquoise lovemaking, my eyes wandered to a framed photo on my desk—of a middle-aged man in a business suit, with a toddler on his lap.
Kate looked up from her Excel spreadsheet and saw me staring at the photo.
“That’s Daisy with her dad,” she explained. “He died when Daisy was very young and left Daisy a fortune. From what I gather, her mom wasn’t exactly a model parent, foisted her off on a bunch of nannies. When she was in her twenties, Daisy got married, but it was total bust, lasted less than a year. After that, she became a recluse.”
“Daisy, a recluse?”
I couldn’t picture the bubbly redhead I’d just met walled off from the world.
“I know. It’s hard to believe, but for decades she lived with only a companion, dividing her time between her Connecticut mansion and her country home in Tuscany, never socializing and rarely leaving the house except for an occasional nature walk.”
“What made her come out of her shell?” I asked, still boggled at this downer version of Daisy.
“A horrible accident.” Kate grimaced. “On her last trip to Tuscany, her companion was killed while hiking. Fell off a cliff on a mountain trail. Daisy told me that was a turning point in her life. It made her realize how fleeting life is, and how she was throwing hers away. So she came back to the States, determined to live life to the fullest. Moved to Los Angeles, started making friends and wearing a lot of turquoise.”
What a story! If only I could think of something half as interesting for the book.
After a few minutes staring outside at the pool and wishing I were lying on one of the chaises, sipping margaritas with Dickie, I forced myself to return to the task at hand.
By the time the maid arrived to summon us to lunch, you’ll be proud to learn I did manage to write something down:
Note to self: Buy margarita mix.
By now the morning fog had burned off and, what with the sun shining its little heart out, lunch was being served at the pool.
“Daisy always invites me to join her for meals,” Kate said as we made our way outside. “Like I told you, she’s a doll to work for. And wait till you taste Raymond’s chow. Yum!”
Out on the patio, Daisy sat at a glass-topped wrought iron table with matching wrought iron chairs—cushioned in turquoise, of course.
Seated at her side was a silver-haired gent somewhere in his sixties, dressed in tennis whites, his pot belly not quite concealed under his polo, skinny legs popping out from white shorts.
“That’s Clayton,” Kate whispered as we approached the table. “Lives down the street. Daisy’s gentleman caller. He’s gaga over her.”
Indeed, he seemed to be gazing at Daisy with the ardor of a geriatric Romeo.
“It was quite a match,” he was saying. “I beat him all three sets. And he calls himself a tennis pro.”
“Hello, girls!” Daisy said, catching sight of us. “Jaine, come meet my dear friend, Clayton Manning.”
Clayton jumped up to take my hand, his face a deep (possibly carcinogenic) tan, etched with wrinkles, watery blue eyes startling against his leathery skin.
“A pleasure to meet you, my dear.”
“Clayton was just telling me about his exploits on the tennis court,” Daisy said as Kate and I took our seats. “He’s such a good player.”
“I’m always trying to get Daisy to hit a few balls, but I can’t seem to talk her into it.”
“It’s a disgrace,” Daisy said ruefully. “Here I’ve got a perfectly lovely tennis court”—she gestured to the court beyond the pool—“and I never use it. I much prefer my morning walks.”
“That’s how we met,” Clayton said, beaming at the memory. “Daisy was out for her morning constitutional and I was getting my mail. I took one look at her and forgot all about the one million dollars I may or may not have won from Publishers Clearing House.”
He shot Daisy another look of love, which she rewarded with a weak smile.
Somehow I got the impression that Daisy wasn’t quite ready to play Juliet to Clayton’s Romeo.
“Clayton, dear,” she said, eager to steer the conversation away from love among the Aarpsters. “Jaine is helping me write my romance novel.”
Helping her? What the what? I was writing the darn thing. That is, I would’ve been writing it if I could think of a plot.
“So how are you coming along?” Daisy asked eagerly.
“Great,” I lied.
“Wonderful! I’ll stop by at the end of the day and see what you’ve got so far.”
Oh, hell. I was going to have to come up with something by the end of the day.
I was quickly distracted from the image of my blank computer screen, however, when Daisy’s beautiful blond maid showed up, elegan. . .
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