I am incredibly excited to share an EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT from Scandalized by Ivy Owens today! This swoon-worthy romance has all the spice! If you like insta-love and celebrity romances, this one is for you. This steamy, sweet, and entertaining story released this week, be sure to check it out.
A one-night stand between two old childhood friends turns into something more, but when a scandal threatens to tear them apart, they must decide how hard to fight for love—a steamy romance debut perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey and Kennedy Ryan.
Exhausted and on deadline with a story that could make or break her career, investigative journalist Georgia Ross is on the verge of a meltdown when a cancelled flight leaves her stuck in the airport overnight. But when a familiar face appears—the older brother of her childhood friend—and offers help, Gigi seems to have caught a break.
Alec Kim is handsome, humble, and kind—exactly the sort of man that Gigi has forgotten existed after her own painful heartbreaks. An evening of reconnection followed by a night of no-strings-attached passion with Alec feels like a gift—that is, until Gigi finally realizes that their childhood connection isn’t the only reason he seems so familiar to her.
Alec is determined to prove to Gigi that he is truly the man she thinks he is, even if it means coming clean about his fame—and his family’s connection to the story Gigi’s been working so hard to break. But as their feelings for each other grow deeper, Gigi and Alec must navigate a new reality…one where both of their hard-won careers are put directly in the path of an international scandal.
I am great
with names, terrible with faces.
But I know
I’ve seen this one before.
He’s alone at
the end of a row of seats and nose deep in his phone. I’ve lived in LA long
enough to read his posture as respect-my-bubble rather than absorbed-in-reading,
but I’ve also worked in journalism long enough to know this is a man doing his
best to try to blend in.
It isn’t
working. Even his haircut—precise and combed neatly off his face—looks
expensive. And I know I know him from somewhere. Jawline that could cut steel,
cheekbones carved like stone, and a mouth in a perfect candy pout. His face is
like an itch in my brain, a teasing tickle.
I hear my
mom’s voice, encouraging me to make the polite choice, to get up and say hello.
But it’s the airport and I’m tired, having spent the last thirteen days in
London, hounding strangers for information they don’t want to give and knowing
no one except for one chain-smoking UK colleague with the alcohol tolerance of
a rhino and whose bat-out-of-hell London driving had me praying to a god I
don’t believe in several times a day. I’ve been on a plane for eight hours and
sitting at this gate for another four, waiting out a storm, waiting on the
connecting flight to LA that has been delayed and then delayed again and again.
To be fair,
this man’s face doesn’t feel like one I’ve seen in the past two weeks. The
feeling I get goes deeper than the hit of chase-the-story-related adrenaline
that dumps into my bloodstream; this adrenaline corkscrews into my bones. The
glimpse I got of his full face—when he looked up, when he squinted at the
monitors and then seemed to let out a tiny grunt of frustration—was like a song
that I haven’t heard in forever. Something about his posture makes my heart
ache with nostalgic pain.
Paradoxically,
he’s both upright and slumped, so refined in his tailored navy pants, polished
brown shoes, and white button-down shirt still crisp after our long flight from
London to Seattle. He’s gorgeous.
I pull my
scarf up over my mouth, burying my face in it, but it smells like stale
airplane and I tug it down again. The urge to scream in petulant exhaustion
pulses through me. I want to teleport myself home to my bed. I want to skip all
the self-care things and just crawl in unshowered, in my clothes. I don’t even
care how disgusting I am: after a fourteen-hour day of tracking down an elusive
nightclub bouncer who didn’t want to be found, then eight sleepless hours on a
flight, I am reduced to my most feral self.
I look around
and see a few people stretched out across four chairs, sleeping, while others
have to find space on the floor. My skin is shouting at me to lie down
somewhere, anywhere. And yet I don’t, knowing that even if we board and depart
in the next five minutes, by the time I grab a cab and make the long trek home,
it’ll be well past midnight, and I’ll need to get working as soon as I can.
I’ve been given the chance of a lifetime with this story, and as of this
minute, I only have two days to finish writing it.
Near the
gate, the airline employees have carefully avoided stepping behind the podium.
If they so much as hover nearby, an irritated line forms. Instead, they shift
around in the background, staring gloomily at each other every time the Jetway
phone rings with an update on the torrential storm outside. Finally, one
bravely steps toward the intercom, and from the sag in her shoulders and the
way she stares down at the monitor as if she needs to read from it, I know.
“I’m sorry to
announce that United flight 2477 has been canceled. You have each been rebooked
onto a flight departing tomorrow. Tickets will be reissued to the email address
linked to your reservation. Please contact our customer service line or go to
the customer service office in baggage claim with any questions. We will not be
able to rebook you here. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.”
On instinct,
I look up to watch his reaction to the news.
He’s already
lifting his phone to his ear, nodding. Our eyes meet briefly as his gaze passes
unseeing across the room, but his attention freezes, eyes quickly drawing back
to mine, focusing with the same unknowing recognition. It’s only a beat, but in
that time heat spreads through me wild and unchecked, and then he blinks away,
frowning.
And now I
wonder how he knows me, too.
